Alice

Shun had fallen back asleep, so I stepped out of his room to meet with the others. Dan and the rest of the group were sitting around, all of them staring intently at Howe. It appeared as if he had just finished telling them the same things he told to me. "You're trying to tell me that the Officials are trying to kill us, just because they think we won't benefit the City? Ha! What a load of crap," said Dan, crossing his arms.

Dan, like most of the people in the City, looked up to the Officials. There was even speculations that he would join them one day. So, now that his future and role models were now turning into monsters before his eyes, Dan didn't want to believe it. Or, maybe he really didn't. He could have been thinking Howe was some crazy old man, who was doing nothing more than trying to scare them.

Although Dan didn't seem to be buying the story, the others did. They all stared at the old man, eyes wide and jaws slack. I wondered if I had looked like that when I learned about this for the first time. Howe stared at Dan. He didn't show much emotion, almost like the old man was expecting Dan to react this way.

Howe let a small grin escape and he said, "You may think of it like that now, but I promise you that your mind will be changed soon." Dan let out a humorless laugh. "Whatever you say old man." Howe turned and vanished back into the kitchen, where he had last left his wife.

I walked over to them and said, "Dan, I know this can't be easy for you to accept, but the Officials are the bad guys here. They've always been, and if you don't believe it then they might kill you like they're about to do hundreds of people." Dan's eyes narrowed on me, then he abruptly stood up.

"No, they're not out there to 'get rid of the weak people' like that old man said. They're out there trying to make sure no other people like you are helping and hiding Outcasts." I flinched back at his words. Did Dan really think that? If he did, then he might as well go on outside and hand himself over to the Officials.

Because, that would be the only way for him to see the light. Runo looked at Dan and said, "Don't go blaming Alice for what's happening outside." I silently thanked Runo for defending me, glad that she was on my side and not against me. Dan looked at her, and sat back down on the couch.

Runo seemed to be the only one who could get through his thick skull at times. What would we do without her? I smiled at my thought, but it vanished when we all heard a loud pop outside. All five of us, were looking around the house to see if we could find the sound.

I even saw Howe and Ellie sitting in the kitchen, both of them scanning the area. Julie looked frightened when she said, "What was that?" Out of all four of them, I think Julie had been scared the most by Howe's story. "It didn't sound like it came from near here," said Murucho, pushing up his wire framed glasses that he had made himself when his old frames broke.

Overall, they made him look more nerdy that before, and we had laughed for days when he started to wear them. But in a world where people could hardly afford bread, we gave him some slack at his genius. He had been right about the distance of the sound.

It didn't seem like it came from near our location. In fact, it didn't seem like it even came from within the City. If not the City, then where? The others were contemplating on what it could have been, while I leaned against the wall and tried to think of where the sound came from.

Two more of the popping noises sounded from the same location. If the Officials were targeting something outside of the City, then what would it be other than…..The Outcasts.

Shun

My sleep was interrupted when Alice stormed into my room. I shot up in my bed, just as wild-eyed as she was. "What's going on?" I asked, almost climbing out from under the covers. My first thought was that the Officials had found us, and were about to charge through the door of the house and take us all away.

Alice sat down next to me on the bed, keeping her hand on my shoulder so I wouldn't get up and run off. "What's going on?" I asked, getting annoyed that she had yet to explain. She took in a breath and asked, "Did you hear that noise? The popping?" I shook my head, not quite understanding what she was talking about.

I had been asleep since she left the room, and only woke when she came running back in a panic. The only thing I had heard, were the voices of her friends before I drifted off. Alice found the air to speak, "There was this popping noise, several of them.

None of us could figure out what it could be, but it didn't sound like it was coming from anywhere within the City." I stared at her. What did popping noises have to do with anything? How could they have gotten her so worked up, when I had slept through them? "And what's that got to do with anything?" Alice ran a hand through her thick, orange hair.

"It has to be the Officials. They're up to something." Again, I didn't get how this was anything new. "Ok? When aren't they up to something?" I was starting to think that Alice had finally gone over the edge, and into the pit of insanity. With all the stress she was enduring, it was only a matter of time.

"I think they're doing something to the Outcasts in the Wastelands." They could have been, but we had no proof. Those noises she heard, could have been nothing more than….Well, I couldn't think of what they could have been. But they could have been anything.

