Liberation

Chapter 3 To change the world

        We had been walking for what felt like ages. We hadn't gone very far, only a few miles or so but we had already come across problems. We only had a few weeks worth of food and water, not enough for wherever Simon was leading us to, apparently. So we had to ration it. It was barely enough to keep us alive. Growing up on the streets made you used to skipping meals and when you had food you had a scarce amount. Alec took it worse than I did though, each day he become slower. Me being the great guy that I am I slipped him about half of my rations. It went on for a while but eventually we were caught. And Simon was not pleased.

        "You can't give him your food kid, unless you wanna die?"

        "Alec gets slower everyday, eventually he'll collapse completely, I had to give him extra!"

        "If you keep giving him your food the same will happen to you!"

        "Look at him! You can see his ribs through his clothes! We didn't have much food before but this is getting bad! We need to eat more than just enough!"

        Simon's glare disappeared when he saw Alec, he muttered something under his breath and grabbed the bag we kept our food in. He took out a blanket and layed out the remaining food and water upply we had and began to eat. Alec and I were speechless, we stared, jaws dropped as he ate. After a few moments he looked up and said "You gonna join me or stand there drooling all day?"

        We sat down and stuffed ourselves, occasionally tossing Coldlash a piece of meat. We ate better than we had in weeks. "Now that we've eaten all of this are you happy?" Simon asked. Alec and I answered with a large belch. Simon sent Alec off to play with Coldlash and pulled me off to the side. 

        "Now we're gonna need to make a detor, just you and me, to Shilick."

        "Shilick?Why can't Alec come?" 

        "He's a goody goody, he don't have a bad bone in his body, you're a different story."

        "Okay, what exactly are we doing at Shilick whatever that is?"

        "Shilick is one of the independent towns, the ones that broke off from the Empire, of course they were all taken over by the Government but for the most part they self-govern and live on their own terms, what we're gonna do is rob them."

        "Why are we robbing them? Aren't they on our side?"

        "In a way, yes, but the Government still has heavy influence there, besides that we need food if we're going to survive, and that farm town's got a surplus. Unless you want Alec to starve you and me are gonna sneak off tonight, walk the mile to the town and rob those farmer creeps! Got it?"

        "Got it " I sighed

***

        During the night Simon and I left the camp, quietly sneaking away to Shilick. We both covered our faces to avoid being seen and recognized later on. I wore a black beanie and a bandana while Simon brandished a dark sun hat and a scarf.

        Our plan was to split up, sneak into a few houses and stuff whatever we could into our backpacks. Our rendezvous point was an empty house Simon had found when he scouted the town earlier in the day. 

        The town was small, much smaller than I expected, there were maybe 30 buildings, tops. Simon had said the Government had taken control but from his description of the town in seemed much more peaceful than this gray, sad place. About half of the town was residential, the other half being industry. When Simon scouted the town he had pretty much figured out where each zone was.

        I made my way to the first house, small and slightly beaten down, just like all the other houses in Shilick. I slowly pushed open the window and slipped into the house. I quietly crept through the building, looking through drawers and chests, whatever i could find. What I found was surprisingly little, for a place with a surplus of food, a couple cases of crackers, and a tiny basket of fruit. This went the same for the next house, and the house after that, and the one after that. The only differences between supplies I could find were that some houses had some sort of first aid supply and one house had a small dagger.

        I had gotten all I could from the houses i visited, and judging by the the position of the moon, we had only an hour or so before the Sun rose and we had to be far away from here. Simon left the window of the abandoned house open to provide easy access. I climbed in the window...well, more like I fell through the window. I landed hard on my back, making quite a bit of noise while doing so. I began to stand up when I heard a small gasp and a light flickered on. I stared at 5 scared faces in the doorway.

        A father, a mother, 2 girls and a boy. All terrified and watching me intently. I raised a hand in defense. 

        "Um,I'm here to-" 

        Simon jumped through the window and landed next to me.

        "We're here for your things" he said, brown eyes cold as stone.

        Simon pulled a pistol from his back pocket and pointed it at the family.

        "Just get out of the way and let us get what we need, and no one gets hurt." 

        The father nodded, and stepped out of the way, pushing his family defensively behind him. Simon waved his gun at me and walked forward, I followed in suit. I caught the father's gaze as I passed him, and felt a twang of guilt. Simon had thought this house was empty because there were almost no pieces of furniture in here. A table, a couple of chairs, a couch and one large bed, one they probably all shared. 

        We did our job quickly, again finding nothing much. This family had even less than the others, half  an apple, the end of a loaf of bread, and 2 packs of crackers. As I went to grab the apple the youngest child, a girl with shoulder length auburn hair, ran to me and tugged on my leg. 

        "Please, at least leave the apple, this is all we have!"

        I stared at her, her little eyes sparkling up at me. I bit my tongue and turned away from her. 

        "No, this isn't yours anymore, its mine"

        Tears, welled up in her eyes, she ran sobbing back to her parents. I grit my teeth and followed Simon out the door, trying my best to tone out the sobbing of the children behind us. 

        "This...is what it'll take to change the world"

        "Robbing people with nothing is what changes the world?"

      "This is why I brought you instead of Alec, he would have given the girl the apple, you didn't, congrats kid, you're ready to take on this fucked up world."

        The next day we all ate well, and we traveled nearly double what we did in a day before. As we traveled to Simon's destination , Simon and I snuck off several times to raid more towns, with each town I grew more used to taking what didn't belong to me, each time I felt less guilty. To change the world we'd need to get to the Revolutionaries, and to get to them we'd need food, this is what it'll take to change the world...