(Aaron's PoV)

    Connor climbed down from his top bunk, flicking my head as he reached the floor. "Well Aaron, you know what day it is."

    I pushed myself up and smirked. "Hell yeah, July 9th. Happy Birthday, man."

    "You too," he replied.

    "Seventeen," I realized. "We can legally go watch R rated movies now. You know, as soon as we get done with the war."

    We both shared the same expression of disappointment.

    Sean nearly jumped out of bed. Luckily he slept on a bottom bunk. "Whoa! You guys have the same birthday. That's so cool!"

    "Well actually Sean-" I tried to explain, but man, that kid could talk.

    "That means you could have a combined birthday party. That would be awesome! Have you ever done that? One time I had a birthday party at-"

    "Sean," I stopped him.

    "Yeah." He looked up. Surprisingly, he still had oxygen left in his lungs.

    "We weren't born on the same day," I told him. "Connor's birthday's the 6th, and mine's the 11th, but we just picked a day in between so we could celebrate them together. We've done that since we were little."

    "Oh," he said. "Well that's still cool."

    "But if you look at them separately, it means that Aaron's still technically a little kid," Connor joked.

    "Despite how much more mature I am," I added, playfully punching him.

    "Have you gotten anything?" Sean asked.

    Connor furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. "What do you mean?"

    "Yeah," I continued. "It's not like we could get presents. We're thousands of miles from home."

    "I know that," he responded while fidgeting with his hands. "I meant, like something small...or even just a letter."

    Connor shot me an awkward glance. Our birthday had never really been a big deal outside of the two of us. There wasn't anything wrong with that, but it was just the way it had always been.

    "Don't worry," he assured us. "It's probably just cuz mail's really slow here."

    I gave him a half-hearted smile. "Sure."

    Spending our birthday here was definitely one of our worst ones. It was right up there with the time we had to be separated for our 12th one cuz Connor had to go to Lincoln for his brother's state baseball tournament. When I asked if he could spend the weekend at my house, my parents got mad at me for "trying to ruin the Nothams' family time." Even though we were at least together now, the whole "imminent danger" thing was kind of putting a damper on the mood.

    Connor fired off another bullet. "It seems like there's more people trying to cross the barricade every day."

    I grimaced. How long was it gonna be until one of them actually made it? But then again, it wasn't long ago that we lost track of one of them.

    I looked down to see Sean practically huddled over the ground.

    "Are you all right?" I asked.

    "Yeah," he said quickly.

    Everyone seemed more on edge ever since Andrew almost got shot. I couldn't blame them. The incident kept my own guard up, but I still felt guilty whenever I had to fire my gun. I kept a close watch on the other side all day.

    "Well, the good thing is neither of us have guard duty until tomorrow," Connor pointed out once we were near base.

    "Thank God," I muttered.

    "What's for dinner, Holly?" someone asked.

    She picked up a package to read from it. "Lemon pepper tuna."

    Connor rolled his eyes and almost laughed. "Our favorite."

    I made a face. "I swear, it's like they're trying to come up with the worst possible flavors." I reluctantly grabbed a package and scanned the room. "Where's Sean?"

    Connor cocked his head. "I know I saw him run in ahead of us."

    "Me too," I said, still craning my neck. "Maybe he just had to grab something from his bag," I guessed before forcibly chewing and swallowing my fish. "Man, and I thought school cafeteria food was bad."

    Connor raised his glass in agreement. "What do you think it'll be tomorrow? Tofu ham-salad?"

    "Guys!" We heard Sean's excited voice. We turned around to see him. His body was so jittery, it was almost like he was vibrating. I couldn't tell what his hands were doing since they were hidden behind his back. "I was thinking about when you guys were gonna get mail, but then I realized that I've never seen either of you get anything."

    I pursed my lips before answering. "Well, yeah."

    "But I didn't want you guys to get nothing. So I made you this." He put his hands out in front of him, revealing a stuffed sock. I'm not sure what was inside of it, but it gave it an almost oval shape. The opening was tied together with a rubber band.

    He looked sheepishly at the ground. "It was supposed to be a football."

    "You made this today?" Connor asked.

    Sean slowly looked up. "Yeah. I filled it up with leaves and grass. And I stole the rubber band from Holly's room while she was passing out dinner--but don't tell her that," he added in a whisper.

    I picked up the sock football and gave it a small toss. It was extremely lopsided, dirty, and wouldn't be able to withstand much, but the attempt meant more than words could say. Even Connor couldn't suppress a smile.

    "Thanks kid."

    Sean beamed. "Really? You guys like it?"

    "Best gift ever," I replied. It was the best gift simply because of who it came from.

(Matteo's PoV)

    I held Emmy's old note in my hand. A month. It had been a whole month since I had gotten it from her. I knew neither she nor I could help it. Mail was slow. But still, I was worried.

    I reached for another bottle of toothpaste, but Will took it out of my hand before I could unscrew the lid. "Take it easy," he advised. "That's like your third one this week and I kinda think that too much of that stuff isn't good for you."

