2025

The thoughts that weighed on Ally’s mind that night continued to haunt her over the next three years. Jace grew quieter and quieter as the doubts and worries began to hum louder in her ears—ringing like a drum. She felt heartbroken at the loss of her best friend, but she kept hoping that he’d return sometime soon.

Over time more people came in a similar fashion as Ally had to the ragtag society. People of various backgrounds who for one reason or another survived the world collapse and wandered their way toward the group—looking for what everyone else was looking for. Come 2025 and twenty new companions have joined together in what had since improved from the clay huts Ally had been introduced to. One of the fellows—Mark Roperd—was a construction worker in the old world. With his help and a few more of the young men that they came across they were able to construct homes more suitable for humans to live in. They were still nowhere near what constituted as modern home design in the old world, but they were leagues above what they had prior.

It was sometime in the early spring when Ally woke up—now a bright seventeen and more wits about her—to a sound in the distance that was unlike any she’d heard of in a very long time. Loud whooping and yelling that echoed across the canyons of their surroundings.

They sounded off in the morning and gave Ally a wicked start as she feared that impending trouble was coming, but the sounds faded away shortly after they began.

Darren, now eleven, was no stranger to waking up at the slightest of sounds as well—it was something that they both shared. Daisy slept through the initial event along with the other originals of the encampment—but one of the newbies—a farmer named Jesiah Wilkins similarly woke to the second bout of voices.

Ally sat in her cot for a while longer than normal when they rang out. She sat for as long as ten minutes until she was sure that they were gone. As the fear waned she started breathing normally and moved to start the day like any other. She started by gathering Daisy, Darren, and Jamie—another younger boy of thirteen to gather pails of water to refresh their reserves. She was going to wait for the three to return to start tending to the rest of their chores. The sun hung high in the sky and illuminated them all with a red glow.

That was when the second wave of screams erupted. And these ones followed with the raiders.

~...~

Ally sat out on a handmade bench that Jesiah and Jamie helped put together about half a year before. She was staring out at the fields that grew the crops that they’d been living off of. Out in the distance the voices echoed back around as the figures dotted the horizon. Something flew in the air following an echoing blasting sound.

Guns.

Ally’s eyes fixate on the three children running back toward the rest of the small village. First with the day’s enthusiasm, and then after the first shot—with a terrified horror.

Ally rushes to her feet as the shadows in the distance grow closer. The children are coming closer but the heavy buckets of water are slowing them down. Jamie ditches his first and picks up speed. Another shot rings out and he falls to the ground. A spray of red flies into the air, and Ally screams and she freezes in place. He continues crawling as Darren and Daisy pass him—they similarly have ditched their pails of water.

Ally saw that Jamie got caught in the leg—just below his right knee was pooling with blood, but he was still pulling himself. Ally unfroze and ran out toward him. Darren and Daisy ran past her and headed for the nearest house. Ally bent down to help Jamie to his feet—his blood pooled around his leg and he screamed out as she—

Another shot.

It struck one of the fallen pails and rang out as the bullet ricocheted. Ally tensed up and she feared the ricochet had done the deed. She turned to the field and saw the figures approaching even closer. In the split second she looked she saw ten figures in all, whooping and laughing. Two more shots ring out followed by a third.

Jace. I need you. Help us.

But she only heard the sounds of a fourth shot in return. She looked down to Jamie and finally got him up, but as soon as he did she felt him ripped from her arms. The fourth shot tore through his chest and he sputtered out onto the ground, dead. Ally screams as she ran toward the other children. She passes Elaine who is running out of the building on the left with a mounting look of horror on her face as she eyes the figures and then looked to Jamie’s body.

“We-we...we” Ally tried to say but she’s shaking too much.

JACE. PLEASE I NEED YOU I DON’T WANT TO DIE HERE.

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But still she got no response. Elaine let out a cry as it started to dawn on her—this was the moment that Ally realized that they didn’t have any method to defend themselves. There was nothing they could do—they were too close already to run away successfully—they’d only be gunned down like wild animals.

“We have to h-hide,” Ally suggests. “I-It was our only—” another deafening sound as a bullet flies just passed Ally’s face and lands itself into the side of the building the two kids ran into, splintering the wood and eliciting screams from those inside. Ally falls to her knees and puts her hands over her ears and cries. Elaine helped her up and calls out to the two children.

“Come on you two! We’re going to the back!”

Elaine helped Ally walk toward the rear of the encampment, Darren and Daisy following close behind.

