We followed the sickening crimson colour to the front of the building. There lay three limp bodies, I had a terrible feeling that I knew them very well.

"Mom? Dad?" Liesal asked as she approached the bodies slowly. "Is that you?" One of the figures turned around and looked up at her.

"Who are you girl?" a man I didn't know asked. I breathed out a sigh of relief. Thank goodness it's not them.

"Who are you?" he asked once again. Liesal ignored him and ran over to the other two bodies, she rolled them over revealing the faces of a woman and another man.

"What happened?" the lady asked with a dazed expression.

"You tell me," I told her. I inspected them and realized that all three robbers were badly injured, as if someone had beaten them deliberately.

"Well the last thing I remember is that we chased these old people..." the lady began.

"Excuse me?! What did you just call them?" Liesal yelled.

"Does it matter?" the lady asked irritated. This only made Liesal angrier. "Anyway we chased the old people and were very close to catching them, but suddenly out of nowhere people dressed in grey appeared. Even though they were not great in number, they outranked us in skill. We were beaten brutally and that is how we ended up here,".

"What happened to our parents?" I asked.

"Who?" she said confused.

"The old people!" I told her, growing more impatient.  

"Oh them. They were taken by the people dressed in grey, 'Men in Grey' we call them," she answered.

"You know these people?" Liesal asked.

"Yeah, they destroy our campsites, and hurt us whenever they have an opportunity," the man to the right of the lady said.

"I wouldn't blame them," Liesal scoffed, a look of disgust was plastered on her face.

"Excuse me? Did you insult us?" the man questioned.

"Yes I did, do you have a problem with that?" Liesal challenged.

"You just crossed the line girl! I can't do anything at the moment, but believe me when I tell you; I will get you back for such an insult!" the man yelled waving his fists in the air.

"Are you looking for trouble missy?" the lady asked.

I put my hands up in defense, "Oh no! We don't want trouble, right Liesal?" I asked, she ignored my question and continued to glare at the robbers.

"So that's her name!" the lady said.

"Yes and mine is Meredith," I told her.

She smiled slightly and introduced herself, "Name's Carrie, on my left you've got Joey and to my right is Pierce,".

"Well nice to meet you,"I said. "Like I said before, we don't want any trouble okay? What we are going to do now is take you back to your campsite, then we will find out where the 'Men in Grey' are located. After that we will save our parents,".

"And what makes you think we'll lead you to our campsite? What if we refuse?" Joey asked.

"Oh you can't refuse," I said as I smiled. "Or more specifically, you wouldn't want to,". I reached for my back pocket and pulled out a knife, I started balancing it between my fingers skillfully.

"You wouldn't," Carrie said.

"Oh, but I would," I threatened. "Can you walk?"

"Why are you asking?" Pierce asked. I leaned towards him with my knife pointed.

"Just answer my question!" I demanded.  Slowly the cold metal touched his neck.

"N...no" he stuttered.

"Liesal go and get three wheelchairs," I told her. She hurried away and soon came back with the chairs. We helped the robbers onto them and bandaged a few wounds. Liesal even managed to make a cast for my broken arm and fixed my head. "Stay here, I'll get Eric,"I said. I began to walk through the aisles and finally found the spot where Eric lay. There was only one problem, Eric was nowhere to be seen. "Eric? ERIC! WHERE ARE YOU!?" I yelled. Footsteps approached slowly and Eric emerged from isle number nine.

"Are you my sister?" he asked as he walked towards me.

"Stop joking around little man! You know who I am!"  I laughed. "Are you okay?"

"I'm perfectly fine, how are you?" he asked in a monotonous voice.

"I'm good, let's go," I replied. Something was wrong. He was acting very peculiar. He followed me to the front of the store as I explained the situation. Each of us pushed a wheelchair and Joey told us where to go. It was getting dark outside so we decided to take a rest for the night and continue in the morning. I stayed watch while everyone else slept. After an hour or so my eyelids became heavy and I was drifting of into some nightmares.

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Mom, Henry and Joanna were tied to posts while the 'Men in Grey' questioned them.

"Where are they?" a man asked.

"Who?" Henry asked.

"The kids! Your kids! Where are they?" the man repeated.

"We don't have any kids," mom lied.

"Don't lie to me!" the man yelled. He ripped of his mask and underneath was an alien face! He moved closer to mom, Henry, and Joanna. In one hand he had a saw and it looked like he was going to use it. Slowly he raised the saw and pointed it towards Joanna, with great force he brought down the blade and....

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"AHHH!" I screamed. I sat up and realized that it was just a nightmare. "Thank goodness," I mumbled. Liesal slowly got up, awakened by my scream.

"What happened?" she asked rubbing her eyes.

"N..nothing, go back to sleep," I told her.

"No it's okay, I'm not tired. I can take watch now, you should probably get some rest for the morning," Liesal said.

"Are you sure?" I asked. She nodded in reply. So I lay my head on a rock nearby and closed my eyes, I drifted off into a more peaceful sleep. Then I felt someone tugging on my shoulder.

"Meredith! Meredith! I think someone followed us!" Liesal whispered. I opened my eyes and looked up  at her, she was terrified.

"Why do you think that?" I asked.

"I heard footsteps," she told me. I slowly rose to my feet and saw a light in the distance. It looked like flashlights! Someone was definitely watching us.

"We have to move, " I told Liesal. She nodded and went to wake up Eric. I walked towards the wheelchairs and began to wake up Carrie, Pierce and Joey.

"Hand them over!" a familiar scratchy voice shouted. It was him, it was the leader. "Hand them over we've got you surrounded!" I quickly pulled out my knife and held it to Joey's throat.

"Get any closer this blade will move!" I threatened.

Joey laughed, "You wouldn't,".

I moved the blade closer to his neck, "Don't make me,".

"Look," Carrie said, "If you let us go we will leave you alone, okay?"

This time it was Liesal's turn to laugh, "Yeah, like you let our parents go?" The Flash lights got closer and the robbers walked closer to us.

"I said don't get any closer!" I yelled. They stopped and Scratchy began to speak.

"Let's negotiate girl," he said. Maybe this would work, I thought. We could get the location and find our parents. But what if it was a trap? What if they were lying, they were robbers after all. "Well?" scratchy asked. My head hurt, why did I have to make all the decisions? Because you are the oldest, I told myself.

"So what's your choice?" Pierce asked.

"Fine we'll negotiate," I answered.

Liesal looked at me, obviously shocked by my decision, "What? We don't have to do this!"

"Yes we do," I told her. "It's the only way,".
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Thanks for reading chapter seven. If you liked the story please vote and comment below ,feedback would be much appreciated. I will be adding the next chapter in about a week.
-chihiro_07