Just Survive Somehow

Chapter 55 - Keep Moving

We kept moving, that was all we could do. Ahren had been trying his best to get us in the right direction but it was hard. None of us knew the land very well and we only had a rough idea of where we were going.

Lewiston. 10 days walk.

That was all we had. A name and a number. 

It was strange to see Ahren take so much control. I guess I'd gotten used to being the one everyone looked to for answers... But I'd sent him out to be a leader and for two weeks he did just that. He came back more of a leader than I'd ever seen him. 

Ahri wasn't sick anymore, although the illness had left her rather weak. 

But we kept moving.

It was hard. We hadn't been on the road for a while and having left with no supplies, we were desperate for anything.

"Did you find anything?" I ask Fletch as he comes down the stairs. 

We'd split into groups and were searching a neighborhood for any supplies we could find. Ahren, Frankie, and Ahri had gone together while Fletch, Luna, and I searched together. 

A smile stretches across Fletch's face as he pulls a book out of his bag. "Check this out."

I raise an eyebrow as he shows me the cover. "Fahrenheit 451?"

He nods, looking at the book. "I've always wanted to read this book."

"Why?" I question.

He shrugs. "I don't know, I just have. Before all of this, I'd had it sitting on a bookshelf in my room for years."

"Why didn't you read it?"

"I guess I just never got around to it..." His eyes get lost searching the book cover.

I sigh. "Now is as good a time as ever." 

He looks back up at me and nods, tucking the book back into his bag.

Luna comes around the corner with her bag looking rather empty. "Please tell me you found more than Fletch did?"

She shakes her head. "Nothing."

"Well, I found a bottle of water and a container of peanuts." I sigh and we start heading towards the door.

We searched two more houses before going to meet up with the others. We hadn't found much of anything although Fletch was still stoked about his book.

"Let's hope the others found more than we did."

We meet up with them in the street between houses.

"What'd you guys find?" Ahren asks first.

"Not much," I start and show him the contents of our bags. 

A few bottles of water and some canned vegetables were pretty much it. "Did you guys do any better?" I ask.

Frankie shrugs. "Not much either."

"The sun will go down soon, let's just set up in one of these houses for the night." Ahren says, brushing past me and towards one of the houses across the street.

Everybody follows him towards the house. I fall to the back with Luna. 

"How are you doing?" I ask.

She shakes her head. "I'm... fine."

"Did you find out what happened to Vega?"

She sighs. "Ahren told me after I calmed down."

I nod. Jasper had told me the story. Ahren had gone ahead to scout, Jasper was going to go with but Vega insisted that he go with instead. Jasper was supposed to be there with Ahren, not Vega.

"Look, I'm sorry I called you a lying piece of shit. I was just-"

"You were upset, I get it." I assure her. "He was your brother, that's not easy to go through."

She nods. "Have you lost anybody?"

I sigh, glancing up at the sky. "Yeah, I have."

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry, Jasper slipped my mind! I didn't mean to-"

"It's fine. We don't know what happened to him anyway... and there were others before that."

We get into the house and organize our stuff. We'd found a total of six cans of vegetables, five bottles of water, two cans of soup, and one protein bar. 

Not enough to last the six of us seven more days walking to Lewiston. 

"That's barely enough for two days with all of us." Ahren says as he hovers over the items.

"We can stretch the soups with extra water but we don't have a lot of water to start with..." I suggest.

"We'll just have to keep searching as we move." Frankie says.

I nod. Hopefully, we could keep finding enough to survive...

We all hang around for a bit before dispersing through the house to sleep. I laid in bed that night, staring at the ceiling. Ahri was fast asleep beside me.

I couldn't fall asleep. All I could do was think. 

Tired of laying in my thoughts, I got out of bed. In the hall, the door to Fletch and Luna's room was ajar. As I walked by the door I glanced inside. Fletch was curled up in a chair asleep with a candle burning next to him and Fahrenheit 451 open on his lap. 

I gently push the door open and walk inside. I take his book and mark the page before closing it, setting it on the table beside him. I grab a blanket off the foot of the bed, being gentle as I try not to wake Luna. I lay it over Fletch and grab the candle. I take the candle with me and leave the room, closing the door behind me.

I go downstairs and onto the front porch. I lean against the railing and stare up at the sky. 

Jasper was out there somewhere. I just had a feeling that he had made it out somehow. 

Ahren hadn't forgiven me yet, and I wouldn't forgive me either. It was my fault that Jasper wasn't with us and maybe if I'd been sober that night, there would have been something I could have done to save the station. After everything we did to build that place and to just lose it in one night like that... it hurt all of us.