B O T T L E D H O P E.

"Ahh!" Meg joked, sticking her tongue out to her brother who was laughing at her. "I am here to eat your brains Bryce!"

The blonde only shook his head as his sibling walked around like a mummy before plopping down on her bottom in front of him. The fire dimly lit the store that they had trapped themselves inside of earlier today to keep from having to worry about infected sneaking up on them. He munched on his canned peaches and then took a bite from the bag of stale chips before looking to his bottled water with ease. They had cleared off all the shelves before moving them to form a triangle around them and the counter so now there was a one way exit and enter for them. It just so happened to be the back of the store where a metal door was.

"You know for someone who nearly died by these crazed monsters you sure are happy." Bryce said, pointing his spoon at her with narrowed eyes. The blonde girl only flipped her braids back behind her before shrugging it off like it was nothing. He smiled lightly at her as she downed her can of pees before moving onto the chocolate bar that he had gave to her when they moved the shelves. "What? Is dying the new style?"

She glared at him and then cleared her face of any chocolate before throwing her index finger up in the air and saying, "Dying is actually the new thing since every one seems to be doing it. Everyone but us that is." He laughed at this and gave a slight nod to his head before continuing on his goodies. It hadn't been long since he had peaches but chips were a different story since nearly everyone freaked out when women started dying off one by one; not even gas stations like this were safe. Now everything had died down since most men started getting sick and turning.

No one knows how the men caught the infection and frankly Bryce didn't want to know. If he knew it'd almost make him want to avoid whatever caused it at all cost.

He looked at the watch before seeing it was five o'clock already and cold air was starting to settle in now they had a problem. The air was somehow colder than when it was January and they didn't have much to cover up with for warmth. "Guess we'll have to make it work tonight sis, it's getting colder.." His eyes jerked to his sister to see her cheeks puffed out due to how much food she had stuffed into them like crazy. "Hm?" She hummed out and he rolled his eyes in annoyance.

"Nothing. Get your bags and stuff away from the fire! I don't want to die by burning alive!" He barked out as he pointed to the brown backpack that was pressed against the barrel. "Crazy."

•Ohmwrecker's Group...

"Goddamn it Ohm!" Luke snarled as he slung his bag against the wall in the school they had stumbled upon. "I told you they'd do it!"

Ryan frowned deeply as his friend yelled this out, they had somehow managed to escape from the Wal-mart alive. They did however loose Smitty because he had risked his life to open the door for them all. "Luke–" he was cut off by the raging male. "No! Don't wanna hear it! Because of you we lost someone! You let those strangers in and we treated them like fucking family! What'd they do? They turned on us and left us for dead!"

He grabbed Ryan by his shirt and slammed him against the bookshelf that had bottles of blood on it from only God knows what. "Hey!" Jonathan yelled as he jerked his friend off the other. "Calm down! It was a simple mistake!" He watched as the bearded man growled in response and backed away from the others.

"Hey guys..check this out.." Marcel whispered as he pulled down a bottle of blood with a number on it. He showed it to everyone before speaking again, "They're numbered..what for reckon?"

Scottie took the bottle from his hand and furrowed his brow as he sat it back upright on the shelf. He took a couple steps back before making a face of shock. "This was a camp when the virus first broke out..I remember passing it when I was trying to find you Marcel. They must've been drawing blood for hopes of finding a cure. From what I heard people that carried the virus were marked with a check mark and those who could withstand the virus was marked with an X. Maybe it was to confuse people? I don't really know but they called it operation–"

"Bottled Hope." Luke whispered, his hands falling onto his head in frustration. "I was here for that.."