The Beginning of the End

Chapter nine, The way we fall

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We are sitting around a small, yet flaming fire. Haylee is sitting across the fire from me, Lena is by my side.

Haylee had insisted that we set up camp for the night before she told us the story of how she was banished.

Only minutes earlier we had tended to my wound. I am starting to get nervous about the punctures in my left shoulder. It doesn't look like a normal injury should. It is dry and crusty. Instead of pink and bloody, the flesh around the wound is a grayish black color. I'm hoping it's nothing serious. My mother didn't bite my shoulder hard enough to reach any major blood vessels, so hopefully I'll be fine. I'm just afraid I'll wake up one morning as a soul eating zombie. Not that it'll matter by that point.

I scratch my bound up shoulder carefully. Haylee had spread some sort of gel on my injury before she wrapped it up with a piece of cloth I had torn off of my shirt. She called the gel 'aloe vera'. Haylee also gave me one of her last pills that she claimed would help with the soreness, though it honestly doesn't hurt that much.

I hear my stomach growl, it's clearly angry at me. I haven't eaten since dinner yesterday, but it doesn't seem that Haylee is in any sort of a rush to get food. I don't think right now is a good time to be eating up our rations. Oh well, I guess I can wait until tomorrow morning.

I lean back against a nearby tree, listening to the fire crackle as the flames slowly grow larger. Haylee kindles the fire with twigs, making it blaze even brighter. The flames almost seem to be dancing in the subtle breeze. I look over at Lena. She appears stiff, every muscle in her body seems tense.

I glance down at her hand. I hesitate. What if I make a fool of myself? But does it really matter? Lena already thinks I'm an idiot.

I reach for Lena's hand and take it in mine, squeezing her hand ever so slightly for reassurance.

She looks over at me, her face is flushed pink, I can see her eyes widen. I can't help but smirk at her surprised reaction, which makes her blush even more. I can tell she's embarrassed, so she looks away, her hand still in mine.

Haylee clears her throat loudly, obviously she's had enough of the lasting silence.

Haylee speaks, "So, where did I leave off? Oh, yes, I was banished."

I nod, though at the moment my mind is distracted.

"It was extremely out of the blue, when the authorities decided to banish me. They showed up at my door one evening and insisted on kicking me out of my room. Naturally, I resisted against them. But it obviously still happened anyway. It was inevitable."

"Why did they do that? Was there a reason?" I ask.

"Yes indeed," Haylee says, "I had found something out, or at least I had an inkling that something dodgy was going on."

"And what was that?" Lena asks.

"Information about the apocalypse was leaked. I had overheard some of the officials talking about it. I gathered information, completely valid, I will add. I had a suspicion that the apocalypse wasn't an accident. I believed that the apocalypse was set up to destroy us. It was meant to happen. I was going to expose this information when the bloody authorities showed up and immediately banished me to the surface, in hopes that I would die and everything would stay unknown."

"What happened to all of your evidence?" Lena asks, speaking my thoughts. I am too stunned to speak.

"When I was banished I believe they sorted through all of my belongings and disposed of it all, including the evidence and every memory of my existence."