TRUTH

Lisa

We walked along the road with no idea of where we were going. The excitement we’d felt having discovered the outside world gave way to concern as we found ourselves without any plans for what to do next. We passed numerous dirt roads that led to houses without walking up to any of them, not feeling confident about trusting the people of the outside world. Kevin, to whom we had looked for leadership from the outset, looked as lost as we did. One thing that became apparent as we were walking along the road was that the story that we had been told about the outside world being transformed into a wasteland by a nuclear world war was a lie.

The place we were in was some sort of farming community, the fields that we walked by were growing potatoes, carrots, cabbages; a wide assortment of vegetables that we were familiar with having grown them in Prospera. Being in the outside world and dealing with the fact that we’d been lied to was something we’d have to adjust to and that wasn’t going to be easy. Every time a car came our way we instinctively stepped away from the road out of fear and watched it drive by in amazement. The cars alone made us feel like we were well in over our heads. The unfamiliarity of our surrounding environment terrified us. We had come to this place without the slightest clue of what awaited us and were completely unprepared for it. Nobody would admit it, but the thought of turning around and going back to the cabin and from there returning to Prospera was growing increasingly appealing.

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Strangely, Miranda wasn’t exhibiting any signs of being intimidated by our new environment. For her the outside world was a place of wonder. She marvelled at the cars that passed us on the road and wasn’t at all concerned about our lack of a plan for what to do now that we had made it to the outside world. Just being here was enough to keep from her mind any thoughts about our lack of a plan spelling trouble for us. Looking at her I thought that it was possible we were allowing ourselves to be overwhelmed a bit too easily and were panicking a bit prematurely; after all, we had survived the forest and the winter.

We kept walking until we reached a bench with a sign next to it that said ‘Bus Stop’ that was in front of a small building that had a sign across the top of it that read ‘Convenience Store’. We had no choice; we had to talk to someone from this world to find out where we were, where we needed to go and what we needed to do. From our position at the bench we could see that there was one person in the ‘Convenience Store’, a girl who was behind the counter. As the person with all of the knowledge about the outside world we decided that Hannah should be the one who went inside and talked to her. She agreed, and went inside with Kevin, who insisted on going inside with her in case he needed to provide her with protection from any danger they might encounter. They went inside and left me and Miranda behind with all of our things, including the gun, which Kevin told me to bring inside if it looked like he and Hannah needed help.