Walking into Tina's office I sit at a chair in front of her desk and wait for her to finish riffling through some papers. "I can't find anything in this mess, oh did you have any luck in your search?" she asks. "Actually yes it's right here" I hold up the file. "You're kidding" she says. "Yeah I know what are the odds right?" We stare at each other. "Well don't let anyone see that" she says while closing one of the desk drawers. "Do you mind if I keep it?" I ask. "That's probably not a good idea" she responds. Someone whistles outside and we stop to listen. The place falls silent. We look at each other and decide to take a peak outside to see what is going on. Five men are walking into the compound, the one in the middle holds up a hand and smiles. Roy meets him and shakes his hand. They speak to each other but I can't hear what they are saying. "I'll see what's going on" Tina says. I walk a few paces behind her. "Hello everyone!" the man says. "I'm going to need everyone to gather around we don't have much time." We all look at each other not knowing what is about to happen. After a few moments everyone has gathered together and we are waiting for the announcement to begin. "First things first" the man says. He takes off his ball cap and wipes the sweat from his brow revealing a receding hairline. "We don't normally do things this way but time is of the essence" he says while pacing to the left and right. "Roy can you stand beside me here." Roy straightens his back and stands beside him. The man clears his throat before continuing "we have some sad news to report." He scans the crowd for a moment. "Marlene is dead" several people gasp at the news. "There's more people there's more" he continues. "And Roy" he turns to Roy. "It looks like you are the new leader of the Fireflies." I turn to look at Tina, who is shaking her head in disbelief. "And finally" he says. "We're going to need all of you to pack up and move with us back to Utah." Roy steps towards the group "all right people, let's get this thing done and head out early tomorrow morning." The man places a hand on Roy's shoulder and continues to speak to the group "just in case you don't know you will be heading to the hospital there." The man turns towards Tina "and Tina we lost a couple of doctors there so we're really going to need you." She nods her head in agreement.
Our group of twenty sets off into the early morning light. Seeing all of us struggling to make our way silently through the forest is unnerving. Every other second someone is stepping on a twig or brushes alongside a low branch, which snaps back in to place with the leaves rattling loudly. The peaceful light blue sky above plays opposite of what's going on down below. Several of the men with guns have painted their faces in camouflage. The tension of the group is blended together by the fear of the unknown and the grunt work of walking for miles with everything that we have strapped on our backs. Tina voices her opinion as we settle down to have lunch, "I can't be the only here who thinks this is a bad idea." She looks around at the group, who are all sitting down eating what little food is left. Several people nod in agreement with her. "You guys couldn't find a truck or anything?" she asks the fighters. Roy steps up to her and whispers while putting one hand on her waist "could you not do this now?" She looks him in the eyes as he continues, "we need to stick together on this, this is more important than just us." He turns around and addresses the rest of the group "I know this is dangerous, who knows what could be walking around out here?" Most of the group stops eating and lifts their heads to listen. "Just because Marlene is gone doesn't mean that what we the Fireflies believe in and what we are trying to do cannot be accomplished." Tina returns to her spot with her head down. He continues "we have to be brave, we have to stick together, we have to do what is right."
The next morning, we come across an infected who is pinned underneath a log. In a way it seems to know what type of predicament that it's in, it isn't all that aggressive towards us. Fatigue is starting to set in for most of us. Several breaks are taken but the recovery for those of us who are suffering is proving to be less and less. A lack of food, soaring hot temperatures and the constant grip of fear wears people out both physically and emotionally. Several birds fly off in a hurry just up ahead. We aren't close enough to scare them away. Pressure rattles my eardrums for a second. One shot is fired, one of the fighters in front of us is taken off his feet. Blood splatters over the two other fighters. Our group scatters. Roy shouts to everyone "stick together." No one listens. I see a person in a military uniform coming over a small hill in the distance. More shots are fired. I try to keep calm, feeling my breaths coming in and out of me in less than a second. I have to back track, I'm now unaware of where anyone else from the group is. After several steps I start to see them. Their bodies lying on the ground. First two then three then four. It isn't soon before long that the military has us few survivors surrounded. Roy, Tina, several people from the settlement who I never learned their names, one Firefly fighter and myself. They force us on our knees. Several infected make their way to the scene but are soon taken care of. One of the military men steps forward, "Roy Jacobs and Tina Matthews, we've been expecting you." The short man says in a quickened pace. "Now you guys wouldn't be going to Utah would you?" Tina lifts one hand toward the man "why are you here?" He smirks "we just came from a St. Mary's Hospital, looks like someone made an awful mess of things." He walks up and down the line of us, "I guessing you heard that your leader is dead." The smirk goes off his face, "at the end of the day we both want the same thing, only you were keeping a very big secret from us." Roy chimes in "of course we were, why would we trust you?" The man takes a deep breath before continuing, "no, no, no, I doubt that even you Roy the new leader of the Fireflies knows about this." I look around hoping to find somewhere to escape. "You see apparently the Fireflies had the cure in their possession" he says with one hand on his hip. "But Marlene didn't trust the fireflies to take care of it oh no, she had to bring in someone from the outside." An older male from the settlement makes a break for it as soon as the military man turns away from us. Several seconds later one gunshot is fired and his body hitting the ground is all that is heard. "Nobody do anything stupid" Roy pleads to the group. "Why don't you just kill us?" Tina asks. "Well we can't kill you, doctors are hard to find these days" he says. His dark brown eyes stare a whole in me as he approaches. "Hand over the bag kid" he says to me with his hand out. I shake my head no. A deep pains runs across my face as he smacks his hand against it. I slowly remove the strap over my head and hand the bag over. "You see the problem is, is that there isn't much information about the so called 'cure'" he says while unzipping the bag. "According to the small amount of paperwork that we found, it's a young female with the codename 'Spitfire'." Tommy's file lands on the ground in plain sight of everyone. "And because 'the cure' was so secretive, we're going to have to figure out if any of you know anything about it" he says while bending over to pick up the file. "Luckily we caught a break at the hospital, not only were a lot of your men already dead when we got there but a very kind and willing Firefly was able to give us some important information" he says while looking over the file. His eyes gaze at me for a second before returning to the file. "And it looks like we got lucky again, you see your guy told us the name of the man who single-handily took down a whole group of Fireflies." He lets out a little chuckle. "The man who killed your doctors, killed your leader and stole the cure for mankind, a Mr. Joel Young." He turns around the file showing it to the group "and know we just found Mr. Thomas Young, siblings: one a brother Joel, possible locations, Montana or Texas." He closes the file, "we were just at a hydro-electric power plant in Montana not too long ago, maybe they'll know something there." He hands the file to the closest military person near him. "Only this time we'll make sure we'll bring enough people to get the job done." He bends down in order to look into Roy's eyes. "Marlene was dumb to think that the Fireflies alone could handle something as big as the cure." Roy reaches out and quickly grabs the knife from the man's hip sticking it into the man's left ribcage. The firefly fighter grabs the gun from the man's other hip and takes down the nearest soldier. The fight ensues, I grab the file from the dead solider and snatch my bag off the ground before taking off running. I try and stay as low to the ground as possible. One shot takes off some bark from the tree in front of me. I turn to see where the shot came from only to see Roy sticking a knife into a soldier's neck. My stomach drops to my knees. I watch the men fight each other. Roy ploughs through two more bodies before I catch my breath. I turn to my left and take off running going past tree after tree. I'm barely able to keep my footing on the uneven ground. I don't stop for anything I just keep running with the fear that turning around will mean certain death.