Shun

The sounds of people moving around woke me from my sleep. And I was enjoying it. For once, I wasn't plagued by the nightmares that had attacked my subconscious mind. In fact, I didn't recall any dreams I may have had. All I did remember, was that Alice was sitting next to me when I drifted off; and she still was.

Her head was leaned against my shoulder, her eyes still shut and her breathing was shallow as she still slept. I had to admit, even though I tried to push her away last night, I was grateful that she didn't leave. I looked away from her and faced the others.

All of them were awake now and gathering the few things they had. A few of them glanced over at us, but went about their business afterwards. Dan was the only one that gave us a cold, hard look before stomping out the remainder of the fire's coals and hiding it so the evidence of us being there, never existed. Smart. I ignored his looks and turned my attention back to Alice.

Lightly, I shook her shoulder and whispered, "Hey, time to get up. We're leaving." She raised her head from my shoulder and looked around with her sleepy eyes. Safe to say, she wanted a few more hours of sleep. I got up and held my hand out for her to grab.

Reluctantly, she took it and got up as well. "I know you still want to sleep, but we can't stay here. Not with the Officials on our trail," I told her. Alice nodded, fully understanding that time was of precious essence. "Are you guys coming with us, or staying here?" Julie asked, waving her hands above her head in the air.

"Yeah, we're coming," I called back. Dan cut a look and turned around. What's his deal today? He had glared at me before, but never to this extent. Did he have a problem with me being close to Alice? I wouldn't think that he liked her, since he was always around the blue-haired girl called Runo.

He seemed to favor her over any of the other girls that he hung around with. Alice followed beside me as we all started to make our ways through the Wastelands once again. Random thoughts and memories of my home that I was leaving behind, kept popping up. I couldn't dwell on what was behind me.

That was the past now, and I had to focus on what was ahead of us. Murucho stopped and looked over the map. He looked up at the sun and said, "The sun rises in the East, which would be that way, and according to the map we need to head in North. So…..That's our direction of travel."

He pointed one of his short fingers out into a seemingly endless part of the Wastelands. I couldn't help but wonder what was out there that could be waiting on us. Would there even be anything out in that direction? We followed Murucho's directional advice, seeing that he seemed to know what he was doing.

It felt like an eternity before the sun reached its highpoint in the sky, and it seemed like we hadn't made any progress in our journey. Runo stumbled and almost fell into the ash, but not before Dan caught her in time. Julie ran over to them and asked, "What happened?"

The rest of us finally made our ways over to the two of them. Runo wobbled back up to her feet, with the help of Dan and Julie. Murucho took one look at her and said, "She looks dehydrated." Dehydration. One of the many things out in the Wastelands that will take your life quickly.

Well, if you don't lose your mind first. Dan told us sternly, "We need to get her some water. Hell, we all need something to drink. Is there any out here that you know of?" He turned to me for the answer. I shook my head when all the eyes fell on me.

"The only source of water I know of was the stream behind my home….But it dried up after poison was dumped in it," I said, adding in a glare to Dan, who had happily been gloating about the act before all hell broke loose. He rolled his eyes and growled. "Well, we need to find something. And quick. Or we're all going to dry up out here in this heat."

I had to admit, it was pretty hot. And out in the Wastelands, where there was hardly any shade, you had no relief from the sun's merciless power. He helped to steady Runo on her feet, and we continued on our way. After a little while, Alice spoke up and asked Murucho, "Do you have any idea how much further till our next stop?"

The blonde held the map up and said, "I can't really tell unless I have a map scale, but I'd guess we're getting close." Julie sighed and sat down in the ashes, taking off her shoes and rubbing her feet. "Can we please take a break?" she whined.

Dan lowered Runo down to the ground and said, "No, we need to try and find water, then we can rest. Trust me, Julie, I want to stop as much as you, but we have other priorities on this list. Like staying alive." I never thought I would agree with his logic, but I did.

We were all feeling effects of the heat and lack of fluids. If we wanted to reach the end of our destination, we would have to survive to get there. Dan picked Runo back up and said, "Now, let's get moving again." Julie let out a huff of air and got back up.

The sun was about to fall below the horizon, and all we had seen was the ash covered ground. There wasn't even one randomly placed dead tree. You could see in the ashes where we were dragging our feet beneath us. How much longer could we last, and how much further could we go?

That was when Murucho stopped and said, "Do you guys hear that?" We all stopped and remained quiet as we searched for what he heard. Dan looked at him and said, "That was probably my stomach. I'm on the verge of starving here." Murucho shook his head.

"No. It wasn't your stomach. It sounded like….Water. And I think it was coming from over there." He pointed towards a small mound in the flat landscape. With the possible promise of water, we all hurried over to slope. When we reached the top, all of us stopped and stared at what was placed before us. There was a large lake, and a city.

Alice

I couldn't believe what we were looking at. Out here, miles away from the only civilization we knew of, there were other people that had made it as long as we had. Julie's eyes were huge and she squealed, "There's water! There's water!" She then barreled down the hill towards the city.

Runo, who was weak from dehydration, mustered the strength to yell, "Julie, get back here!" We all started to hurry after her, not knowing if the people here would be accepting of outsiders. I heard Dan ask Murucho, "Is this the place on the map?"

Murucho shrugged his shoulders and said, "I don't know, but it's the only place we've so far, so I'm guessing it is. If not, then oh well. We can at least can some water and possibly some rest." Shun and I were lagging behind our group. I asked him, "Did you think that there would be any other people out in the Wastelands?"

