Reality

Chapter 10

We've been walking for over an hour and no sign of anyone, "I can't see anyone, can I turn on my flashlight now? Thomas thought for a moment, "yeah I guess it's ok now since I haven't heard anyone so far." 

Lydia started to get drowsy during hour six of walking. "Can... we... take... a break? I'm exhausted and we've been walking for 6 hours and around 18 miles already." Josh spoke up, "we can't, we still have two more hours of walking and still have 6 more miles left. We're supposed to walk 24 miles everyday. If we stop now, it will take longer to get to Chicago. " Lydia moaned, "please, I'm exhausted." Josh did not change his mind, so me and Thomas helped Lydia so we wouldn't go slower.

We finally made it to our first stop after about 8 hours of walking. So we basically walk 3 miles every hour with very short stops at a time. Josh wouldn't stop for more than 20 minutes, and I started to get angry at him and feel sympathy towards Thomas and Lydia. I glance quickly at Thomas and we catch each other's eye. I give a weak smile and I think about how they have never done this much exercise before; Josh isn't exactly making it easy for them. 

I think after a couple of more days of walking, he will start to feel the aching Thomas and Lydia felt on our first day. "Okay, I'm going to set up the tent. Can someone make a fire and another person get some food ready." I started to get the tent out and then Thomas came over, "do you want me to help you?" I look up at him and he looks exhausted, "that would be great. Would you mind getting out the blankets for us?" He did what I asked and then started to help me with the tent. "Thanks, that was a lot easier with you helping." He grinned at me, "no problem just wanted to be helpful." 

We started to walk over to the fire, "I think we need to calm Josh down because he is not giving us enough breaks, and it's tiring." I have to agree with Thomas because Josh is giving us a hard time about taking breaks. "Yeah we should do that, but for now let's eat."

"Hey, I just finished building the fire so now we can cook our food." Lydia smiled, I think she is proud of herself because this must be the one of the first fires she has built. She should be, "great job, and I'm starving. How's the food coming along Josh. Josh?" No sound, "where is he now? Are you trying to scare us because it's not funny." I started to freak out, until I found him on the ground sleeping. I kick him in the stomach, he's been a pain in the ass and now he decided to fall asleep. He had one job which was to make food. He groaned, "what do you want." I kick him again but harder, "you had one job which was to make food, and you fell asleep. So get your ass up and make the food. We all did our job and now it's your turn."

After dinner or since it was the morning it would be breakfast, we all went to bed in the tent. It isn't exactly a big tent, but it's big enough to fit all of us at a time. By the time I woke up, it was cold outside so I grabbed a blanket and went out by the fire. I decided to sit next to Thomas because we've seemed to get along since our last argument. 

"Morning, we're going to leave in about an hour. We just have to make sure we have everything, but we didn't want to wake you up. Well I didn't want to wake you up; Josh wanted to leave right after he got up, but I told him no." I smiled at him, "thank you, that was very sweet of you to do." It was colder than it was yesterday and I started to shiver, "are you cold? Do you want my blanket too?" Why is he being so sweet to me lately? I've been an ass to him, so why the change of heart? "You're probably cold too so we could share it." We smiled at each other and he put his arm around me. "Morning lovebirds, how was your sleep?" Right when she said that, I stood up embarrassed and walked away. I think I heard Thomas tell Lydia something, but I didn't hear what he said.

"Okay let's get going to our next stop, so we can set up the tent during the day before it gets dark. We all agreed with Josh and started to pack up. "I'm ready when you guys all are." I said, and once everyone was ready we started our next stop. After about two hours, Lydia spoke, "new rule, every two hours we take a 30 minute break to rest our legs. No exceptions." Thomas spoke up, "I agree with Lydia." "Me too." It was three against one, so we basically won and Josh has no choice but to accept it. "Fine," he rolled his eyes and kept walking. 

Thomas comes up next to me, "hey can I tell you something?" I nod, "so... I don't know how to tell you this really since I've never done this before and..." He took a breath, why does he look nervous? "Go on," he spoke so quickly that I couldn't really understand, "what?" He started walking slowly, "I like you, I've liked you for a while now." What, we barely know each other. And how can someone who looks like that who is incredibly good looking, tall, shaggy black hair, and his dark brown skin that basically sparkles in the sun like me? "I can't, I'm sorry." He tries to talk but I hear a loud noise coming from behind us, "do you hear that?" 

Everyone looked around and then the noise got louder. I looked up and there were helicopters above us, "RUN!" We all started sprinting towards a cliff and looked down; downlow was a lake. Thank god, "JUMP!," we all did and it was about a 100 ft drop.The water was deep, so it didn't hurt when we hit the water. The helicopters went over us and I'm so glad we didn't get caught. The bad side is that all our stuff is now wet. Thomas was yelling, "is everyone okay?" we yelled back, "Yeah we're okay!" That was way too close, I didn't actually think that Jeremy would go to the System; I thought it was a fake threat. This stung when I realized that Jeremy really doesn't care about me anymore.

We all got out of the water and rested for a while to try and dry our stuff. I try to stay as far away from Thomas as I can, I just can't make him feel any worse than he already does. "This is taking forever, can we just keep moving? Our stuff will dry as we walk." I'm fed up with him already and it's only day 2 of 33.

"Will you just shut up already? We've been trying to keep cool with you.. wait no. I've been trying to stay calm around you, but I'm done with your crap. We're trying our best to keep up with you, and all you do is complain about us. So will you just calm down for once and stop trying to boss us around." Josh was quiet for a second and nodded in my direction, "sorry, I'm just trying to get to Chicago so that we can actually rest. I don't want to be on the run my whole life. I promise to try and keep my cool if you promise to keep your cool too." I rolled my eyes at him, "what are you talking about." 

Lydia was talking now, "well you did threaten Thomas yesterday, kicked and yelled at Josh at least twice in 2 days. So I think it's only fair if you try to calm down too." I grunted at her and Thomas laughed a bit, "fine. Let's get going then." I looked back at Thomas, and he looked really dejected. I just can't, I can't get hurt like I did before, I won't let it happen again.