Chronicles of the Fall- #1- Empty Night

Chapter 21: A Snake With Good Intentions

"DJ?" Laken calls quietly, standing up quickly. She scans the woods around her, not seeing any movement. She'd heard a twig snap, there was no imagining it. Her heartbeat speeds up, her eyes darting about.

"Yeah Lake, it's me," DJ answers before showing herself from where she was behind one of the trees. Laken lets out a sigh of relief. Being alone in their makeshift camp always made her feel nervous, unprotected.

"Find anything?" she asks, but she can tell by the expression on DJ's face that the answer is no. DJ shakes her head softly, her lips pressed thinly together. Laken studies the hollows of DJ's cheeks that used to be full. She looks down at the empty food cans at her feet.

'When was the last time we ate?' she thinks to herself. 'The day we killed all those lurkers on the north pass...' Three days.

"I've checked everywhere, miles surrounding us. There are no more supplies. At least nothing we can get to without a vehicle," DJ grunts, sitting down next to the fire. She pushes a half burned branch into the flames. The two sit in momentary silence. The air around them is still and cold, as usual. Laken's stomach grumbles, interrupting the quiet.

"We can't live like this anymore DJ. We've got to do something," Laken says, clutching her stomach. DJ looks up to her best friend, whose frame has gotten significantly smaller and frailer. Where there was once sparse fat, there is nothing but skin and wiry muscle from killing lurkers.

'We're starving out here, sitting ducks. If Tripp were to attack us now, we would never stand a chance, we've let ourselves get weak,' thinks DJ. Her own stomach growls faintly, and she begins to feel sick. "We've got to eat," she agrees.

"We know where the Council is, we have an idea of where the Elites are. What if we find them? We could unite the group again. We're better in numbers; safer, smarter, more prosperous," Laken says, her eyes weary and wistful with the memories of full stocks of food at the zoo.

"Tripp would never agree to that," DJ snaps, shaking her head.

"Tripp, or you?" Laken questions. DJ's eyes flick back to Laken, and her long, matted black hair makes the action appear more wild.

"Who's side are you on right now?" DJ asks defensively.

"What's stopping the groups from getting along? You or Tripp?" Laken repeats.

"You talk as if you haven't spent the last several months living with the bastard," DJ growls, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Do you really think he'll want to negotiate with the person who beat his ass into the ground with a pair of brass knuckles?"

"You really think you'll be the one talking to him?" Laken counters. She tosses a pine cone into the fire.

"Like his arch enemy's best friend is much better," scoffs DJ. "Look, even if we get Tripp to agree to it, what on earth gives you the idea that Hampton will go along with that? You know he won't have anything to do with Tripp after the way he grabbed Faith and tried to kill me."

Laken shakes her head, her eyes suddenly having a little more fire in them. "Tripp is cold, but he's not crazy. He wouldn't kill a real person."

DJ stands up, walking to the edge of the rock where their fire was burning. She looks down the drop, down among the pines and underbrush. She can't believe what she had just heard Laken say. DJ's jaw is clenched so hard that the muscles begin to get sore.

"You're not the one who was almost got choked to death," she hisses, her hands curling into fists. "He was strangling me, Laken!"

Laken doesn't have anything to say to that. She's never seen DJ this agitated, and takes the time that DJ uses to cool herself down to mull over her friend's argument.