Aura's pov

Our foreheads were drenched with sweat, clothes plastered to our bodies and the explosion long forgotten. We made a run for it after it happened.

Right now, we were out of breath and gasping for air. We knew how dangerous it was coming out in broad daylight but this was a risk we had to take.

"We should get going. They are catching up." said Andy. I nodded my head in agreement.

"Flo where's our ride? Shouldn't it have arrived by now?" Scarly asks, looking around. We were hiding behind an old trailer truck. Ahead of us was a train station and nothing else. Not even a single trace of footsteps was visible. The empty houses that we passed along our way indicated that this area was indeed another victim of the virus and raids.

"It should be here any moment now." Flo replied looking tired. I don't blame her. She's been through a lot. It's not fair that good people suffer so much and shitty people like yours truly don't have to deal with anything. But then again life isn't fucking fair. I looked around to see everyone lost in their own thoughts.

5 minutes passed. Then 10. Another 15 minutes went by but still no sign of our transport was seen.

"That bastard ditched us." Arsen said bitterly.

"We should probably move then. For all we know he might have already sold us out and revealed our location."

"We can't just walk on foot. It's at least 3 miles to town from here." Zach stated.

"Who said we need to walk on foot? We have our getaway right in front of us." I say nodding my head towards the old train station.

"Desperate times, desperate measures." mumbled Flo with a heavy sigh.

It took us 5 minutes to reach the station. When I said old station, I meant it. The place looked like it had been through a cyclone. The floor was covered in dried up leaves and underneath was a thick layer of dirt. There were cracks in the concrete and you could see bones of dead rats here and there. The ceiling had an enormous hole and there was only one ceiling light, and that too was half dangling down. Rust could be seen everywhere and spider webs filled the place. If it was not for the sunlight peeking through the hole, this place would have made it into top five eerie stations of all time.

"You really think that a train would pass through here?" questioned Arsen.

"Does it look like we have any other choice?" retorted Scarly.

Everyone fell silent again.

Maybe it was an hour or two, but a squeaky sound filled the heavy air around us. It was distant but the dead silence made it possible to hear. The sound got closer.

Clickety clack Clickety clack Clickety clack.

"Can you guys hear that? Or is it just me?" asks Zach.

I roll my eyes at him. "Of course we can hear that. We are crazy psychopaths but we ain't deaf."

"Holy shit a train is actually going through this area. Shouldn't it be prohibited though?" exclaims Arsen.

"Shut up you dumbass. Be grateful that it's passing through here." replied Andy.

"Have patience. It always seems to pay off at the end." said Flo.

"Let's go guys. We don't have time to lose."

They all nod and Flo leans down to pick up her brown leather jacket from the ground.

"Leave it, Flo." Scarly says.

"But it's my only one."

"Flo....." I say in a warning tone.

"You can have mine if you want." says Zach. We all turn to look at him.

" What? "he shrugs it off.

I sigh." Here. Take your jacket in this and disinfect it when we get back. " I say, handing her my last plastic bag.

" Thanks. " she gives me a small smile. I return it.

At the same time, the train stops in front of us with an ear piercing hiss. The door squeaks open and inside sat a man with peppery mustache." All aboard! " he shouts with a strange accent. It was probably a mixture of English, Portuguese and Italian.

We give each other a last glance and begin boarding inside the small, rust covered train. We settle down in the ridiculously big metal seats with cushions on top.

Soon a boy, who looked about 20,with blond hair and blue eyes, came in. He looked okay. Not bad but not handsome at the same time. He was built but not that much. Axel was definitely better,and of course my stupid brain started comparing him to Axel.

"Hey fellas, I'm Dan. Nice to meet y'all. You see we rarely have passengers so it's quite good to have human company after so many days." he rambles. We all give him weird looks.

"Girls, girls I know I look like an angel," he says, flipping his hair for effect, "and as much as I like being ogled, I don't have all day to mess around. Give me your tickets and we can have a little fun at the back." he finishes with a wink.

I scoff slightly and then put on a genuinely curious face . "Did anyone ever tell you that you're handsome?" I ask.

"Er... No but..." he stutters.