    I shrugged. "Maybe."

    He sat down next to me. "I know you're worried about your girlfriend-"

    "What if she's hurt," I interjected. "What if she can't write back cuz something happened to her?" I quieted down. "It's not unlikely."

    Will bit his lip.

    "I never know what's going on at exactly this moment." My breathing grew faster. "I can't even calm down when I get a letter and she sounds fine cuz I know that was from weeks ago." I tilted my head back as thoughts of the worst filled my brain. She could be hurt, and I wouldn't know. It would be all my fault cuz I wasn't there to protect her. My throat seemed to be closing up with each thought.

    "Matteo," Will snapped me back to the present. "I'm so sorry."

    "It's not your fault," I mumbled.

    "I know," he said. "But it's gotta be so hard, having to wait so long to hear from someone you love." The genuine care in his voice made me feel guilty.

    I sighed. "I shouldn't even be complaining. I mean you never hear from anyone."

    "That's cuz no one wants to hear from me," he replied.

    "But why?" I wondered. His parents may be awful, but they couldn't be the only people in his life.  And then there was his weird relationship with his sister. She couldn't possibly be happy he was here. I didn't see how anyone could dislike Will. He was the nicest, most selfless person I knew. Of course whenever I tried to tell him that, he would deny it before I could even finish my sentence.

    "They just don't," he snapped. He took a deep breath. "Sorry. But what I was trying to say was: don't feel bad about worrying. It just means you care," he explained. "Just try not to let it consume you."

    "I'm horrible at that," I admitted, feeling my stomach twist into knots.

    "It's not easy," he responded. "To be honest, I'm not sure if it's even possible, but please try. You have someone who wants you to come home more than anything. You've gotta focus so you can stay safe for her."

    He was right. Emmy was definitely as worried about me as I was about her. She didn't know what was going on here. I set her letter back in my bag. I couldn't afford to dwell on how much I missed her, or else I might not make it back.

    "Thanks Will," I told him. "And I'm sure there are people who want you to come home safe too."

    He grimaced, but didn't reply.

    There had to be someone besides me who cared about his well-being. There just had to be.

(Landon's PoV)

"Ow!" Tristan cried, clutching his arm.

"Sorry," Gavin said. He still held a tight grasp on his gun. "There was a mosquito on you. I was trying to kill it."

"By hitting it with your gun?" Tristan asked.

Gavin shrugged. "I don't know. It was the first thing I thought of."

I shook one off that was resting on my hand. "There's so many of them," I muttered.

"Especially since monsoon season," Gavin added.

"No shit Sherlock," I told him. "Mosquitoes are attracted to water."

We kept wishing they would go bother someone else. Granted, the other guys probably had to deal with the same thing as us, but we didn't want to deal with any mosquitoes, especially me.

God, I hate bugs.

"You know," Gavin pondered. "If they were bigger, we could just shoot them."

"Hell no," I shut down the idea. Bigger mosquitoes would not help us in any way, shape, or form.

I noticed one fly towards me and I tried to wave it away, but my handwork didn't seem to be doing any good. It looked like the bug kept getting closer. I frantically swung my hands around, growing more panicked by the millisecond. I lost all composure once I had realized it had gotten behind the lens of my glasses. Screaming, I knocked my glasses to the ground. Everything was blurry, but at least I couldn't feel that thing crawling on my skin anymore. I couldn't see a damn thing, but I could hear Tristan and Gavin laughing.

"Dude, you were freaked out," Tristan told me.

I could feel my face growing redder. "Shut up. It was under my glasses."

Gavin placed my glasses in my hand, knowing I wouldn't be able to find them on my own. He continued to snicker while doing this though. "Yeah, but it was pretty entertaining to watch you squirm around."

I put my glasses back on and rolled my eyes once I could see properly again.

By the end of the day, we were all more bitten up than we had been since we got here. I had several bumps on my hands and neck. Also the top of my right cheek stung like crazy.

"What happened to you?" Holly asked, noticing me scratching it.

"Mosquitoes," I responded flatly.

Gavin nearly stood up out of excitement. "You should have seen it!" I started kicking him under the table, but he wasn't getting the hint. "He was screaming like a girl."

"Like a scared teenage boy," she corrected.

"Sure, whatever," Tristan brushed her off. "But they do hurt a lot," he added, gesturing to a bite on his wrist.

"Well, why don't you make like the mosquitoes and suck it up," Holly retorted.

"Can't you give us anything for them?" Gavin pressed.

    She shook her head. "No. It's not like it's anything important. Mosquitoes here aren't known to carry diseases. You're fine. You could be losing a lot more than a quarter ounce of blood."

    She slapped my hand down from my cheek. "Stop scratching them. That's so counterproductive. If you want them to go away, you have to ignore them."

    I placed my hand back up to the bite. "Easier said than done."

