Chapter One
Knock. Knock. Knock
Lucy opened her eyes slow. Her stomach immediately cramped, the pain reminding her she hadn't eaten in three days.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Lucy sighed. She could tell by the shadows and light coming in from the window it was early morning. She sat up, her muscles screaming in protest from a lack of nutrients. She stumbled to the door of her small room and opened the door. She met the concerned look of the tall brunette in front of her.
"You look like shit."
"Have you looked in a mirror recently?" Lucy asked and the brunette grinned. Anyone who didn't know the pair would have thought the exchange was mean, but for the two of them, it was how they showed concern.
"Come on. Zaza brought some extra rations."
"What?" Lucy asked and her friend threw her head backwards as she backpedaled towards the stairwell. Lucy sighed, grabbed the sweater hanging on the hook by the door and followed, not bothering to shut the door. No one would steal from her room. There was no point. The two walked down the stairs in silence. Lucy wanted to know what her friend knew but at the same time knew that there was no way her friend would ruin her "surprise" if you could call it that.
They entered the second floor of their building and Lucy's eyebrows shot up into her bangs. All of the tables in the living areas had been pushed together and there were cans scattered on the disjointed tabletops. Girls were haggling over what they'd grabbed or had been placed in front of them. Lucy and her friend were spotted and a loud whistle sounded, silencing everyone. All eyes swung around.
"Zaza? Did you…find a hoarder's stash?" Lucy asked and turned to look at the whistler. A girl older than her smiled, and finished pulling her hair up into a tight ponytail. The red hair glinted in the candle light that dotted the room.
"An untouched corner market." The girl said and Lucy's stomach growled. The girls who had been trading immediately dropped the cans on the table. Everyone stepped back and Lucy's brows scrunched together. "Come on Lucy, you get first picks."
"That isn't the rule. Finder picks first." Lucy shook her head and Zaza sighed heavily looking at the girl in front of her. She reached out and picked up a small can of something and put it in the bag at her waist.
"Now you pick first." Zaza said and Lucy shook her head, but was pushed forward by her brunette friend.
"Cana…"
"We all agreed." Cana said and tired brown eyes looked into her own. "You've gone longer without food than any of us this month. And you can't pick anything smaller than 15oz."
"I thought if we changed the rules, anarchy will explode and destroy us all." Lucy looked around the room but all the girls shook their heads.
"Just pick. Your keeping us from our own food." Bisca said and Lucy walked to the table and looked around. Her eyes landed on a can and she carefully rolled it over to look at the front of the label. Strawberry Pie Filling. She carefully picked up the can and held it to her chest.
The other girls moved up to the table and everyone one by one picked a can, and when it came back to Lucy, she grabbed a can of baby potatoes. Again they went around. Lucy looked at the tables, surprised there was still so many options. She moved around and picked up a can without a label and looked at it, holding it up to a candle. She spun it around and stopped. She'd found the printing. She closed her eyes and smiled. She looked over and held it out to one of the girls.
"Take this one Levy."
"Lucy…"
"It's canned chicken. Good for another six months. You haven't had meat longer than anyone." The girl stepped forward and took the can and looked at her friend, her brown eyes filling with tears. Lucy stepped back and people picked their cans. One rule was you could pick a can and hand it to someone else; but it hadn't been used often. Levy found a can of mushroom soup and gave it to Lucy who smiled.
Finally all but three cans were left. No labels and their printing too hard to see. Everyone looked around but no one dared make a grab. It was rare to have three "extra" cans. Usually most people didn't get one can let alone multiple. Zaza's scavenger hunt last night was the largest haul they could all remember finding in recent history. Lucy saw the hunger in the eyes of everyone around.
"How about we share them. A communal meal?" She suggested and everyone looked at her before slowly smiling and nodding. She put her cans by the door and grabbed the three left over ones and headed to the kitchen set up in the corner. It was actually just three hot plates and a sink that had a wrench in place of a handle. She opened the first can and sniffed. Her stomach growling. She dropped it into a pan and set it on the first hot plate and turned it on low. She carefully opened the second can and smiled as she looked in. She added it to the first pan and opened the third can. She wasn't sure about the ingredients but sniffed it and threw it in too. She added a small amount of water to each can and swished them around and used a silicone spatula to scrape the sides before adding the water and more to the pan.
