' WIRES. '
CHAPTER 001.
ESCAPIST.

"WILL YOU JUST listen to me?" Neve shouted at the circle of men around her. They were trying to discuss where to move next as they were running out of supplies quickly and needed to claim new ground. They were planning on going to the last city, which Neve knew would be crank central. It was much better to scour less populated areas where they wouldn't be noticed and there wouldn't be as many cranks to fight off. Besides, nobody had any concrete proof that the city was still standing.

"You shut your mouth, missy. I took you in, now you do as I say. I am the leader of this gang!" Clive, the self appointed man in charge, roared back at her.

"Alright, well you won't have much of a gang left if you keep walking into unnecessary danger," she scoffed.

"This gang is the only reason that you're still alive!"

"I don't think you realize that I saved this gang from dying of dehydration last month because I discovered the water residing below the old apartments, and I was the one who pointed out that your last idea for a hideout had beams that couldn't support the weight of the ceiling before you let us stay the night. I think it's safe to say that I don't need you," Neve shot back.

"Yes you do. Though you may think yourself intelligent, you're just a girl. You can't fight back even when you try, and you can't see the bigger picture when it's needed. Girls can't make the right calls, you're quick thinking but you can't plan properly, you can't fight for anyone," he claimed.

"A quick mind can beat brute force every time."

"Would you like to test that?"

"I think we already have. You try so hard to establish yourself as a powerful leader by asserting yourself through physical strength, but you have pushed this gang into danger too many times. A quick mind has pulled us out of those situations, and that quick mind happens to belong to a girl."

She could see the anger burning in Clive's eyes. He was not going to listen to her. If he didn't listen, neither did anyone else. They believed in the power of muscle. Neve was outnumbered as the only girl there. She was too weak to fight, that much he was right about. Her arms were thin and lacking much muscle, she was shorter than anyone else she knew and not very fast when it came to running. But her mind was sharp. She was perceptive and strategic. Neve's intelligence was the only thing that kept her alive when the Flare swept the Earth. Either that or plain dumb luck.

She was pulled away from her thoughts when she felt a stinging pain across her left cheek. Neve stumbled from the impact and looked up to see Clive's arm raised. He slapped her. This wasn't the only time it had happened, but it still felt like a wakeup call. Neve stared up at him, trying not to let any tears fall. She didn't say a word, she didn't want to warrant more aggravation. Making Clive angrier would only bring her more problems. Neve turned around and walked away, wiping her eyes with her sleeve.

She stepped out into the night air, which was quite warm, but far cooler than the day. Neve stared up at the sky and took a few deep breaths. Then the tears began to fall in salty waterfalls down her cheeks. She sucked in a breath and clutched her hands into fists, hoping the feeling would pass. The feeling of being weak and powerless. The feeling of being alone in the world. The feeling of being unloved. She acted like she didn't care. She acted like she was above it all. Neve lied to even herself, and most of the time she believed the fibs she told. But sometimes something happens, and the truth arrives and you can't turn it away. You can't push it off, you can't twist it. You're forced to stare it in the eye, no matter how much it stings.

The truth was that Neve cared, and she couldn't keep acting like she didn't.

--

After everyone had fallen asleep, Neve sat up and took her pistol out of her pillowcase. It was loaded, and she had extra ammo in her bag. She crept out of her makeshift bed and made her way into the supply closet, holding her gun at her side just in case. Neve grabbed as much food and water as she could. She looked at the weapons the gang had gathered, there wasn't a huge selection. She decided on a couple daggers, knives would be extremely useful.

After Neve ensured that she had everything she needed, she slipped out the door and into the blackness once again. She had a map that was quite arbitrary now, but at least told her where the most populated areas used to be. Those places were now bound to be overrun by cranks. She wasn't really eager to go anywhere where there were too many infected. She had seen up close what the Flare did to people, too many times. Neve had seen people she loved fall into the depths of insanity, she'd seen people she cared about turn on even themselves. Neve had seen everything the Flare had to offer, or so she thought.

Neve pulled out the map and traced her route with her finger on the yellowed page. She was heading to a small town near Denver, but not too close. It would take a while to get there, but at least the way was pretty straightforward and safe. Well, safer than most.

After what felt like hours of walking, Neve was in the middle of a large expanse of desert, the abandoned building where her old gang resided was slowly fading away until it was gone from sight altogether. The moon was full and high in the sky. These days the moon was one of the only things that brought Neve comfort.

Once she knew that the gang wouldn't be able to see her, she found a large rock and used it as some form of shelter. She started a fire after a few failed attempts, and laid down her stolen sleeping bag. Stolen maybe wasn't the right word, nobody really owned anything these days. There was no law.

Neve laid down and stared at the flames for a while, letting the heat brush her tired face. Thousands of thoughts swirled beneath her tired eyes, but she didn't have the energy to pursue any of them. Morning was coming and she hadn't slept in nearly an entire day. Slowly she shut her eyes and drifted off.

Sleep was supposed to be an escape from the trauma and stress that ruled the day. For Neve it never was. She never found any reprieve. Her bottled up feelings and haunting memories came back to bite her in the quiet moments, in what should have been peace. She writhed in her sleep as her mother's horrid screams invaded her dreams. Her mother's animalistic stare pounded her brain.

Some nights she got lucky, most she didn't. She nearly always woke up with a cold sweat and thumping heart. The worst part was that she didn't know how to wake up from these nightmares. For some reason her body always forced her to endure the entirety of the dream, waiting until morning to allow her to wake up.

When she woke up the next day the sun had already been up for an hour, and she quickly packed up. Not wasting a moment. Not letting herself think about her nightmares for more than a second. It was better to focus on the future she decided, but sometimes it's impossible to move forward without facing the past first.

Neve quickly realized that natural causes were her biggest threats, not the cranks. After travelling for days, to say she was running low on resources would be an understatement. She had no water, and she hadn't for at least a day now.

Somehow all the water she consumed seemed to be outside her body in a thick sweat, rather than inside, where her tongue felt like the desert she was walking through.

She pulled fabric over her eyes as wind blew the sand into swirls above the ground and onto her damp skin. She looked up to the direction the wind had come from. A deep purple cloud was moving across the sky like a racehorse. A dark, majestic, powerful, ruthless beast.

skye speaks.
This is chapter one, pretty boring I know, but the next chapter I PROMISE things will pick up for real. The boring has to happen before we can move on, and you just got through most of it so if you're still here, congratulations! I hope you enjoyed anyways, and I'll see you next time.