2012

Peyton took a deep breath as she walked along the gravel road, listening only to the soft crunches that formed with each step.
Her stomach growled loudly. I'm so hungry, she thought. I've got to keep moving. I can't stop now.
Peyton continued to walk down the road in solitude.

"Do you even know where we are?" Carlie Reynolds asked her best friend, Luke Brookes.

"No," he replied bitterly and sat down on the road that was cracking and splitting apart.

"Do you think we'll find people soon?" Carlie persisted with the questions.

"I don't know, maybe," he replied and wiped some dirt off his ragged sweatshirt.

"Maybe there will be people our age!" Carlie exclaimed.

Luke ignored her and stood up, "Let's just keep going, we don't want to get too far behind." Luke wasn't exactly annoyed with Carlie, it was just...she needed people. He didn't need people. Hopefully they would find some soon, because he really had no clue what he was doing.

Risa Hanley~~Traveler

My vision blurred from the smoke of the freshly burning magazines, all out of date of course. My corn roasted it aluminum that I had found and cleaned, I turned them over slowly watching them fleck and glimmer in the coals. These spoils were the last of my raid of when i raided a bully camp a day or so back. My pack was packed full of vegetables they had splendor ed for themselves a little earlier. They were not the greatest, probably grown while squeezing the last known minerals out of the earth. I cooked a thing of pasta ( also stolen in a raid on the slave routes) in the next pot.
I smelled the aroma of food, I hadn't had some real food in the last month or so, this was a treat. I stared as the flames peeled away the model's perfect faces and placed somemore in this time, the old perfume samples lit the fire even more.

"Wish i had some company.." and a figure stepped from the abyss of darkness and i jumped from my place, pulling a knife from it's sheath.

Wait for my post!!!

Aubin~

I stepped out of the shadows. I had planned to raid her campsite but changed my mind at the very last minute. She could cook, so I'd decided to stick around.

I took my shiv out of it's makeshift sheath, "Wish I had some company" I told her with the essence of sadness in my voice.

She jumped back, surprised.

"Sorry," I told her and sat down in front of her fire, making myself at home. But that was the way we lived these days anyhow. You had to alliance yourself with people as soon as possible.

"Who are you?" She asked warily.

I stood up and held out my hand, "I'm Aubin Fefley. And you?"

"I'm Risa Hanley..." She said, nervously. But I didn't know why she was so nervous. "Why are so nervous?" I asked her.

* hey can someone bring me in, i can't think of what to do*

I'm bored...I'm going to add one more part to my part of this story. It's an exciting story.
-----------------
"I want people, and not just any people, people our age. You know, so we can relate to them," Carlie pleaded.

Luke picked up a rock and threw it down the road. "Does it matter if they're our age?"

"Kind of," Carlie replied. "Can we stop? I'm tired."

"There's no tim-" Luke was cut off.

"Hey look! Someone is over there!" Carlie yelled and pointed at a figure that was cautiously walking up the street.

Luke covered her mouth, she looked down at his hand and rolled her eyes. "Be quiet!" He hissed. "Wait till it gets closer, if it's a bully...we run. If not, we'll see what happens."

Carlie nodded and stood there, unmoving as the figure approached them.

*Oh whoops. I think this was meant for boltageman....I'll post an opening for you then.*

Carla

Sweat stuck to my body like glue. I wiped my forehead for the millionth time. But then there seemed to be people coming up the road. A girl and boy. People to boss around!

Then, I heard some leaves crunch.

*Sorry for its lameness. I totally just realized I'm late for something >.<*

WHOA! I go to bed, get up, and this thing has already taken off! Hahaha....

Andrew Foster - Traveler

Desolation. Death. No word could even begin to describe the way the world looked now. The sun rarely came out anymore it seemed, though it rained more then anyone could imagine. Towns lay desolate and destroyed, covered in layers of ash from all the fires that had gone on, burning for days without anyone to put them out. Some still burned, and it wasn’t uncommon to see large billows of dark smoke rolling up into the sky. Nothing remained of the old world however. Buildings lay crumpled and broken, cars smashed and upturned, roads were cracked and shattered, and bodies... oh the bodies. They were everywhere. Rotting, stinking corpses, bloated and covered in flies that fed on the dead flesh. Skeletons, or parts of them lay scattered around like confetti at a six year olds birthday party. And those who remained, the few who had even managed to survive the horrible nightmare, now scrounged around, trying to seek out a meager existence on what little food could be found. Many had even turned to cannibalism as the food shortage had grown worse. It was uncommon for bullies to round up kids, only to turn them into a meal a few days later. Humans were the most popular creature around, probably one of the few left alive anymore, and many saw them as a source of food, even each other.

Sighing deeply as he retreated from his dark thoughts, Andrew cast a weary glance behind him at Spike and Tessa. Both plodded along behind him at a slow rate. Theirs faces devoid of emotion, as they moved like zombies across the ruined city. Could he really blame them though? It was hard to even stir up a small flicker of hope in the desolation that surrounded them all.

A low growl suddenly emanated from Andrew’s stomach, and he winced as he realized he hadn’t eaten in a couple of days. They needed food, and soon, or none of them were even going to make it to Mexico. “Hey guys,” Andrew called, “We should find some where to stop, we need to scrounge up some food.”

