"Alice?"
Alice's eyes fluttered open and she saw Cid's face above her. "What happened?" She asked, struggling to sit up.
"Just lay back. You've been out of it for a long time." He told her. "The train crashed."
"Where's dad?"
Cid's face fell. "Don't worry about that. Here, drink some water."
Alice took a sip and immediately spat it back out. "It's warm."
"Duh, there's no electricity." He said giving her another sip. "And eat this."
He tossed her half a chocolate bar, which she ate quickly. They were stuck in the tunnel for six days, according to Cid's watch, before the survivors decided to try and tunnel out. That took them another ten days and by then the food and water that they had managed to collect had run out. Unfortunately, because of no bathroom facilities and the amount of decaying bodies their living conditions were extremely unhealthy. Now people were becoming sick from a variety of illnesses and dying.
When they reached the surface, almost everyone ran off in different directions. Cid led Alice over to a burnt out rail car.
"Stay here. I'm going to go look for supplies." He told her, before running off towards some of the buildings that were still standing.
Alice sat down and wrapped her arms around her knees. Her shoulder was aching and the glare of the sun was making her head ache. She heard some rocks fall behind her and peeked her head out one of the windows. She couldn't see anything so she figured that someone had just climbed over the pile of rubble and knocked over a few stones. She sighed and turned back to the area she had been watching before and saw Cid walking towards her.
This time when she turned around at the sound of rocks she saw a dragon sitting on top of the rocks. She turned back to face her brother and knew that he hadn't seen the dragon. "No! Cid, turn around, go back!" She screamed to her brother.
Cid looked up and saw the dragon perched on the rocks. The dragon noticed Cid at the same time and let out a piercing roar. Instead of turning around to run for shelter, Cid began to run towards the burnt out train car. Alice could hear the whoosh of the dragon's wings as it flew past her.
"Alice! Get down!" Cid yelled at her.
Alice watched in horror as the dragon swooped down and grabbed her brother's body. "Cid!" She screamed, tears streaming down her face.
The dragon flew back over the car, its tail hitting the building beside her, knocking debris down all around her. She waited until it was quite before she started moving pieces of rubble away to get out. She pushed her way through the last little bit of debris. She choked on some of the dust that was still lingering in the air. She crawled down to the ground, her shoulder in even more pain, and collapsed.
"Hello!"
She could hear the voices calling in the distance, but every time she tried to call out to them her voice caught in her throat. She saw a small metal bar laying a few feet away and crawled to it. She picked it up and walked back to the rail car. She was a little disoriented at first and missed the car with her first few swings. She finally made contact and the vibrations sent shockwaves of pain through her arm. She screamed out in pain, but continued to hit the metal, hoping it wouldn't bring the dragon back.
"Hello!" A young male voice, laced with a thick Scottish accent called again. "Quinn! I heard something up ahead by the main square!"
Alice continued to bang against the rail car until she saw two figures appear over a pile of rubble.
"Dad!" The boy with the Scottish accent called out. "Dad, there's a girl over here!"
As the two got closer to where Alice was know kneeling in pain, she realized that the two boys couldn't be much older than their early teens.
"Jesus Creedy, she's just a kid." One boy said. "How old do you think she is?"
"Ten." Alice gasped out, stumbling on a rock as she moved towards them. The boy named Creedy caught her as she fell, hurting her shoulder even more.
"Are you hurt?" Creedy asked.
"My shoulder."
By that time three other men and two women appeared beside them. "The poor dear." One of the women said crouching down to Alice.
"I think her shoulder is dislocated Dad." Creedy told a balding man who looked surprisingly like him.
"Alright Dave, step back and give her some breathing room."
Now Alice was confused, but quickly realized that Dave and Creedy were the same person when he obediently stepped away. Creedy's father knelt down, gently moving the woman aside so that he could look at Alice. He inspected her shoulder, before pushing the sleeve of her t-shirt up so that he could examine it more closely.
"Well, you're one lucky kid. You're shoulder is dislocated, so I'm going to pop it back into place. It will hurt, but trust me; it will feel a lot better when it's back in place."
Alice tried to back away from him and bumped into someone. When she looked up she saw Creedy was kneeling down to hold on to her. His father grabbed her arm gently. "Take a deep breath." Creedy whispered in her ear. She did as she was told and his father pulled as hard as he could.
She screamed in pain as a sickening pop sounded, telling them that her shoulder was back to where it was supposed to be. It was still sore, but not nearly as much as it had been, Creedy's father had been right about that much. A roar sounded in the distance, and Creedy quickly helped Alice to her feet.
"Where are we going?" She asked, as they started to move away.
"To our shelter, we need to get out of the open so that Dragon doesn't spot us." Creedy said, guiding her over piles of debris.
