In Our Own World (complete)

Chapter 5

I woke suddenly when my pillow moved underneath me. Pillows aren’t supposed to move, right? I grabbed it to hold it still so I could go back to sleep.

“Audrey,” someone laughed. I cracked my eyes open to see that I was snuggled up with Jackson’s stomach. I immediately pulled away, rolling onto the hard concrete, and of course banging my head.

“Ouch,” I said when my head cracked against the ground.

“Are you okay,” Jackson asked, looking at me worriedly.

“I’m fine, I'm fine.” I rubbed my throbbing head. :Although I have woken up rather unpleasantly twice in a row now," I said, giving him a glare. 

“Alright,” he said skeptically. “I’m going to take a shower, I suggest you do the same.” We went our separate ways and showered. My headache went away eventually. Once I was dressed in the clothes I had layed out last night, I went to find Jackson. I expected him to be with all our stuff, or eating, or something but I didn’t see him. I peeked my head into the boy’s locker room. He was wearing a pair of basketball shorts and no shirt while he dried his dirty blonde hair. It seems wrong for me to be feeling this right now, but I had never noticed how hot he was. I see now why all the girls drooled over him. I took one last glance at him perfect abs before clearing my throat.

“I thought girls were supposed to take longer showers than guys,” I joked. “What have you been doing in here, you’re makeup,” I laughed at the thought of Jackson putting on mascara. He just threw his towel at me. I quickly pulled it off of my head.

“EW!” I screamed. “You’re naked body touched that! Gross! I feel like I need another shower now!”

“Relax, it touched you for like a second.”

“Its still gross!” I said sticking my tongue out.

“So you’re ready then?” He asked, looking me up and down. I felt my cheeks warming. Why am I blushing? I nodded when his eyes returned to mine. “Okay, lets go eat.” He pulled a shirt over his head and followed me out of the room. He grabbed a box of Lucky Charms off the bench and reached inside. I couldn’t stop looking at his hair; it was a mess.

“You’re hair looks terrible,” I commented.

“Thanks…?”  I chuckled and walked over to him. I reached up, without thinking, and ran my fingers through his hair to straighten it out. It’s amazing how comfortable I had become around him in the past couple of weeks. I didn’t realize how close I was to him until my chest rubbed against his. My eyes darted to his, which were eyeing my mouth. I quickly backed away before he could do anything. I wasn’t ready for this yet. Disappointment briefly flashed across his face, but it disappeared just as fast.

“Better?” He asked.

“Much.” We munched on our Lucky Charms, which I was getting very tired of. When we were finished, we went over our map, again.

“Ready?” He asked. I nodded nervously.

Reading me like a book, he said, “Stop worrying.” He pulled me into a hug.

“What if there’s no one else out there?” I whispered.

“There is, I know there is,” he said confidently. “At least I hope there is,” he added, sounding unsure.

“Lets go,” I said, pulling away before he made me more nervous. He put one backpack on his back and carried the other. I had one on my back, plus the maps and a flashlight in my hand. He pulled open the door leading to the tunnel. It was pitch black. I switched on the flashlight, shining it into the darkness. He followed me out and grabbed my elbow before the door shut behind us.

“I don’t want to lose you,” he whispered. We examined the map and found the direction we were supposed to be heading. Luckily, we were literally going to be walking in a straight line, so we just had to keep watch for doors. There wasn’t supposed to be one for a couple miles. I folded the map up and held it in the same hand as the flashlight. Jackson let go of my elbow and gripped my hand.

We began our journey. We didn’t talk much, just a few things here and there. What seemed like hours later, my flashlight shined on a door to our left. My legs ached badly and I was dying to sit for a minute. The address was on the front of the door. I checked on my map; this was the first door we were supposed to get to. We opened it and went inside.

“Hello?” I called out softly. No reply. We walked around in silence for a few minutes, making sure there was no one. This cellar was much smaller than our school’s. It obviously belonged to a house. There was a cupboard with some food in it. There was a couch as well. I plopped down on the couch, exhausted. Jackson took some Ramon Noodles out of the cupboard and sat next to me.

“Well that was fun,” he said, handing me a pack.

“Ha,” I said sarcastically. We put an X through the house and left. There were a lot of doors close together now. I’m assuming we are in a neighborhood. We went through and checked 13 more houses, crossing each off, as we found no people. We were both extremely tired; we had been walking for well over five hours. We decided to rest for the night. Luckily, the last house we were at had a couple of air mattresses.

We slept comfortably that night and continued this process the next day. Hours after beginning, my feet were dragging and my legs were protesting.

“Ready to stop,” Jackson asked, noticing how fatigued I was, without even being able to see me. I stopped in front of the next door. My breath caught in my throat when I read the address.

“What’s wrong?”

“Its my house,” I choked out.

“We don’t have to go in there, if you don’t want to.” He said. I slowly pushed the door open anyway, revealing the very familiar bomb cellar. Talia’s toys were scattered across the floor, she loved to play down here. I walked round slowly. Our bomb cellar had two rooms, plus a bathroom. The main room had a couch and all of our food. The other room had an old king sized mattress. After slowly walking around the main room, with Jackson following close behind, I approached the bedroom. I pushed open the door and gasped. The last thing I saw before I blacked out was Talia’s still, pale body.