“If we can,” Spike muttered darkly, “the past few places we’ve been were picked cling.”

“I’m sure we will find something,” Tessa piped in with a tentative smile.

“Well lets go see,” Andrew said, as he turned and rounded the top of the hill. Looking around he began to walk forward when a sudden shout made him freeze in his tracks. Looking around warily he saw two figures crouched by a burned out building a ways away. Walking cautiously he began to move forward, watching them, ready for any trouble. The last thing they all needed was a fight with a bully and his gang...

The violet haired girl stepped out of the darkness and introduced herself as Aubin, all I had seen in this part of the dead zone we called a world were Bullies or Escapee slaves who were soon to get caught and it was already hard enough to escape. So I didn't let my guard down.
I surveyed her and trusted my gut, she was no bully, bullies introduced themselves by bullet if nothing less.

I shook her hand and smiled at the thought of another real person out here in the darkness.

"Too much to say!" I replied to her smiling.

Aubin~ *who has blonde hair and violet eyes*

"May I travel with you?" I asked. She smiled.

"Sure." She answered. So I plopped myself down.

"Would you look at that," I said. A group of people were coming towards us. I pulled out my shiv. "What if they're bullies? I've had enough experience with them. They're so stupid. No brains if you ask me," I told her, "relatively easy to deceive," I added.

They kept coming closer until we could make them out. But they weren't bullies. They looked like skeletons. Half starved and nearly dead for want of nourishment.

"Have any more room at your fire," one asked.

I looked over at Risa who had probably been scared enough today. She nodded.

"Course." I told them.

*sorry multi tasking does not mix well with my writing skills

Risa~

Blankly staring Risa put more corn in as the group scattered around the fire, one looked like a bully while the other two looked like travelers. She smiled to hide my concern of the bully at her fire. Risa glanced at the spiky guy,

"Would you guys like some corn or pasta?" I offered.

*I'm so confused...I'm just going to make it that Carla is going over to the group. Though, you don't know that she is a bully, just yet I think thats what lizzifer is getting at*

Carla

I was desperate. The corn and pasta was delicious. As I rubbed my stomach, I could feel my ribs even more than I usually could. They felt like long protruding bones aching for nutrients I couldn't give them.
Rotting bodies and skeletons littered the ground. Food was running out. Really running out. I've been living my life with food shortages all the time but this was major.

I missed my gang. I missed the people. I could almost feel insecurity's grasp on my sanity tightening its grip.

"Thanks for the food. My name is Carla Velasquez. We should travel together for safety reasons." I said, defiantly.

I would be in my regular spot of control in no time.

*Eww, making a bad guy isn't as much fun...*

Steven

His cap was pulled down just over his eyes, half-hiding them from the three escaped slaves standing before him. They were relatively unarmed, all they had between them was a single gun and a clip that hadn't even been loaded into it. Steven, on the other hand, had his pistol tucked into a shoulder holster, and held his shillelagh loosely in one hand.

"Where're the others?" he said, his accent thick "Two more of you got away, where're they now?"

"Dead." muttered one of the kids, "They got caught outside when the last storm hit."

Steven spotted the one closest to him - the one who held his clip in one hand and gun in the other, slowly edging the two closer to each other, as though he could somehow load the pistol without Steven noticing.

Th shillelagh was a blur, slamming into the escapee's stomach. The boy doubled over, gasping for air. His weapon fell to the ground, and Steven retrieved it before giving the kid another kick in the stomach.

"You're all coming back." he said, dropping three pairs of handcuffs on the ground in front of them, "Put those on." Now that he'd got them back, all he had to do was find his way back to the others in his gang.

Tyler

Hiding and observing was becoming something Tyler did a lot of these days. Currently, he was crouched behind a pile of rubble and twisted steel, clumped together by the last cyclone to tear through this region.

His target, as he thought of those he spied on from time to time, was lying on a skateboard beneath a car. The clink of metal on metal told Tyler that the boy was trying to fix the car.

Tyler rose from his position and approached slowly, careful not to make a sound. If this person was a bully, Tyer would probably need to knock him out, and that would be harder if he wasn't standing next to him.

He reached the car with practised ease, and bent down a little, tapping the boy's foot with the hilt of a knife he'd stolen the day before. The mechanic froze up, as though surprised at Tyler's presence. Although he didn't react violently and sit up, which would have seriously hurt him. That much told Tyler that this guy knew what he was doing, if he was just some dumb bully, he would've smacked his head on the underside of the car.

Tyler pulled the skateboard out from under the car without giving mind to the possibility that the boy was in a hurry. He looked down at him, curious, "Traveller?" he asked, refusing to say anything more for the time being.

**There you go, boltageman**

((Wow, this thing's really taken off! I'm still alone. Haha.))

Peyton Sterling- Traveler
I can't take it anymore, Peyton thought to herself. I'm going to have to stop and eat something.
Peyton sat down and removed her large bag from her back. She opened the zipper, revealing wads of money (as if that would help anymore), a couple food items, some bottles of water, and a change of clothes. She reached in and dug out a granola bar.
Great; granola again, she sighed mentally, but she still ripped the wrapper off very quickly due to her hunger.
She sat alone, eating in silence.
I'll have to get moving again. If only I could find someone to help me...