He turned to me and said, "I doubted it, but Christina said she came from somewhere else in the Wastelands, so I had no other choice but to believe it." I had forgotten how Christina wasn't from Shun's home, or the City. None of us still knew where she came from, and probably never would. Heck, she could have been from here.

When we got closer to the city, we saw that houses, like the ones back home, were up on five foot high stilts and placed out in the water. Further out in the lake, there were more little buildings that were actually floating in the water.

They had, what seemed like, an intricate walkway system from building to building. Small rowboats were cutting through the water, the people in them pushing them along to get from one place to another. Another thing that caught my eye, was a lush patch of green on the other side of the lake.

Out in the water along the bank, was some kind of plant that they were growing. It was long, and moved with the waves. I heard Runo say, "This place is amazing." There was a chorus of agreements with her. "Hey! Who are you people?" We all turned around and saw a group of about seven guys walking towards us.

They were big, muscular people who easily dwarfed all of us. Their shirts were dirtied and torn, and one guy actually had a hook stuck in his arm. Fresh blood was seeping out of the wound, but he didn't seem to mind it one bit. Dan walked up to them and started to speak, but Murucho stopped him and took over.

It was probably for the best. Murucho was much better at talking with people than Dan, and these guys weren't the type Dan needed to mouth off to. "We don't mean any trouble. You see, we've been traveling through the Wastelands for a long time, and came across this place."

One of the big brutes stepped forward. His face had a shaggy beard growing on it, and he smelled of lake and fish. "Why are you lot foolish enough to go through the Wastelands? Only true idiots and the desperate do that," he said gruffly.

Murucho laughed nervously and said, "Well, we are desperate. Back home, there are some, how may I put this, bad things going on. And if we stayed, all of us would probably have been killed." The huge man stared out our little friend, and raised an eyebrow. "You say bad things are happening?" Murucho nodded slowly. The man stroked his beard and turned to his buddies. "Do you think?"

They all exchanged looks and shrugged their broad shoulders. I looked over at Shun, who just shrugged as well. What did they think? Murucho regained their attention and said, "All we need right now is some food, water, and maybe a place to stay."

The bearded man turned to his friends again, and they gathered. Whispers rose from their group, but I couldn't distinguish anything of what they were saying. It all blended together in strange words that made no sense. The group broke and turned back to us.

The man with the beard said, "You lot are more than welcome to stay. I'll go ahead and get the formalities out of the way. I'm Brunswick. This here, is Marquis." Marquis, the guy with the fishhook arm, waved at us. The rest were introduced to us as well. We went ahead and got our names out of the way, and Brunswick told Marquis and Val, a guy who had a large scar down his left eye, to take us to one of the empty houses they had.

We were escorted around the lake, and to one of the houses on stilts. Val unlocked the door and Marquis said, "Make yourselves comfortable. Come to the boat dock at dark. That's when dinner is. If you're late, don't complain about not getting anything to eat."

The sound of food was so intoxicated to me, and apparently, to everyone else as well. They closed the door and left us alone. In the house, there were enough beds for everyone and a bathroom. It made have looked like one of the houses back home, but it was much nicer and sturdier.

I walked over to the window and pulled back the blue curtain. There was a nice view of the lake that was turned orange by the setting sun. Shun walked up beside me and said, "You think the Officials are anywhere near here?" I shrugged and told him, "It took us nearly all day to find this place, so I would guess it would take them all night. Besides, they have no clue which direction we went."

I turned and leaned my back against the window. I saw that Runo was laying down in one of the beds; Dan was sitting next to her. Murucho was looking over the map, and Julie was at the sink and washing dirt from her arms. I glanced back out the window and saw the sun was almost completely below the horizon.

"I say we go on and find that boat dock thing so we don't miss out on whatever food they have." Julie tilted her head to the side and asked, "Why? It's not dark yet." I stepped away from the window and told her, "Because, we have no clue where anything is here, and I don't think any of us want to pass up a chance for food just because we couldn't find where they're eating at."

Everyone looked at each other, then nodded their heads in agreement. We left our little house, walking down the steps that returned back to the ground. Whenever we saw somebody, we quickly asked them where the boat dock was. A couple of the people looked at us strangely and kept on walking. But a few stopped and pointed us in the right direction. We thanked them and hurried to the dock.

Before we could even see it, the smell of food hit us, sending our stomachs on a growling rampage. The dock was visible thanks to a large fire that was burning. When we walked up to the place, everyone grew silent and stared. We were strangers in their world, so it was expected that they would stare at us.

I saw Brunswick waving over at us, a large spread of food was on a table in front of us. The moment we all saw it, we rushed over there and stared at it as if it were going to run away. Brunswick laughed and said, "You lot look hungry. Go on, help yourselves."

All around us were groups of people sitting on logs that had a small fire going in the middle of their circles. We all found an empty area, and sat in it. I sat down beside Shun on one of the logs; we were the only ones who sat there. Runo and Dan sat beside each other, as did Julie and Murucho.

Brunswick came strolling over with several cups. He passed them around and said, "Can't have any of you falling over from dehydration now, can we?" Runo guzzled the water down, and Brunswick happily got her more. When she told him that she got her fill, he sat down on the empty log that was in our circle.

My plate, which once had fish and rice on it, was now clean. In fact, all of our plates were clean. Brunswick smiled and said, "Is everyone full?" We all nodded and gave him a satisfied smile. He laughed and said, "Good. Now, onto more serious matters…Is it happening?"

baaaaack! ^^ i had fun at the clinic, although i didnt like waking up so dang early. -.-'' (could have done without that) well, i need to go eat. so, read, review, and other things. ~Copperpelt~