They approached a large building and entered the doorway. Creedy led Alice down several flights of stairs to the basement. She could smell gasoline and the hum of a generator as they climbed down more stairs. The lights around them flickered as they entered a large room filled with all kinds of supplies.
"So, is there anyone else with you?" A tall blonde woman asked.
Alice shook her head. "No. If there was, they all ran away when we got to the surface."
"The surface?" The other teenage boy asked.
Creedy's father shook his head and sat down on one of the mattresses. "Let the kid be, she's probably tired and in a little bit of shock."
The blonde woman led her over to a mattress and had her lie down. "What's your name honey?" She asked her.
"Alice Bradfield." Alice told her.
"Get some sleep Alice."
Creedy handed his father a cup of coffee and sat down beside him, looking over at Alice. "What do you think she meant by getting up to the surface?" He asked.
"I don't know. Maybe she was on one of the trains that those dragons attacked. If she was, she's damn lucky to be alive." His father said.
Alice groaned and tossed her head from side to side. "Cid." She muttered quietly before Creedy stood up and walked over to her.
He touched her cheek, which made her wake up. "You okay?"
Alice shrugged and sat up. "I guess so." She looked across the room at the other teenage boy who was eating something off a plate. "Who are all of you?"
"Well, there's my dad and I. The other guy over there is Quinn, my new best friend." Creedy said, pointing to the other teenage boy. "The older blonde woman is Starla, the brunette is Marcia, the guy with the shaved head is Heath, and the guy with the really long hair is Gordon."
"We're all stranded survivors, just like you." Quinn told her.
"What happened here? I was underground for a long time." She said. "And the city didn't look like this when I got here with my family."
"Well, England was one of the few who just blew up their cities using regular bombs and not Nukes. So we don't have to deal with any radiation." Quinn said. "Brock, Creedy's dad, found all of us and brought us here before the explosions."
"Yeah, not only did they kill the dragons, but half the population of the city too." Creedy said, sitting beside them.
Brock approached the three of them and crouched down. "We're going out to scout for survivors; I want you three to stay here."
"How long will you be?" Creedy asked.
"We'll be back by sundown." Brock told his son, giving him a hug.
The scouting party came back, hours later than they were supposed to. "Well, Alice was right." Heath said, throwing himself down on his bed. "Any survivors that were here are gone now."
"So, what do we do now?" Creedy asked.
Starla and Brock glanced at each other, their expressions grim. "Well, one thing that we noticed is that there are dragons coming in from all over. They seem to be attracted to the city. Those damn bombs didn't do anything but five them a giant feeding and breeding ground."
"Meaning what, exactly?" Quinn asked her.
"Meaning that if we want to stay alive, we need to get the hell out of this city." Brock told them.
It took them several days to get organized. The first few days were spent gathering supplies and picking out towns to go to. "We'll head north first, there's an old castle in Northumberland that could be a good place to find some shelter." Brock said.
"But Northumberland is just south-east of London, why are we going to head north?" Starla asked.
"We might have a better chance of find more people alive if we circle some of the smaller towns and cities first." Brock said. "Besides, all the dragons seem to be come from the south and the east, so we'll head away from them for the time being."
"What about supplies dad? They won't hold out that long." Creedy said.
"We'll take enough to get us to the next town, once there; we'll restock all of our supplies. It's pointless to burden ourselves with unnecessary things when we don't even know how many people we'll have by the time we reach the next city." Gordon said, seeing Brocks point.
"Exactly, now, I want everyone out collecting supplies. Quinn, Creedy, you're together, Starla, Marcia and Heath, you're together, Gordon you're with me."
Alice looked up from where she was sitting. "What about me?"
"You just stay here. I don't want to risk you getting hurt or lost right now." Brock told her.
A few days later, Alice was starting to feel extremely restless, and saw that Quinn and Creedy were leaving. She snuck out and followed them to the store that they had been trying to get into for two days. She slipped on a rock and the noise of her catching herself with a garbage can made the guys turn.
"Alice! What are you doing here?" Quinn asked as she straightened herself up.
"I was bored." She told him.
Creedy walked over and grabbed her arm, "Yeah, but dad will skin us all alive."
Alice wasn't paying attention to him though; she was looking at the small hole that the boys had created. She pulled her arm away from him and walked over to the hole, sliding through easily. The boys looked at each other and wandered over to where she had disappeared. Creedy looked in the hole but quickly pulled his head away as a first aid kit came flying at him.
"Maybe she will come in handy." Quinn said.
After that the boys took her with them everywhere they went. Since she was so much smaller than them she could squeeze into places that they couldn't and she was also really fast and crafty.
Once all of their supplies were gathered, they were delayed another few days by a rainstorm. When the rain let up, they set out and left the city without another looking back.
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