AN: In case you didn't see the first rewritten chapter, basically I think I took a little too much from the Maximum Ride series and I want to remedy that, so I'm doing a rewrite. I hope you all stick around for it. Here's chapter two!
My eyes popped open and I stared at the ceiling of my bedroom for a long moment, trying to get my breathing under control. Chill out, Lloyd. It was a dream, just a dream.
But it was my least favorite dream, and it never changed. I always ran away from the School, I always got chased by the Serpentine, and then I always escaped narrowly. Then I always woke up feeling like I'd run a marathon in my sleep.
I wanted to stay cozied up in bed, but as I glanced at my clock, I saw that it was time to get up. Forcing myself out from under the covers, I shivered as I changed out of my pajamas. Soon, clad in dark gray sweatpants, a dark green sleeveless shirt, and my favorite pale green sweatshirt, I made my way out of my bedroom and toward the kitchen. On the way there, I looked out the windows. The view never failed to thrill me, since given the way our house was built over the edge of a steep canyon, it looked like we were flying. Even better than that, I never saw even a hint at there being any other people around, because there were none. We were all alone, and for us, that meant we were safe, happy, free. And by "free," I meant "not in actual cages."
And then there was the best and also kind of the worst part: no adults. When we first started living here, Jeb Garmadon has been the only grown-up around. He'd been like a dad to me, to all of us. He'd taught us all sorts of cool things, he'd kept us fed and warm, and he'd saved us.
Then, two years ago, he'd just vanished. Gone. Poof. We all knew he was dead, but we never said it. We almost never said anything about him at all, like he'd never been there in the first place. We were all alone.
Most of the time, that felt like a good thing. There was nobody to tell us to do chores, to eat our vegetables, to stop watching TV and just go to bed, any of that. Well, except me and Cole. He's the oldest, so he automatically has a lot of influence. I'm the third oldest, at least approximately, but somehow I'm in charge overall. Probably because I'm the best fighter. I make sure we stay happy, healthy, and well-fed.
Speaking of being well-fed…
I searched through the whole kitchen, but there was barely anything in there, basically just some boxes of pasta, some cake mix, various canned goods, and a weirdly large amount of eggs. We were almost out of food.
When Garmadon was here, he'd pull wads of cash from seemingly nowhere and go to a different town every couple months to stock up. But now we have to get everything we need by ourselves. We do "grocery" runs at least once a week, digging out of nearby dumps and trash cans behind restaurants. You'd be surprised how much food is thrown away still in the package. There's a bunch of farms about fifteen to thirty miles (read: ten to twenty minutes) away where we can get fresh fruits and milk. It was definitely time for another grocery run.
Just as I finished checking over what all we still had for food, I heard a sudden sound just behind me.