Although, Alice's theory was justified. What better way to run us out of hiding, than to attack my home and the people I had grown up around? Alice's friends knocked on the frame of the door. The short blonde one, Murucho if I remembered right, was standing in the middle while the other three were behind him.

Dan was cutting glances at me, each one laced with ice to match. Murucho said in a worried filled voice, "Alice, are you ok? You ran out of the room without any warning." Dan had stopped looking in my direction. Instead, he focused on something in the living room behind him. Next to me on the bed, Alice had responded to Murucho's question without me noticing.

"I'm fine. I just thought about something and freaked out." She wasn't going to tell them about the possibility that the Officials could be attacking and killing the Outcasts. Odds were, they wouldn't have cared anyway. Especially Dan. He would have probably liked it if all of us were gone.

No more burden for him. The true mindset of an Official. But hey, at least the Outcasts weren't the ones playing God and speeding up natural selection. He definitely needed to get his priorities straight and start seeing who was really at fault in all of this.

Alice looked back and forth at me and her friends, then clapped her hands together. "Well, I think we should start thinking about our plan for when the Officials show up." Dan's arms were crossed, and he was leaning against the door frame. "What's there to go over? They show up. We run. The end."

The blue-haired girl narrowed her eyes at him and said, "I think she's talking about if we're going to plan on bringing anyone else along with us. Am I right?" I noticed the faint appearances of bruises and scratches on her face. They were almost gone, but they were still there.

Alice had mentioned something about that girl, Runo if I recalled. This was the girl that Alice told about the map and all of the other stuff that had gone on. Which meant that those bruises were certainly from the brutal hands of Officials.

"Yeah. That's what I meant, Runo. We all need to know if anyone wants to try and located their family to take with them. If so, then we need to do that now." I leaned back into the pillows behind me, staying out of the conversation taking place. It didn't concern me anyway. They all agreed that they at least wanted to try and find their parents. What was the point of me even trying to join in?

Everyone back home was probably dead anyway. I had know idea what the Officials may have done while I had been in the City. They had already poisoned the water, so there was no telling what other warped plans they had. I wished they would go into another room and talk.

I didn't want to hear them talk about their families when mine was gone. It was just too much to come to terms with. Even Alice seemed too focused on the conversation taking place, that she didn't sense how much I wanted them to leave. Not able to take it anymore, I slid out of the bed so I could leave the room on my own. I quickly discovered I still didn't have enough of my strength to walk, because my legs immediately buckled under me, causing me to fall to the wood floor.

That shut them up. Alice ran over and knelt beside me. "Shun, what were you doing?" she asked while helping to get me into a sitting position. I glanced up, seeing all the eyes in the room set on me. That 'animal in a cage' feeling washed over me.

Even if all these people were on my side, I was still different from them. My past, background, and everything else was different. And it hit me that, if we all made it out of the City and to some unknown safety, things wouldn't be any different. People from the City would still have the same views of the Outcasts, and we would have the same views of them.

We would always be the ones who weren't wanted, and they would be the lucky ones with everything they could need. Already, I could see our new lives separated, just like they were now. Alice snapped her fingers in front of my face, bringing me out of my thoughts.

She asked again, "What were you doing?" My eyes moved from the four people standing at the other side of the room, then they moved back to Alice. "Nothing. I was doing nothing," I said flatly. She helped me get back to the bed and turned to her friends. "I think we should finish our conversation in the other room and let Shun continue to rest." They all shrugged and filed out through the door.

Although I could hear them talking, I didn't pay any attention to what they were saying. I laid my head back against the pillows, and stared up at the ceiling. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't make it look like the ceiling in my room. It was impossible for me to picture all of the bent and broken boards, all of the holes, and all of the other imperfections that made it part of my life.

I shut my eyes, finding it much easier to place all of my memories than to try and change my surroundings into them. I pictured every face of the people who lived in the houses that were falling apart, I saw every speck of ash floating through the air, imagined every laugh and sob.

And for the first time that day, I heard that noise Alice was talking about, and added to it the screams of the Outcasts that I had just seen in my mind. Slowly, I tuned out the sounds I had imagined, and only heard silence. Sweet, sweet silence.

yay! +50 reviews. keep em coming! that's what keeps me writing! sorry for being tardy today. i went to see the Hunger Games (finally) overall, it was pretty good. i had to remain from crying in that theater, but i'm sure if i watch it again i might. ^^'' what can i say? im so sensitive. :p lol. (most of the time) well, read, review, and other things. ~Copperpelt~