A/N: Hello everyone! Back with a short chapter. I wanted to make it longer but then today's my birthday XD! And I wanted to treat you all as a birthday gift from me! Thank you all my lovely favoriters and followers ;) Special thanks to Katiikiinz, the talks we have are just so damn funny and inspiring! A shout-out to her ongoing story Escape From Sondara. Check it out, guys!

Chapter 10

Star date: 2248.167

"Here you go, Max" JT said as he handed a piece of stale bread to Max.

"What about you, JT?" Max asked, his eyes bright with fever.

"I'm not that hungry. Why don't you share with Danny?" JT said to the boy lying on the floor of the cave.

The man JT had met five days ago, Timothy Carson, had left them some food everyday as promised, a little over a mile from the city at the place where they hid their hover-cars when they had entered the city.

JT and the kids took turns to retrieve it. It wasn't much. There was only so much food you could smuggle out without being noticed. The food was actually only enough for two, but they managed to share amongst each other.

Max, JT's cousin, had contracted an infection which had led to a fever. They didn't have anything medical to combat against a fever and were resigned to proportioning more food to him, in hopes of riding out the fever.

JT was worried for his cousin. He didn't show it. But, if she noticed hard, she knew he always gave his food to him. It left little to her imagination to know how JT was surviving at all without any food. Ashley tried to give him half of hers, but he always refused. He said that he wasn't hungry, but Ashley knew it was a lie. He looked thinner than normal. As a matter of fact, all of them looked thinner and she could only wonder how she looked like.

Though she had lost sense of time, JT said it had only been fifteen days since this ordeal began. Ashley felt like it was weeks. She couldn't remember the last time she had had a full meal. All their stocks had completely run out and the lake in the Red Hills was always surrounded by guards making it impossible for them to scavenge for food.

Ashley had also noted that the wheat fields that they passed by to retrieve the food that Carson left for them were all dry and withered. It looked like it had been burnt and it couldn't have been by the sun alone. The weather had actually been chilly the past couple of days and she could tell a storm was coming. Hopefully, it would come sooner. At least they would get fresh water to drink if it rained.

Star date: 2248.170

The dark clouds had finally settled in, getting ready for the inevitable storm. The wind too had picked up speed and had left one too many trees devoid of leaves.

The twelve kids bundled into their blankets around a small fire crackling in the night. The night was quiet, save for a few chirping drenitii crickets.

The girls were talking amongst themselves about some fairy tale, discussing it with the kids. Tom commented occasionally to whatever they were talking about. Eli was on watch that night and JT had taken to sitting with him for company. The boys simply stared into the distance lost in their thoughts.

Suddenly, they heard a cracking twig. JT's head snapped to the right as he heard the sound, squinting in the darkness. Eli hissed "What was that?"

"Dunno" JT replied.

"Maybe we should get a closer look?" Eli suggested, and JT nodded. He took the knife he kept hidden in his sock and handed it to Eli as he himself drew out the phaser in his hand.

Setting it on stun, JT led the way followed by Eli. They stood behind the boulder on the entrance that served as a cover and watched for any incoming objects.

Thunder clapped above them and the lightning silhouetted a couple of men who were climbing up the hill towards their cave.

"Shit!" Eli hissed, his face tensed "JT, they're making their way up here! We can't allow them to see our place!"

"I know, I know!" JT whispered hurriedly, thinking hard. "Let's apprehend them before they get here. We'll question who they are first, okay? Come on, keep your knife where they can see it" JT whispered as he raised the phaser in his hand.

They walked up to them and JT fired close to their heels "Identify yourselves!" he yelled. The men stopped. A feminine voice spoke "Please, don't kill us."

It turned out that one of them was a woman and the man was her husband. They had somehow escaped the killing and had been out and about for fifteen days without food. They looked pale and gaunt, worse than them. At least, they had had food, somewhat.

The woman pleaded "Please, please lend us some food! We haven't eaten in days."

Jim truly felt sorry to turn them down. They already had to share food for two with twelve people. They really couldn't afford to feed two more. Just when he politely refused and came up with a lie that they didn't have any, the man spoke "Vanessa, these brats are lying! Look at them! They look well-fed. Let's just kill them and take their food!"

Eli yelped "What?!" when the man lunged at JT. JT squirmed away from his grip as the woman went for Eli. Eli slashed at her with his knife and in his nervousness, plunged it into her abdomen. The woman dropped to the floor, blood dribbling from her mouth and her wound as the man screamed in rage. He went for Eli when JT quickly set his phaser on kill and shot at the man. Though he regretted that it had to come to this, he didn't regret what he had done. He knew they would never be able to explain to the man that it was an accident.

Eli, however, looked visibly shaken, both by what he had done and by the look on the man's face when he had been sprinting towards him. JT went over to him and put a hand on Eli's shoulder who winced at the touch. "Are you okay?" JT asked and Eli nodded dumbly.

JT led Eli to the cave as their friends came running out. "What happened?" "We heard a phaser shot!"

JT explained the situation to them and made Eli sit down. He was still dumbfounded by what he had done.

JT asked for Tom's help to clear away the bodies outside. He agreed and so did Julia and Ashley. They got about digging a rough grave for the couple below the hill. It was hard work, but JT felt sorry for them and thought they deserved at least a proper grave.

Days passed by in a blur and the twelve children lived off of scavenged plants and a small amount of food left for them by a kind-hearted soul. They became thinner and weaker and the change in climate didn't help the situation with Max.

His fever worsened and he was descending into delirium induced by the fever. JT nearly never ate, preferring to give the whole of his portion of food to his cousin. The other kids too sacrificed some amount of their food for him. But, it was only inevitable that starvation overcome them.

Star date: 2248.179

Morning quickly enveloped them and the kids were gently waking up to the warmth of the rising sun in contrast to the gloomy weather the past days. It had been Priya's turn for watch and she sluggishly dragged herself along the cave to get some shut eye. Ashley, always the morning person that she was, woke up with the sun and spent some time taking watch. She was quietly thoughtful when she heard JT's voice growing louder "Wake up Max, please wake up."

Max's fever had been quite high the previous night and he had been muttering about phaser shots raining down upon them. They had covered him with their jackets and lullabied him to sleep. There was really nothing that they could do.

She rushed into the cave and gasped. JT was crouched down next to Max, whose eyes were closed and head lolled to the side. Julia was having a hand on JT's shoulder "JT, let him go. There's nothing you can do."

Ashley felt the floor drop beneath her and her feet swayed as her head felt light-headed. Her brain processed slower than ever and her mind could come up with only one answer to what was going on.

Maxwell Rice, Jim's cousin, was dead.

She dumbly walked over to Jim who was still trying desperately to wake Max up.

"Max, buddy, please wake up! I know you're faking sleep just to annoy me…" Ashley put a hand on his shoulder. He looked up at her as though she could magically wake his little cousin. She gave him a long look and JT's resolve broke as he sobbed into Max's head.

Nobody had it in them to separate him from his brother.

A/N: I know! Such a depressing chapter, that too on my birthday! But, this is Tarsus and we know how it gets! See y'all soon!