"Well at least you know you're surrounded by honest people." I finish with another scoff. He looked startled with my reply. Then he regained his composure and cleared his throat.

"Well where are your tickets?"

"Where is your ticket?" asks Andy.

"Young man, I'm the conductor. I don't need to have a ticket."

"So what? Electricians pay for electricity, don't they?" Andy retorts with a smirk.

Dan's ear and cheeks are flushed with red. "I....umm...err..."

"Leave." Scarly says, giving him a deadly glare. He stumbles out of the compartment.

We are again left in silence. Then Arsen mumbles, "Good ol' times." with a satisfied sigh. A sad smile escapes my lips.

"So are we just going to not talk about what happened?" Zach says.

"It's not safe here. There are prying eyes and ears."

"We can't go back there. You know what might happen."

"We don't have a choice. All of our things are there. After we go, we pack and move at dawn."

"Will we take our bikes or Cruz?"

"Cruz will be better." Cruz was our caravan. We brought her from a sweet old lady who was our neighbour. Of course the caravan wasn't hers. It was her son's , who was deceased. She said Arsen reminded her of him and hence gave it to us for free. She also mentioned something like making use of it was better than letting it collect rust. Her son named it Cruz. We didn't bother to change it. We just added a Crazy before Cruz. Crazy Cruz.

"I still think we shouldn't have done that.We drew too much attention to ourselves. " says Zach.

"Wasn't too bad... I mean it was fun though, like the escaping part, not the burning the place part. That'll haunt me forever, but still we need to have better planning and reliable transport next time." Andy said, shifting in the seat.

"Yeah almost getting blown up and then getting chased around is so much fun." muttered Flo sarcastically.

Andy rolled his eyes and Scarly chuckled lightly.

My mind wanders back to what happened this morning.

*flashback*

"Done with the back?"

"Yea. Yea, all clear, and I finished the whole bottle by the way."

"That's not a problem. We've got more than enough, what matters is we get this done properly"

I turned to go get another bottle when Zach and Andy came out of the shop.

"We checked the whole place. There's nothing alive in there." Andy informed me, looking pale and terrified like he had just witnessed some kind of unimaginable horror, which I suspected he did.

"Not anymore" mumbled Zach and I shot him a warning glance. We were forbidden from talking about whatever we saw in there.

Scarly and Flo were the last ones out of the place. They were supposed to do a thorough sweep of the 2 storied apartment above the old bookstore. The book store itself was quite spacious, with heavy wooden bookcases that reached from the floor to the ceiling, lining the the walls. Most of the shelves were emptied now, with a few books strewn across the floor. There were broken glass shards all over the place.

By the looks of their faces, I could tell they didn't face anything better than andy and zach had.

"Good, you guys are out, 2 more minutes and we would have to barbecue you guys along with this place." Arsen joked.

"Don't" Flo snapped at him, obviously agitated by what we were doing. Honestly none of us liked this anymore than her, but this was necessary, if we wanted to stay alive this was our only option.

Just as we were about to cover the front garden in gasoline, it started raining lightly.

"Shit. This is not good. Let's hope it won't increase."

" Okay, Aura get the lighter and zach and I will finish it up." Arsen said, taking the bottle from me.

I fished inside my pocket for the small lighter, with no luck. I cursed loudly, earning a questioning glance from Scarly.

"What's wrong?"she asked me and then sighed when she saw my hand was empty.

"Do you know where you dropped it?" she asked again.

"No. we're gonna have to get a new one. "

"We don't have enough time."

"I know, I know. Goddammit . What do we-" I paused mid sentence when I noticed Andy placing a protective hand on his pocket I gave him a quizzical look before it caught up to me. I immediately looked directly at him to confirm my suspicions. He immediately looked away, stuffing his hands in his pockets. Oh god. He started again. How could I be so dumb? Why didn't I notice it before? This explains why these days his lips were dry and no longer pink,why he used more perfume and where he went off to every now and then. He broke his promise. Someone's going to be very very mad.

"Actually , you know i saw an open store on the way here. They might have one. Andy can go get one." I finished , slightly emphasizing his name.

