The Last of Us

The sun was bright that day, though it felt as though it was heating nothing as I forced my feet up and down through the thick layer of snow. Nobody was expecting the storm to hit as hard as it did last night.

As I made my way around the back to fetch some firewood, I noticed that there was no sign of life outside. The forest seemed to be barren, the trees stripped of all their natural color and beauty.

Not a sound was made around me, other than the sloshing of my boots in the snow. I frowned, hoping for a single bird chirping, but I recieved nothing in return for my prayers. I hated the winter, and since it seemed to be cold here all year round, I hated this place. I cursed my parents for making me move here to Colorado 2 years ago. I'm 18 now, I told myself, but I had no where to go and nothing to do, so that ruled out moving away.

I zipped my jacket up a little tighter and grabbed a few pieces of wood and then quickly made my way back into the house, to avoid further wind burn on my already sensitive skin. The house was much warmer, and I felt relieved when my skin began to feel toasty. I took off my boots and jacket leaving them near the front door. I made my way into the living room, where my father sat staring at the television with an open whiskey bottle in his hand. He grumbled something at the tv before taking another chug of his drink and slamming it down to the floor. I sighed and tossed the wood into the fire place and watched as the fire sparked and grew, engulfing the once frigid logs.

I looked up at the mantle above the fire at the picture of mom. I missed her, and I hated looking at the pictures of her, but it was all we had left of her. If dad hadn't been drinking that night, nothing would have happened. But since it did happen, it made his drinking problem worse, and in turn made my life worse.

I went to my room quietly and sat on the side of my bed that faced the mirror. I stared at the dark circles under my eyes, and my pale skin. I pulled the tie out of my hair and watched as It fell flatly down my back and shoulders. I sighed again and laid back onto the bed. Staring up at the ceiling, I begged for something to do. Some activity, game, even stupid illegal thing to do to occupy me. I hated sitting here all day cleaning up after my asshole of a father. I wished I could make friends at school, but that was out of the question because everybody knew about my drunk dad, and his douche-bag comments at the parent/teacher meetings.

I went on my computer to look for clubs to join around our town. I spent about an hour scrolling through a myriad of different clubs and societies, but nothing interested me or caught my eye in any way. I began to get bored of this, scrolling for no reason in particular. But I noticed a lot of stuff referring to secrets and secludedness.

I deemed this interesting, and so I searched, "secret societies and mysterious organizations in Colorado.". Nothing really came up, which was expected or they wouldn't really be a secret. But I did find a peculiar news article on a man convicted of murder and robbery of a science lab about 5 miles north of my school. Apparently, this man "Charles Dickinson" claimed to be the founder and leader of an underground secret society called The Guild of Golden Knowledge.

Obviously this was just a deranged man who unfortunately took the life of an innocent bystander. I was always disgusted by murderers, and I didn't really want to finish the article, but it got more interesting when they revealed details about the case.

It said that he had stolen high amounts of deadly gasses, and even larger amounts of sedatives, brain defunctionizers, and even a small vile of uranium. But that wasn't even the weirdest part, At his hearing, over 100 people showed up and none of them revealed their names or reason for being there. All they said was that they were related to Mr. Dickinson and that they were here to support him. He was convicted and sent to maximum security prison in Texas where he spent 3 years before escaping, and taking a boat to Cuba.