Chapter 3: Where Are You Now
Snap of a twig and I was on my feet, my heart was racing so fast I was sure they could hear it. I couldn't see what made the sound but it was dark and I was staring at the fire all night. I heard it again, this time it was closer.
"Who..who's there?" I stammered.
This girl stepped into the ring of light from the fire, she had long straight black hair and looked like she was my age maybe a little older.
"Sorry I didn't mean to scare you, I just saw the campfire and thought I would see who it was. Are you alright?"
"What, um ya I'm fine, it's nothing. Do you want to sit down, is warm." I said quickly as I sniffed and wiped my eyes.
I looked at the moon to see what time it was and it was a little past midnight, I must have just started to doze off.
"What are you doing way out here in the dead of night?" I asked her as I moved to get more comfortable.
"I could ask you the same thing, don't you know its not safe to make a fire way out in the open, I could see it from a mile away."
"Ya I guess I didn't think about that, I was in kind of a hurry."
"Why what happened?"
"I..I don't really want to talk about it right now. I didn't catch your name by the way."
"Oh my names Ellie."
"I'm Percy and he's Jess. Are you going to any particular place?"
"Ya, I'm heading to Grokery, I need to talk to a man there."
"Really, so are we. If you want you could tag along until we get there."
"Ya that sounds nice."
"Ok cool, well I guess we should probably get some sleep, its going to be a long walk."
"Ya alright, goodnight."
"Goodnight."
I rolled over, got comfortable again and just stared at the fire until I fell asleep.
We all woke up pretty early, and Jess was a little confused as to who the girl was but I quickly explained. We pulled together different soups that we had and heated them up on the fire. After we all ate we started north to find the road. It was about an hour or two before we found it, now our adventure truly began.
"Percy, I'm tired and my feet hurt, can we take a break?"
"This is the third break today and its not even mid day! Fine but this is the last one for a while."
"Ok, can you tell the story that dad use to tell us when we were little?"
"Ya ok, but you have to keep walking while I tell it, deal?"
"Ok let me just get some water from my pack and then we can start walking again."
A few minutes later he had his fill of water and we were on our way.
"Ok dad always told it like this, About 300 years ago our world was a much different. It was divided into counties and people pretty much got along. Millions of people getting along to further the greater good. Until a country named Russia, they for some reason didn't like how another country, The United States of America were running their people so they started a war that started to spin out of control and involved almost every country in the world, they called the The Last World War. They say that the war lasted for 5 years and finally ended in a horrific exchange of nuclear warfare. The two rivaling countries have been stockpiling these weapons since the last time they fought. When the bombs were launched, they carpeted the earth and blacked out the sun until it was over. When the smoke cleared humans were nearly wiped out of existence. Patches of survivors started to try to colonize where they could but the radiation from the bombs was so great it made it nearly impossible to survive, But people did and they started to move into the ruined cities. Even after all that has happened Man still fights each other for little stuff like fresh water and food.
After I finished the story we walked in silence for a while, then Ellie said,
"Thats horrible, didn't they think how it would affect everything, because of them we now have to worry about if we will survive the day!"
"They were just selfish and too into their war to think about how it would affect people."
"Ya, it just makes me mad that because of them I'm living day to day when I could be living in a house with running water and a reliable roof over my head."
For some reason telling the story this time, it really hit me for the first time how real it all is, before it was just a story my dad told me when I couldn't sleep at night. After all that happened yesterday everything has been thrown into perspective.
We walked all day while not really talking much. The walk was long and boring with nothing to look at but dust and burnt trees. We walked until night time and Ellie taught us how to properly build a fire without making a burning beacon. I found some beans in my pack and Ellie had some chilli in hers so we cooked them up and ate and chatted until the pot was empty. We all said our goodnights and settled into the dust and fell asleep.
When I woke up it was still dark but I could tell the sun was about to come up. Everybody else was still asleep so I decided I would start on breakfast. I Shuffled through my pack looking for something that sounded good, then I found the key and just looked at it for a while, I sat back and just stared at it. My life has been ruined all because of this little key. I undid the chain that went through the key and put it around my neck and tucked it under my shirt. I found some peaches in my pack and that sounded good enough and it didn't need to be heated up either. I dished it up into three separate bowls and woke them up for breakfast. Waking Jess up was a chore as usual and it was a little weird waking Ellie up because she flinched when I did it.
"Are you ok?" I asked.
"Ya ya, I'm fine. What's for breakfast?" She said quickly and sounded like she really wanted to change the subject.
"I found some peaches in my pack, something sweet sounded like a nice way to start the day."
"I agree." She said with a smile.
I passed them their bowls and as I was eating I couldn't help but notice how stunning Ellie was. Her hair was this glossy black and these dark blue eyes that looked like you were getting x-rayed when she looked at you. Her smile made her whole persona light up. When she wasn't smiling she looked like she was trying to forget something. I guess thats probably how I look most of the time now.
When we finished eating we packed up our stuff and put out the embers. When we got back on the road it took us about 4 hours to finally get to Grokery, It was weird being in a town with so many people. Mom never took us to any of the town so this was me and Jess' first time and it was a little overwhelming. Ellie said that there was a bar that had some rooms for rent and that they were pretty cheap so we decided to go there first. The bar was called The Rusty Bucket and it had a big rusted out bucket hanging over the door. We walked in and asked the bartender if we could rent out one of his rooms for the night.
"Sure, but its not free. How do you plan on paying for it?" He said in a gruff voice.
The bartender was this huge man with this big shaggy beard and thick hairy arms. He had a lot of rough jagged scars all over and looked like he could take on half the bar with his bare hands.
I was a little intimidated by him, "We don't really have anything valuable enough to trade, do you think we could work off our rooms?" I said in a shaky voice.
"Ya, that sounds fine. After the bar closes you kids come in and sweep the floors, clean the tables and do the dishes. You can do this every night you want to stay here and we will be fine."
"Ok, that sounds like a fair deal."
We shook hands, and he said, "If you kids feel like picking a room and putting your stuff in it, thats fine. I will make sure no one takes it."
"Thanks mister."
"The names Burt by the way."
"Ok, thanks Burt, I'm Percy, and this is Jess and Ellie."
"Nice to meet you kids, Why don't you go put your stuff in a room and go out and explore the town until its closing time."
"Ok thanks, oh by the way, do you know where I can find a man named Lee."
"Ya, he owns a little store on the other side of town, it has a big green sign above the door."
"Ok, thanks Burt, I guess we will see you tonight."
We headed up to find a good room, we found one with two beds and a couch, so we put our stuff in and left to find Lee.