The figures have reached Jamie’s body and their hollering is audible now. She could hear their laughs as they unloaded full clips into his dead body.

Ally stole a glance back and made eye contact with one of the men who gave her a wicked grin, raising his arm. Ally felt a rising force inside of her and thought that this was the time Jace would spring forward and save her from the villains like he did before—but he didn’t come. The force she’d been feeling was bile rising up her throat as the man pulled the trigger and the bullet coursed through the air. It wasn’t close enough for him to hit her accurately, but the bullet did find a home inside Darren’s shoulder. He coughed a crimson spittle as he hit the ground—Daisy started to scream even louder, and one of the other men cheered on the first for his shot. They cleared the distance in a matter of seconds.

Darren clawed at the air for respite. The man that had shot him—Ally could see that they weren’t wearing any clothes—stepped up and sent his foot down on the child’s hand, causing him to yelp out in pain. In response, he shoved a foot into his face, twice, three times, then pulled his revolver on him and fired three rounds into his face—tearing it apart completely. Ally threw up at the sight of it, falling out of Elaine’s grasp—whose grip on sanity had been as fleeting.

“Fuck you think you’re doing?” The second man asked. Elaine was shaking, frozen to the spot. Two of the men pushed forward, and when she started to double back and run they side-eyed one another as the challenge was on.

“You try to shoot the leg, I’ll pick her up.”

“Got it.” It only took two shots. The first hit the dirt without much fanfare, but it certainly made her run that much faster—Ally and Daisy were frozen as they were scared the men would kill them if they dared move.

The second shot, however, dug right into Elaine’s heel and sent her toppling over herself. As the second man approached her, Jesiah leapt out from behind a stack of crates and landed on the guy’s back, yelling that he wasn’t going to be doing anymore harm. As the guy swung around, Jesiah saw just how outnumbered he was, and his grip loosened just enough for him to be thrown off. A fourth man in the crowd fired off three shots that ended him.

Elaine managed to crawl a few feet before the man—previously distracted—now returned his focus to Elaine. He walked over and bent down, grabbing her by the leg—his motion was almost an entire yanking of her body—she screamed out as he grabbed almost exactly where the bullet entered her foot.

She tried to kick out, but only succeeded in flipping herself over. He adjusted, and continued dragging her back to the main group.

“Leaving the kids. What a shame,” The man that spoke first before said.

“Right shame. What’chu think, The hole for this one?”

“Should do her some good,” a third replies.

The third looked to Ally, “Think these two should go to Far Right...I think P and F wing.”

“Sounds about right.”

“Think I can get some action with the runner before we go?” One from the back said. “Been a while.”

The others contemplate, a few with disgusting expressions on their faces, to Elaine’s horror. “Two of you, clear out the rest of the camp, kill the rest, three’s fine for this sector. Rest who want in follow Jason to...” he trailed off, finding the house one of their earlier bullets had hit.

“There. Kill anyone inside if there is. You’ve got ten minutes. We’ll take the sprouts and start walking back. I trust you’ll be able to catch up.”

Jason, the one who proposed the idea looked like he had just won the lottery. Ally felt herself being hoisted up before she could fully notice what was going on—the one who had made the plan—the burliest out of all of them had made the move while she was looking toward the building. She let out a cry of protest and he whacked her across the head.

“I’ll choke you out if you do that again. I don’t need you awake.”

“You’re...what’re you...”

“No talking,” he turned to one of his comrades. “Con, come on. We’re moving out.

“Con”, the man directly next to him looked a little unfortunate that he couldn’t partake in following Jason, nodded and hoisted Daisy up as he had Ally. Daisy was kicking and screaming much like Ally had to start, and Con similarly whacked her upside the head. Daisy didn’t stop, though, so he did it again, and then a third time until her head slumped against his shoulder.

Ally stared, horrified as she saw blood dripping down his shoulder, and the utter lack of care. The two men started to walk away from the group as they went on their missions, Elaine was screaming at the top of her lungs as three men started toward her and picked her up by each of her arms while Jason took over her legs. She shook and screamed. That was the last time Ally had ever seen Elaine.

As the two men got farther away from the village she could see some of the other figures following in the distance—having had their fun. Smoke billowed out over the place she had called home for the past three years, and it had been too much to bear. She fell into a deep state of numb anxiety that only kept enough of her awake to be considered alive. She no longer wanted to be alive. She no longer wanted…