Sophia POV

I pulled Molli back into the woods, she didn´t do anything to fight. But as soon as I had let go of her I turned her around before she had started screaming I calmed her down.

"Sch, Molli it´s just me."

"Sophia." She jumped up and locked her arms around my neck. I almost forced her to let go, and reached her the bag that still held the pencils, papers and stuff I had won in the competition yesterday.

"Molli… can you take this up to my room? Hide it somewhere, and then come back here with some food."

"Yeah…" Molli grabbed the bag. "I…"

"Molli…. Who you´re talking to?" I heard a voice I easily recognized as George´s. I did what my instincts told me to do and sneaked away and hid, laying on the ground behind the old car seats.

"I was playing with my little ponies George." I heard Molli´s voice.

"Oh, do you have your ponies in that bag?"

"Yes. But you can´t see them, because they´re very shy, and strangers makes them scared." I heard George chuckle.

"Okay, well come on. It´s starting to rain, you shouldn't be outside you could catch a cold." I stayed behind the seats for about a minute, two, three, it started raining, after about ten minutes I heard Molli come running.

"I had to sneak out so Mike or George or the others wouldn´t find out."

"Thanks Molli." I took the pizza- carton she reached me. Then I realized Molli had tears in her eyes.

"What´s wrong?" I kneeled down, to reach to her level.

"Will you come back Sophia? Now when I have nightmares, you´re not there, and no one else know I have them. But I´m scared they will get mad if I wake them up."

"Molli," I hugged her. "Nobody´s gonna get mad at you if you have nightmares, just wake Carmen up, or Tee, or Mike, or Gina. But…" I suddenly had an idea. "… You know what it looks like in my room, you know with the light pressing away the dark."

"The good pressing away the bad."

"Yes, if you wake up, go sleep in my room, you know, there´s the hate and bad pressed away by the love and the good, so there, no bad dreams can reach you. The good dreams are pressing the nightmares away."

"Okay. Sophia?"

"Yes Molli?"

"Will you come back?"

"Sure I will… but not just yet. What´s George doing here?"

"Mike called him after you left, and now Mike is helping George."

"Molli, what did I just tell you?" we heard George coming walking again, he was closer this time, so I quickly ran to hide at the same place as before.

"That I should come in, because it´s starting to rain."

"Exactly, what are you doing…. Is that pizza?" George sniffed in the air, I kept very, very still.

"Promise you won´t get mad…" Molli said, I held my breath.

"Please Molli, please don´t tell him, please don´t" I thought over and over again.

"Molli, what have you done?"

"I was hungry so I took a piece from the pizza from yesterday and ate it. Jody and Tyler came too and together we ate a whole pizza… I didn´t eat more than two pieces…. But you know how much Tyler and Jody can eat sometimes." George chuckled.

"Of course I won´t get mad, but if you´re hungry you should go talking to Mike instead of just taking food from the day before. It could be something that you get sick from eating if it´s too old okay?"

"Okay George, I´m sorry."

"Come on now." George laid his hand on Molli´s back, and led her towards the house, I held my breath again so he wouldn´t hear me. But yet, he turned around for a second and looked around, I ducked, and then I heard Molli´s voice again.

"Come on now George, come play Barbie´s with me." George chuckled again, then they walked together towards the house. I laid still for another minute or two, and then stood up and walked down to the road.

I walked with the pizza carton into town, there I sat down on a bench and opened the carton. A whole pizza, with ham and pineapple. The pizza was still in one big piece, so I used my fingers to pull small pieces from the pizza and put them in my mouth. A left over coke- bottle stood next to me, someone had left it there almost full. I hesitated for a couple of minutes, then I reached my hand towards it and looked around. No one seemed to miss it, and I had drank and eaten from dirtier things than a left over coke- bottle, so I took a sip. And it tasted so good.