"Here, the last of my black pepper." Levy said and handed over four small packets. Lucy smiled and added it to the pot. After a few minutes she turned around and took the pot to the tables. Everyone had a small plastic cup and she slowly poured some of the three-can soup into their cups. Everyone sniffed, and then slowly started to sip their hot meal.
"Don't know how you make this stuff taste good every time." Cana joked and pretended to chew the ingredients. They'd cooked down too much to need to be chewed but she pretended anyway. Several other girls did too. Zaza tried to stop Lucy from giving her extra but Lucy argued she'd earned it bringing the haul in. Lucy finished the food in the pot, probably less than what everyone else got but she didn't complain. The beef broth soup with a can of peas and a can of chicken and stars soup felt like a feast. A part of her wanted to weep. Who wouldn't really?
Living in a post-apocalyptic world sucked. About two years ago, life had been normal one day and the next; chaos was running rampant. Monsters that looked partly like dragons and partly like robots had appeared. Killing humans, destroying everything in their way and making fear the predominant feeling in the world. Governments had tried to send their militaries out, to wipe out the dragonoids, as they were eventually called; but to no avail. Our weapons did not kill them. Men were drafted in wave after wave of drafts to fill ranks wiped out in a quick minute. And then, one last message sent out by the united government front—everyone was on their own.
That lead to something nearly as bad as the dragonoids—people's true colors. Bands formed of raiders, groups of hoarders fought communities of friends or families who had banded together to try and survive, and everyone was victimized by the militias. Lucy and all of the girls around her had been in a girls only dorm in the town they were going to university in; and they'd barricaded the first floor doors and windows; set traps and everyone had moved up to the second floor and higher. It had been spring break-so most of the dorm rooms had been empty; and about twenty girls had been there. But over the past year, their numbers had dwindled.
At first they lost girls to the dragonoids; before they had learned to study the monsters and learn their patterns and habits. Then the raiders and militants would grab any girl they found outside. They'd tried to rescue a few of the girls but had nearly been caught or killed and had stopped. So they had created rules about going out in pairs or groups-never alone. And they'd survived for a while. But over the winter several of the girls had gotten sick; cutting their numbers down of who could go out. As they could no longer keep up the pairs or groups.
Zaza, whose real name was Erza, often went out at night. She was the strongest of all of them. She'd been in ROTC in both junior high and high school, and had studied martial arts and was in college on a scholarship for fencing. She had bested several groups of raiders and was known as being their protector. Her fearlessness, or perceived fearlessness, had resulted in her being their unofficially elected leader.
Cana was her right hand woman. She went out usually in the middle of the afternoons; if she had to go out. Otherwise she worked on keeping their building in running order. Lucy couldn't remember the number of pipes Cana had wrapped and rewrapped over winter to keep them from freezing. She also managed to add bars to the windows—without making a lot of noise. It had given all of the girls a greater sense of security.
Levy was their planner. The top floor she had converted into a garden of sorts, and using books she'd stolen from local libraries; she'd managed to provide them with vegetables over the first summer and fall. Winter had caused issues but they all had hope she'd be able to start planting and growing more crops soon. She'd also worked out how to get water running to this building; which had been a godsend.
Lucy like most of the other girls didn't have a specific skill set to offer up. She was possibly the best cook out of the group; but it didn't matter when they often didn't have enough to eat let alone cook. But she was also the one who spent the longest looking after their sick or injured. She'd fought the hardest to try and rescue the kidnapped girls; even though she had little to no fighting skills. And when food resources had started to get scarce over winter; she'd been the one to stop eating. Cana hadn't been wrong. They were twenty days into the month; and Lucy had already gone fourteen days without eating. And the six times she did eat; it was one "meal" a day. She didn't know how much longer she could keep pushing her body; but she tried nonetheless.
"This has to be a sign." Cana sighed as she looked at her empty cup. "A sign that things are going to get better."
Everyone nodded slowly, hopefully. Lucy prayed that it was true; and also prayed that if Cana had just jinxed them…and if it was a jinx she prayed that it didn't result in anyone being killed.
