The mist of the forrest hid all of my emotions and tears. The wind listened to my cries of help. The ground supported my weak limbs. I breathed in the numbingly cold air around me and closed my eyes. Imaging myself as a little girl chasing the birds, thinking I had a chance of catching one. Back then I had hope, something that seems to be rotting away every day now. The memory came to a holt when I heard multiple sticks and leaves rustle, I looked over and seen a recognisable figure appearing from behind the tall compacted trees.
"God Olivia, why do you always come out here? It's freezing and you don't even have a jacket!" Sam's words chittered as he tried to take his jacket off to give to me for warmth. I refused it and he shrugged and quickly shoved it on again.
"I like it here." I said in a blunt monotone voice, "Besides, why does it matter?"
His usual jokingly voice seems to be missing as he looked at me in a painful and sympathetic expression. It went silent for a moment too long before he spoke again. "It's happened." The two words wounded me like a thousant bullets through my heart. I knew eactly what he was talking about, there had been talk about it in the villiage but nobody knew for sure.
"It can't be? Not this soon, not now?" I stumbled off of the rock and onto the dry soil and moss of the forrest floor. Sam extended his hand for me to grab. Looking into his blue eyes that suddenly resembles a dark ocean I asked the question. "How many?"
"59" He quickly replied, as if he knew exactly what I was about to ask.
"Dead or taken?"
"27 dead, 32 taken." I looked up to the grey skies and frowned at their dark pigment. A rush of warmth wrapped itself around me as Sam comforted me. His rugged stubble scraped my cheeky slightly. "We don't have much time Olivia. We have to get out of here. I know somewhere, but we must leave straight away?"
I thought for a moment before I spoke, "What about dad?" I didn't even need an answer, the look on his face said it all.
"They are taking the men to some place and loading them up in these strange hover vans. As for the woman, they seem to be selling them if they are under the age of 30 and killing them if otherwise." he paused at the agnosing thought of it all, "that's why we need to run." Sam always seemed prepared for this sort of stuff, I never understood it. For example, when mum passed away and dad was destrot, he took over by getting a full time job in the mines when he was only 16. As for me, I'm standing here confused and scared, so many questions to be answered but such little time. This sort of stuff wasn't supposed to happen to ordinary 16 year old girls. I should be worrying about what dress to wear on my first date instead of deciding 'should I use a MP5K or a UMP45 gun?'. Well it's the year 2049 and life isn't so easy for villiages like mine. We've suffered the attacks before but this time is different. It's worse.
The sound of a gun pireced through the atmosphere around us. Sam grabbed my jacket sleeve down and pushed my body close to the bark of the tree next to us. A speeding truck drove past us without notice of ourselves. Men shouting and swearing disrupted the beautiful surroundings of nature and filled my sacred place with hatred. I look over to Sam who was concentrating hard on the truck. I kept my voice in a whisper to make sure nobody apart from him could hear me, "Who are they? The government or The Red Army?"
Sam smirked slightly and shrugged, "What's the difference, they're all on the same side." His voice raised and he stood up with his arms out wide to the sky. "Do you hear me God! You're letting us be punished by these idiotic materialistic murderers!" I put my hand on Sam's shoulder to tell him to stop but he hit it off sharply and continued to shout at the trees, "AND WHY EXACTLY? IS IT A GAME? A JOKE? BECAUSE THEY ARE KILLING AND RUINING THE REAL WORLD BECAUSE WE DON'T BELIVE IN THEIR STUPID CITY LIKE WAYS?" He grabbed a rock and threw it into the tree tops and watched a flock of birds flutter away. I grabbed Sam's whole body and faced it towards mine and spoke through gritted teeth, "Look, you can't take out your anger this way. You said it yourself, we have no time to waste. If things are how you described it then we have to run tonight. Are we going North?"
"Sorry, yeah." I brushed the dirt off of him and smiled with pain and sorrow. "You ready?"
