Two

Two

“Hey, Aleeya? I think there’s a huge storm coming; we should probably go to the tunnels.” Lia says as huge clap of thunder vibrates my shelter. “Yeah, there’s a storm coming…”

“Okay, I’ll ready the tunnels with Matt, thanks.”

She leaves and spreads the word, which was sort of obvious, and I go and find Matt. He’s attempting to sew two deer hides together, but it’s not really working.

“Hey, Aleeya, what’s up?” He says; glad to stop the ridiculous sewing.

“Are you oblivious? Did you not hear the thunder?” I laugh.

“Well, I was kind of busy not stabbing myself.” He gets up from the ground and wipes the dirt off his pants that we stole from an old Gap.

“Come on, will you come with me to the tunnels? I gotta get them open.”

“Sure.”

We walk for a while and soon we reach the fields that the tunnels are in. Suddenly we hear a hollow clopping sound.

“Right here.” We bend down and clear away the fine, dusty dirt and dead grass. We pull the creaky wooden doors and hop in. Matt brought a torch from the camp and he lights it with some matches. We clean out the spider webs and lay out the old dusty blankets we had in there. We light torches and then when we come out a half an hour later we are met by gale force winds. We hurry back to the camp and bring everyone to the tunnels. Everyone brings blankets, food, and more torches, we don’t know how long we’ll be there.

Matt and I wave everyone in and when the last person walks in we jump in and lock the doors from the inside. We all sit down ready to wait the storm out. I sit on a deer hide blanket with Matt, Marie, Luke, who is Marie’s “husband”, and Ashton, Marie’s two week old baby. Ashton starts crying and Marie settles down to feed her.

I look over my colony. They are so sad looking, and thin. I should do something to make them happier soon...

I sit down with Matt's failed sewing project and attempt to fix it.. He sits next to me on a blanket and watches my fingers pull the needle gently through the dear hides the attach them to make a pair of pants. After a few tries we realize he really is unteachable and he just watches me sew. I feel his gaze on me, not on the sewing.

The next day the wind still howls outside and thunder makes dirt fall from the ceiling of the tunnels. In the back of the cave we hear a steady dripping. I hope the storm lets up soon, or it could flood in here. Ashton has been surprisingly good about not keeping us up at night. Though, Matt's snoring is the opposite. It's crowded with all of us packed in here and it gets hot when everyone is smooshed together. We sing songs that people remember the lyrics to to pass the time. We also tell stories, even though story telling night is in a few days. But after about two hours of this we get incredibly bored. We all sit around, staring at he blank faces of each other, unblinking. There's isn't anything to talk about when we have all been stuck in the same cave for twenty-four hours. We doze off at odd times of -day?- night?- and the and wake up at odd times again.

Finally, on the second day, we hear the storm letting up. The dripping in the back of the cave has become less frequent and the showers of dirt also lessen. Finally, the thunder sounds more distant and the sound of the rain goes from a roar to a dripping.

Then, after two entire days of being in the tunnels, we emerge, blinking at the bright light, even though the sun is blocked by grey, swirling clouds. We walk back to the camp. There isn’t much damage, a few roofs have been crashed, and tree squished one shelter - poor Carl - and some curtains ripped, but that’s it.

We break out the old hammers and nails. We have some of the younger colonists braid ropes out of different long grasses and other materials. I switch between making repairs and climbing up the shelters to thatch the new roofs, or attach them with nails and ropes, to finding the supplies, to draining water and boiling it for drinking, and finally to braiding the ropes as well. When I was climbing Carl's shelter to put the finishing repairs, I lost my balance when a post wiggled slightly and I fell. I hit the grass covered ground with a cushioned thud. Matt leans over me, blocking out the blinding sun.

“You okay?” He asks, his face seeming more worried than his words.

“I'm fine.” I snap. I hate being treated as weak, I'm not, I'd stopped crying when I shot a dear when I realized the pain of starvation. Surviving out here has hardened me somewhat. Matt holds out his hand and I take it. He helps me up and I brush the dust and grass off me. I get up and climb up there again to finish the job.

“Do you want someone else to do that?” He calls, the worry seeping into his voice.

“Really! I'm fine!” I say, slightly frustrated.

I also fixed my shelter's damages. My curtain tore to my shelter and I repaired it by weaving grasses into the whole and then sewing it at the looser parts. The grass is a different kind and stands out in a dark green against the browning and dead thinner type. It'll go brown anyway, and eventually it will fall apart, and I'll make a new one, but it's good for now.

After three days everything is repaired and in order, rivulets still stream through the paths but that will fix itself.

Five days after the storm started it’s my birthday! I may be a leader of a group of teenagers trying to survive a post-apocalyptic world, but I can still be excited about my eighteenth birthday, can’t I? We have a small celebration that we have for everyone on their birthday. We don’t do presents, we just can’t afford it, it would take too much time away from trying to live off the land and learn how to do things more efficiently. Matt caught a deer and two rabbits and we have a feast with some vegetables we've grown. He’s our best hunter, or one of them.

After the “celebration” I retire to my shelter to get ready for bed. I’m brushing my hair, again, with a stolen hairbrush, when I hear the curtains rustle. I look toward the entrance, “Hey, Matt, what’s up?” I ask, pulling my brush through my tangles, yanking out the snarls that occupied my caramel colored hair. .

“I got you a present…” He mumbles, walking in towards me, his hands behind his back.

“What? You know you aren’t supposed to.” I pretend to scold him, secretly thrilled and excited for the surprise.

“I know… But I wanted you to have one.” One corner of his mouth quirks up slightly in a lopsided smile that is really adorable.

“Thanks.” I smile and he holds out his hand. He opens his closed fist and I see a silver chain with an oval shaped lapis lazuli and two grey quartz on either side of it nestled in his outstretched palm. I gasp, “Oh! Oh my God! It’s so pretty! Where’d you get it?!” He helps me put it on so his arms are behind me. I look up and smile. Suddenly his lips are pressed against mine urgently. My eyes widen in surprise then close in content. Thousands of electric currents run throughout my body. He pulls away, grinning.

“I’ve waited three years to build up enough courage to do that.” He grins wider, all the awkwardness of before gone, confidence and pure joy lighting up his eyes, eyes that I've never been able to tell what color they were.

“W-what?” I stammer. Then, he leaves my shelter with a rustle of the grass curtains.

Author's Note

Reviews!!!!

Reviews

[Abbie]

you did a really good job on this chapter Sophie! i think the love scene in this was really cute :) can't wait to read your next chapter for this!

[bethany cullen]

awww that's sweet and romantc i like it you should continue writing and introduce more love scenes i think :)