"Yea okay. I won't be long." with that he took off, back in the direction we came from.

Ten minutes had passed and there were no signs of Andy yet. God, how dumb is this boy? He didn't even need to actually run all the way to 'the store'. He could have just ran out of view and come back a few minutes later. What's taking him so long?

Another few minutes passed before he appeared, his hair wet from the light rain that was still steadily pouring.

He walked over to me and the first thing I noticed was he smelled much more strongly of his perfume. I immediately realized why it took him so much time and I gave him a disapproving glance before asking "Do you have it?"

"Yeah but I don't know how long we have. should get going." he replied handing me the familiar small silver lighter.

"Then let's light this shit up."

I was about to toss the lighter itself onto the grass when I looked at Andy. he obviously didn't want to lose this and I decided against it. Partly because it contained so many memories of us. Andy and I customized two lighters together 3 years back. It was the time when I used to smoke away my problems. I eventually stopped... Well more like the gang made me stop and I was grateful for them. Instead I grabbed a small piece of cardboard and lit it up, throwing it on the lawn and backing away. I tossed Andy's lighter back to him and grabbed my backpack.

"C'mon let's go." I said, starting to walk away.

Now you would have expected us to walk away wearing sunglasses like heroes with the building exploding behind us like we don't have a single worry in the world. But the reality was quite different. Time slowed down. There was an ear splitting bang. Then there was a shower of glass and metal. We were too close to the house so we got thrown away in all directions. Oh and let's not forget about the intense heat that surged through the area. By the time we regained complete consciousness, the patrol cops were almost there. We hurried through what was once the backyard of the now burning shop and made a run for it.

*end of flashback*

It was almost night time by the time we arrived. Arsen was in a deep slumber. He must have been dead tired. Honestly, everyone was. Scarly,Flo and Zach were playing travel scrabble. Andy was gazing outside, lost in thought. His head rested on the cold glass of the window. His jaw was ticking and the vein on his temple was visible. He was mad? What happened?

" How long was I out for?" I asked, rubbing my eyes.

" About five hours,"Scarly answered. Her tone, calm and collected yet scratchy as if she screamed not long ago. There was a sick tension in the air. There was another fact that was bothering me. How could I let my guard down and be asleep for five hours? What the heck was wrong with me? But you know it's not surprising after all of those sleepless nights.I mean I'm surprised you didn't start hallucinating. Pointed out the snarky little voice in my head.

"Nothing much happened while you were sleeping and you know five hours is not that much" Scarly added, knowing exactly what was going on in my mind. I just nodded.

"So what did I miss?"

"Nothing." answered Andy stiffly,

"Seriously guys stop being childish. Andy is showing obvious signs of being mad and Scarly looks like she just screamed her lungs out and Flo and Zach are speechless and very uncomfortable, given that they are continuously shifting and giving each other worried glances every now and then. There's also the heavy tension hanging in the air. Even an infant could identify that something's wrong. So just save some time and tell me what happened"

"Okay you know what, Aurora maybe you should stop observing so much and mind your own business for once. Like god why do you always have to be so nosy and meddle into things which aren't even your problems? If you have so much free time then please first deal with your own problems and then come to so call help others with theirs." snapped Andy.

Whatever reply I was expecting,that was definitely not it. At the same time, Dan walked in and we all stared at him. Startled, he stared back at us before announcing we were there. I was so busy processing what Andy said, that I didn't notice the scenery outside had stopped changing. The train stopped. I was the first one to leave. I grabbed my backpack and without a word left the small compartment in long,steady strides. You might have expected me to be hurt or cry but tears and sadness come from the heart not the brain and I sealed my heart long ago.

Ahhhhhhhh extremely sorry for not updating in so long. We were facing author's block and kinda lost our motivation to continue. We also noticed how we lost so many readers but please bear with us for now. We also had other complications in our lives but we'll try to update as regularly as possible. No promises though. 

Also we are extremely grateful for 500+ reads. Thanks for all your love and support,honestly means a lot. So here's a chapter and hope you enjoyed. Please vote and comment what y'all are doing in quarantine. We love you. Have a great day/night. 

- RR