Disclaimer : Nope, still not mine…Yet…
Note : Still no violence. Forget what I said before about dividing this into two stories. I'm just gonna keep on writing till my keyboard breaks.
Valley of Death
Chapter Two : Alone in the Dark
A sharp pain in her head cut into Jack's consciousness, forcing her back into the reality of her war torn world. She struggled to move, debris falling away from her as she forced herself up from the floor with both of her aching arms. Her eyes met nothing but darkness as they opened and a sudden hateful fear seized her heart, it was night and she was all alone.
Shit, this fucking sucks. And shit! My head fucking hurts!
Raising a shaking hand to her forehead she felt the stickiness of half-dried blood and the sharp sting of a shallow cut. Taking a deep breath she climbed unsteadily to her feet, trying to see through the shadows but there wasn't even a faint light from the stars for her eyes to adjust to. The strap of her gun was gone from her shoulder and she cursed under her breath, not only had she lost her food but now her primary means of self-defense was buried beneath the rubble.
As if it couldn't get any worse, thunder rumbled overhead, threatening to drop the first torrential rain in weeks and there was nowhere for her to go. Coughing, Jack stumbled towards where the wall of the store used to be, tripping twice before she reached the cracked pavement of the street. It echoed beneath her boot clad feet as lightning suddenly snapped across the sky, illuminating the avenue for just one brief moment, allowing her to see.
Holy fucking crap!
That factionary second of light revealed the extent of the damage the bomb had done, for not even a half meter away from where she was standing now was the edge of a crater that engulfed half the street, the corner of the store she had come from, and the entire building across from it. The street around it that remained intact was scorched beyond recognition along with anything else that might have been standing to close. The lethal radius of the blast was two meters shy of where she had been when the bomb had dropped, if she had been any closer she would have died and this realization simply reminded her that she didn't want to be there anymore.
Forced to find another path back to her makeshift home, Jack turned the other way and stumbled diagonally down the street, a hand reaching out for anything that might be in her way. Her fingertips brushed against a hard stone wall and using this as her guide she followed it to the next corner, turning into the next street as yet another fork of lightning cracked open the sky. This one showed her a dead empty street and no sooner had that light faded did the rain come barreling down, like a dam breaking loose in the heavens.
Sputtering more curses, Jack started forward again, bracing herself against the wall, but soon she was soaked through to the skin. Shivering as she wiped water away from her face with her free hand, she paused for a moment to clean the cut on her forehead of the dust that had invaded when the roof of the store had fallen. It stung a little but she'd had worse injuries before just on this planet alone, like that scar that asshole had given her. Grumbling a few more curses as her thoughts flickered back towards that incident, she felt along the wall again, using her free hand to keep the water out of her eyes, not that it did any good.
Damn, if I could just find a door or a window.
As if on cue her hand fell forward into empty space, the hollow shell of what used to be a window frame. Refraining from cheering, Jack clambered through, boots crunching stale glass on the interior floor, a puddle of dripping water soon forming at her feet. She placed a hand on the inside wall and followed it to a corner and there she sat down, gathering her knees up to her chest as the storm raged outside. The darkness swirled around her unbroken except for brief flashes of lightning that faded too fast to be of much comfort.
Jack had never been afraid of the dark before that fateful day seven years before, when the suns had gone out on that desert planet and everyone around her kept dying. It was enough to make her shiver even now, the reason why she always stuck well to the daylight and slept with at least one light on at all times. Getting caught in the dark was not her idea of fun and the rain just made it all the worse. Somewhere in the night something exploded, as things were apt to do and she hugged her knees closer to her chest, ruing the day she'd left New Mecca behind.
Hell, yeah, great name for a place like this. I didn't expect hell to be so fucking dreary.