In Gota I had tasted coke a few times, I always liked it, but it was hard to find, the same went with any kind of soda, fast food, snacks and so on. Loads of the things that people took for granted and liked in Great Britain barely existed in Gota.

Our neighbor in Gota, until just a couple of weeks before Luce disappeared, Faiz (Fah-ee-z) had had loads of things that other people didn´t have, he had a camera, and in his cellar he had stuff that he could record both CD:s, tapes and videos with. He had also helped Luce with getting children and teenagers away from Gota.

Faiz was in the center of the town next to Lulei- yool, when a bomb went off, we heard about the bomb, and we never saw Faiz again.

I sighed were I sat, I always tried not to think about the memories from Gota, they were too painful. So many people I had known and loved had died, so many people that I knew and loved, they were tortured until they begged to be killed, fast and without any further pain.

So many people that I had known and loved had been transferred from Gota, I knew they would be safe, they had begged Luce to take me, Sophie and Aaron too, Luce had begged us, but we refused, we weren´t going to leave Luce, we weren´t going to leave our parents to die.

So many people I had known and loved- I had never been able to say goodbye, the very last time I saw them.

I sighed, then threw the empty pizza box in a bin, and picked up a plastic bag from the ground. Then I laid the bottle in the bag and searched through bin after bin for more bottles. If I found enough bottles I could pawn (I´m not sure about that word, but I think you understand. If I´m wrong, please give me the right word in a review or PM) the bottles, and then earn enough money to at least by something to eat. I knew I had just eaten, but I wouldn´t be done until in the evening, and then I would be hungry again.

The plastic bag I had found was soon full, but I got a big banana- carton from the grocery- store in town. I walked around, searched through the bins, and found multiple bottles left on benches or on the ground, a few persons threw empty bottles in my carton, I smiled slightly at them and nodded thank you.

In the evening, I had enough money to buy a pack with two chicken- sandwiches. I crouched inside the waiting hall on a bus- station and ate it, then I laid down to sleep, I did the same the next day, and the next, and there wasn´t any problems until the third day. At night, I crouched in an ambush with two small bags of sweets, I had run away from the police again, and then I had run into the ambush. I crouched even more and sat on my knees when I heard steps. And then three big- grown boys, with dark jeans, and big hoodies came walking.

"Oii kid." One of them shouted to me. "What did you run away from the cops for?"

"None of your business," I said, I stood up, but still was head shorter than the smallest boy, a blonde boy, that seemed to be the youngest at about fifteen, maybe sixteen years old.

"What´s your name?" The middle- size boy, he had shaved all of his hair of, and several scars showed on the pale skin on his forearms as he had the sleeves pulled up to the elbows.

"None of your business."

"Can we have those bags?" The biggest boy- with light—brown hair and green eyes asked me, and reached towards my sweets.

"No."

"Bet she stole them…. Maybe that was why she ran away from the police." The smallest boy said to the others.

"No I didn´t. I´ll go now." I tried to walk past the boys, but the biggest stopped me.

"You know stealing is wrong. Maybe we should punish you…"

"No…" Too late, the biggest pushed me so I ended up on the ground, in a big muddy pod…. And even though I knew I was too small to go against the three boys, I stood back up, and ran towards the biggest boy, and tried to push him.

Before I even had the chance, he had hit me in the chin so hard my whole head seemed to shake when I fell to the ground again, then I felt multiple kicks, from at least two pair of feet on my ribs, in my face, and I screamed when a foot hit the wound from the shot.

"Spice, Dell." I heard the voice of the smallest boys. "I think that´s en….."

"Hello?" I heard a man shout, then I heard running footsteps, first when Spice, Dell and the smallest boy ran away, and then when I heard the man who had shouted coming closer. It hurt all over my body, but to look at the bright side I didn´t feel as anything was broken.

"Hey." The man now was kneeled down next to me. "How are you?" that´s the last thing I knew, before I felt myself falling, and I let myself be surrounded by a dark, without pain, without sorrows.

Uh-oh, no good.