After Armageddon (Finished)

Ch 22 - Tents

After all three tents were completely set up it was nearly dark already. We decided not to have a fire, for obvious reasons Crystal and I had insisted we didn't. We had silently decided not to tell anyone we suspected others nearby, there was no reason for panic to set in. I had never killed a person, but I, and the rest of my group would be willing to if it meant saving the rest of us.

Everyone had two or three to a tent, due to the fact that they could fit four people at most by their standards at the old tent compony. But you always have to do less than that unless you want to have feet I your face and run out of air in an hour. Crystal and I had a tent to ourselves, as did Rachel and Angel. None of them were exited about it, but Tad, and Casey shared a tent with El. El himself almost filled up the tent by himself, and he insisted neither of them were going to be in our tent, they were not happy about the arrangement.

I for one was fine. Crystal and I are both rather small, meaning there was plenty of room for both of us, our backpacks and our rolling habits.

After about an hour of just talking with Crystal and pretending the world wasn't collapsing around us, I finally decided to try and get some sleep. Even though I was on what felt like roots and concrete, I fell asleep quickly. Until of course someone said my name.

"Yeah, Lei has been sleeping for a while now. Come on in." I heard Crystal whisper. I cursed waking up on my name. It was something I've done ever since I was little to try and catch my parents talking about me. Guess I still do it. The tent zipped open and the cloth of it shook as someone entered. They zipped it closed behind them, then stepped carefully closer to Crystal.

"Are you sure she's asleep? We won't wake her up will we?" I heard Casey say. I squeezed my eyes closed tightly. I didn't want to see anything.

"I'm sure, and we won't. She's been sleeping forever like a rock. She's not waking up anytime soon." Crystal assured. I heard him lay down next to her on the far side of her. They whispered loudly to each other. I tried not to pay attention, to just fall back asleep. It was no use. I tried to put my mind to other things.

Did we leave enough food for Mojo? He's such a sweet dog. But he had probably eaten it all already. They were kissing now. Did they set up something to feed him later? I know we had a lot of his special food he likes. Why are they so loud? I wonder what dogs dream about. Just running around? Are they trying to torture me? When my old dog had a bad dream she would bark a lot. But some times she would twitch too. I wonder what that was about. I think they stopped.

I began listening agin. It seemed mostly silent. After what seemed like hours, or even days it seemed to finally be over. I rolled over 'in my sleep' to try and see if that would spark anything. One of them gasped but other than that they stayed silent.

"Should we wake her up? I know we would get in trouble but there could be something out there. I know, but I swear I heard it. I know." I heard Casey say quietly. They must be talking to each other but when Crystal whispers it's impossible to hear her unless your next to her. I heard movement and suddenly a big hand was on my shoulder shaking me awake.

I jumped up and hit Casey's hand away from my shoulder, he put a finger to his lips and shushed me.

"Lei, we heard something. Not sure if it's an animal or one of them. Thought we should wake you." Casey whispered breathing heavily.

"One, why are you in here? Two, no I won't tell them. Three, don't touch me, ever, again or I will hurt you." I barked. Usually I wouldn't be that mad about anyone shaking my shoulder, but the two of them had kept me secretly awake for hours. I was finally able to say something about it and I wouldn't miss that opportunity.

He backed off and held his hands back. I noticed he had his knife out. They weren't kidding. I stood up in the tent as well as I could and pushed my hair back from my face to look out the tiny window.

That's when I heard it too.