    "Well, you see, there's this great remedy called self-control," she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "You just decide you're not gonna do something, and then you don't do it." She paused for a moment. "That or I could just break all the bones in your fingers. Whatever's easier."

    I smirked at her. "Sounds tempting, but I think I'll pass."

    "But seriously, stop scratching them. It's so bad for them," she added before starting back to the infirmary.

    "Wait!" Gavin called after her. "Aren't you gonna give us anything for these?"

    "I already told you no," she replied without even turning around.

    Gavin slumped further down in his chair. "So our only defense against monsoons and mosquitoes is self-control and sucking it up-."

"We're screwed," Tristan finished for him.

(Clayton's PoV)

    "I can't believe the breakfast today," I groaned. I think it was supposed to be some kind of toast, but I'd swear on my life that it was not made with bread, or wheat, or whatever bread's made out of.

    After just one bite, I couldn't eat it, and I practically ate anything.

    Logan scrunched up his face. "We need better food."

    Trevor rolled his eyes. "Really? I hadn't noticed."

    "We just need to deal with it," Daniel told us. "It's obviously not going to get any better."

    I placed my arm around him. "See, that's the problem with you Daniel."

    "Don't touch me," he chided, pushing my arm off.

    "You always take what you're given," I continued without missing a beat. "Well, I'm not like that. If I don't like something, I change it. And since the food here sucks, I'm gonna do something about it."

    Daniel raised an eyebrow (as I expected), but Logan seemed to be on board with me.

    "I like Clayton's idea!"

    Daniel sighed. "Not that I wouldn't love to get better meals, but where else do you expect to get food? It was a miracle that Lt. Jason wasn't killed during his McDonald's run."

    After a moment, Logan's eyes lit up. "We could go hunting."

    It was perfect. "I like the way you think," I said, high-fiving him.

    Trevor was stifling his laughter, while Daniel just wore a deadpan expression. "Hunting..."

    "You're just jealous that you didn't come up with it first," I retorted.

    Trevor cocked his head to the side. "Neither did you."

    "Yeah, but I inspired the idea."

    Daniel waved me back over to his attention. "You do realize that we haven't seen any animals since we've been here," he pointed out.

    "That's cuz they're all hiding," I explained the obvious. "But we'll be able to find them. And when we do, we can kill them because we've got guns."

    "And the animals don't," Logan added.

    Daniel put his head in his hands for a moment. "You're not gonna catch anything."

    "We'll see about that," I challenged. "Come on Logan."

    The two of us left the group and searched around for hours. Despite all our time and effort, there wasn't a single animal in sight. (Unless you count mosquitoes, but I didn't because they would probably taste disgusting. Plus they're filled with blood, and so if we did eat one, that would make us like vampires, and I am not about that Twilight crap.)

    "Maybe all the animals live underground," Logan hypothesized as we kept walking.

    "But that doesn't help us." I complained. "We haven't seen any on the ground or in the trees-"

    "What about in the bushes?"

    "Yeah, that makes sense," I realized.

    We made our way over to the nearest bush, and stuck our hands inside them to feel around for anything that could possibly make good meat. On about the third bush I checked, I noticed several red, circular things on the edges. "Logan!" I exclaimed. "I found berries!"

    He rushed over to me. "Are they good?"

    I popped one in my mouth. I didn't recognize the flavor. "It's kind of sour," I said. "But they're all right. I'd eat another."

    Logan tried one too. He shrugged after eating it. "Not bad. Better than an MRE that's for sure." He took a second to eat another one. "Should we tell the others about this too?"

    "No," I said immediately. "This is a survival of the fittest kind of deal," I told him. "We were smart enough to find another food source, so we deserve this. Plus, nobody else wanted to help us. They were all content with their crappy MREs."

    "I guess you're right," Logan agreed, taking another handful.

    We continued to stuff our faces with berries. We were trying to compensate for all the lunches we were never given and any other meal we outright skipped due to food quality.

After it had been dark for a while, we figured the rest of the guys would be going back soon. We each grabbed one more berry before leaving.

"We totally lucked out in finding these, '' I said.

"And the best part is," Logan began. "Berries are plants, so that means they'll keep re-growing."

"Unlimited food," I had to keep the happy tears from swelling out of my eyes.

I looked ahead to see that Daniel and Trevor were in the exact same place as they were when we left them.

I placed my last berry in my mouth. "Now remember:" I reminded Logan, still chewing. "Don't tell them anything."

He ate his final berry and gave me a thumbs up.

Trevor noticed us returning and asked, "so, did you find anything?"

"Nope, nothing," I lied. "No animals or anything else we can eat."

"But that doesn't mean we're gonna stop trying," Logan added.

"Yeah," I agreed, sensing where he was going with this. "We'll keep searching every day in this war if we have to."

Daniel furrowed his eyebrows in suspicion for a moment, then just shook his head. "You guys are weird."

        After he turned away from us, Logan smiled. Like me, he couldn't wait to go back to our secret snack spot tomorrow.