Kevin came over as I was watering Kingston. "I'm glad you chose to move on."

I shrugged, "You made your point, and this is a chance to start over."

"Would it be ok if I called you my sister to other people?" He asked.

As if we would ever run into other people. There was no one else here. "Sure. From now on I will be you sister."

He smiled and walked away to help Roderick. I guess if it made him happier here in this empty world.

Roderick came and sat next to me as we ate our meat sticks.

After a short nap, Kevin woke me, and we began riding again. Roderick lead while I zoned off in a haze of pain and tiredness.

Then Roderick woke me, and I lead us in a fuzzy haze. The compass was getting really blurry as the light filtered into the sky.

We took another break, and I barely managed to feed and water Kingston before laying down on the ground.

Roderick poked me and held out a pill. Our last pill. “The radiation is slightly less here. Maybe we are nearing the place where the radiation stops."

I nodded hoping it was true. I hoped it wasn’t just a small pocket in the radiation. I had to hope we could escape the radiation, but at the same time we were out of pills.

I took the pill and washed it down with water. My water bag was looking dangerously low and my stomach was demanding more food.

I stumbled over to Kingston, and Kevin heaved me on to him. the skin under his eyes looked baggy and a touch dark. Was he tired as well? Yesterday's energy was gone.

We rode on in a mixture of hope and defeat. Would we make it? Cold we make it?

The sun rose up high in the sky. Around us I could see there was scraggly green plants on the ground and small bushed. Maybe the radiation was less, or maybe the mysterious radiation poisoning would start affecting us soon.

My leather was exile outfit was stiff with sweat and the sun felt like the pain of a lash against the skin. I was burning under it.

I let myself rest against Kingston's neck, and he let me lay there as he walked on under the baking sun.

My back aching made me sit back up. When would we ever be free of this place. The sun was heading toward the edge of the world. Wouldn't this be about when we would have taken another pill?

I looked over at Roderick who was checking his radiation device. He looked over at me and smiled, “Don’t worry.”

How he could be so crazy as to say 'don’t worry' in this situation?

“The radiation is less here. We don’t actually need the pills yet,” He answered my unasked question.

It was heartening to hear that but at the same time it just prolonged the inevitable. We were going to die.

The sun left us in the dark, and I noticed the moon wasn't as large a circle today. Maybe it also was realizing we would die and mourning our passing. We took our evening break, but this time no one said anything. We had our routine now, and we followed it.

We started riding again, and I drifted along a land of sand. Roderick gently shook my arm, letting me know it was my turn to lead.

Where were we even going? Did it matter anymore?

Would my hair start to fall out right after the radiation poisoning started to take affect?

Light filtered up behind us lighting a bank of clouds in a bright red I had not seen in the morning before. I looked down and I could see Kingston was carefully stepping either over or around the brush. Here and there I could see larger bushes, and up ahead in the distance like a dream was what looked like trees rising out of the bushes.

Clip clop. Underneath Kingston was a cleared solid black surface very similar to the road we had ridden out on. On the other side was a sign facing away from us.

The sign woke me from my daze and I stopped Kingston. It was an actual sign. This wasn't a dream.

"Roderick! Kevin! Look! A sign!" I called out in excitement. A sign might mean people.

"Why are you so excited about a sign?" Kevin called back in a drawn out voice, but I ignored his question and pushed Kingston forward into a trot.

The sign looked old and faded. It was made of a thin metal, and there were holes in it. The sign read, “Beware, radiation zone beyond this. Do not ever pass.”

Did that mean…? Was there a whole culture out here, or was this left from the first bombs before everything was destroyed.

Roderick rode up next to me, "This decrepit sign looks like it came from the same age as the ruins next to the city."

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The bushes in front of us rustled, and one of the pushed became the shape of a leaf covered person pointing the largest gun I had ever seen at us.

“What are ya? Demons? Ghosts? Radioactive waste walkers? Whatever ya are ya go back to where ya came from ya devils!” The leaves fell away to reveal an old man with crazy wild gray hair and an impressive beard and mustache that looked untrimmed.

I looked at Roderick, then Kevin and saw that both had their hands on the hilts of their swords. This could turn ugly. I held up my hands to show that they were empty. “My friend, we come from the city.” I pointed back into the waste and suddenly realized that I couldn’t see the city or its giant pink dome.

The man looked at me like I was crazy, “Only demon beast live in da radiation. Ya a demon beast? Then leave or I shoot!”

“No!” I forced myself to take a deep breath and continue, “There is a city in the wastes that has technology that protects its’ inhabitants from the radiation. We were sent out from the city to see if there was something beyond the radiation. We were sent to find your civilization because we have a problem with overcrowding. We’ve only been in the radiation for about four days. We aren’t beasts or monsters or demons or devils. We’re just human like you.”

The man shook his head, “I guard this border to protect from da beasts.”

Another man stepped out of the bushes, but this one was younger, maybe close to my own age, “Papa, they dona look like no beasts. Maybe we kin give ’em a chance.”

He had curly brown hair with a few scraggly pieces of facial hair and a scar cutting through one of his eyebrows. He smiled up at us and I noticed he was missing one of his front teeth, “Ya’ll friendly folk righ?”

“Yes. We’re friendly. We have just come out of the city to see if it’s safe enough to take some of our population out of the city. We are very honored by the city for taking this mission and you will receive honor for speaking to us.” I tried to use my best noble speech and act to help further what I said in their eyes.

“Waz honor?” The old man asked and then spit to the side as if warding against a curse or something.

“Honor is… everything. It’s how you act. How you treat others. It’s taking up a hard mission and seeing it through. To lose your honor… to be dishonored is the worst fate.” I tried to explain the concept and suddenly realized how hard it is to explain honor.

Both people looked highly perplexed by this idea of honor. The boy glanced at his father and then said, “Dona understand none of da stuff.”

The old man nodded in agreement, “My son here got it. So whatcha doin on this here property?”

I shrugged. “I have nothing more I can convince you with except my honor and my word, and without honor my word does not hold, but if you trust me, please, do you have a place to stay? We are hungry and tired and will pay with labor.”

The old man shrugged, “We got a place. We’ll take ya to da village head. He’ll know what to do with ya.”

The old man turned and walked into the forest and I pushed Kingston to follow while dodging braches from on top of him.

Suddenly I realized the young man was walking next to me. “What’s your name,” I asked.

“I’m Dan. What ’bout ya?” He looked up at me with a cheeky grin.

“Me? My name’s Elizabeth, but many people call me Liv.” I figured he couldn’t say my full name correctly.

“Eli-za-beth. Dona see no Liv in El-i-za-beth. Wheres da Liv from?” His speech patterns were so strange and different. And his face so innocent and eager to learn more about the stranger in his world.

“My father used to call me Lively Liz which at some point became Liv. I don’t remember exactly how it happened. I… I don’t really know. It doesn’t make much sense, but that’s the way of the world I’ve started to realize. Nothing makes much sense.”

“Lively Liz. Its pretty. Ya know how to use ya sword?” He pointed at the sword hanging at my hip.

“No. Girl’s don’t learn to fight. A friend insisted I carry it though.” He frowned as if I had said something weird.

“Why dona girls learn to fight? All our women fight. They’re some good fighters too amongst ye women. No sure why ya would not fight.” He shrugged his shoulders as if unsure how to convey his thoughts better.

I didn’t know how to reply to that either. The idea of learning to fight scared me. I wasn’t sure I wanted to ever be in a fight, but I might not have a choice. Maybe it was best to go ahead and learn to fight. Fighting didn’t necessarily make a person bad. Bryan wasn’t bad. “Would you be willing to teach me to fight?”

The guys would be mad at me for not asking them to train me to fight, but this would help build relations with these people. I had a feeling we would need better relations before bringing the rest of the people who were dishonored out of the city.

His smile became extremely big and stretched to both side of his mouth. “I’d love to teach ya! That would be great fun!” Then he became quiet, and for a while he walked quietly next to my horse.

“And if ya dona fight how’d ya get ya scar?” He pointed at the brand on my face.

I reached up and fingered the rand on my cheek. I had almost forgotten about it. “I burned myself.”

“Looks like a mark to me. Like a letter or some thin’.” He was perceptive. More perceptive than I had originally given him credit for.

“Its…” What did I tell him? It was the mark of a traitor, a murder, a criminal about to be executed or exiled. “It’s a mark of honor.” I reached up and touched the brand I had almost forgotten about. The brand Kevin and I shared. But Roderick didn’t have one. I had to have a story… Some reason Kevin and I alone had it and not Roderick.

But he just nodded. “Some people get stuff inked on ’emselves. Guess a burn ain’t so different.”

It was so strange how he simply accepted that. And people putting ink on themselves or something? Why would anyone want to do that? Well, at least he didn’t question me anymore about it.

We walked out of the forest and I could see fields with people working in them. I also saw lots of small white animals and a person in the middle of them. In the middle of the fields was a place with high wooden walls made with logs stood upright.

We came up to the sturdy wall. I could see little columns of smoke riding up from inside the wall. A guard stood on top of the wall looking down at us, “Watcha drag in this time Richie?”

The old man smiled up at the guard, “Folks who say they are travelers. Dona no if I rightly believe ’em myself, but I figured best ta bring ’em in.”

I suddenly found myself wondering if we were just being brought in so they could take our horses from us. Maybe horses were rare and they wanted them. If that was the case I wasn’t giving Kingston up unless they killed me. Of course, I couldn’t really put up that good a fight since I couldn’t fight. This might have been a really bad idea.

We walked around the wall until we came to a gate, and once we were there the gate quickly opened up. We walked through and I looked back at the guys and saw Roderick reaching out and touching the gate with a look of longing on his face. He missed the wall, and there was nothing I could do to help him with that problem. He had left it from his own free choice.

Inside the wall there was a double circle of houses with a giant wooden house or building in the center and a fairly large open space around it. I estimated there were about fifty or so houses in this village. They were fairly small houses, but only one or two of the houses looked new.

I dismounted and looked back to see that the two men had already dismounted. “Where do you want us to put the horses?” I asked as loudly as I could so that the old man could hear me.

“Put ’em in da barn. That building on da left with da fence.” I looked over to the left and realized the building I had thought was a house there was in fact a barn.