make or break.

“I’d be surprised too if I didn’t hear it.” He snorted a bit and frowned. “Here… How ‘bout this. I give ya th’rest of my burger, y’gimme some of your rice. Sound good?” He moved to hold out almost half of a burger to the girl. “It’s deer, hope y’don’t mind… And yeah, but I gotta let my daughter eat. She’s more important t’me, y’know? Only family I got left.”

“I totally ain’t heard that b’fore.” Sean joked before a smile slowly planted on his face. When the girl asked if he wanted some of her rice and beans, he shook his head a bit. “Naw, those are for you. Y’gotta eat and build up strength. Though, I’m glad I ain’t sleepin’ in th’same room as you.” He teased. “It’s only been four days without food so.. I’m a bit hungry, but I’m sure this burger will fill me on up.”

Sean felt a pair of eyes on him as he ate, which made him incredibly uncomfortable and nervous, given the circumstance he’s had to live through for so long. He looked up to the person with a slight growl. “What? Y’ain’t never seen a man eat before?” He snapped as he moved to take another bite from his food. “We eat too y’know.” He huffed with a mouthful of food. 

        “no it’s not that,” janicka replied with a snort, “i don’t have a problem with how you EAT - you just have a really large mouth.”   as a matter of point, she flopped down not too far from him with her make-shift bowl   ( a pyrex pot with no handle )   and started shovelling in some rice and beans - she’d been out the entire night prior bargaining a trade with some transients who swung by cheyenne every few weeks to trade supplies.

          “—wait, she does?” dark eyes light up with intrigue as the blonde approaches him, head falling into a curious tilt that sends overgrown curls toppling into his gaze. he snorts, glancing up from the guitar he’s been idly plucking at for the last half hour or so. “c'mon, janicka, d'you really think i’d say no t'hearing somethin’ pretty freakin’ awesome? that’s like — that’s blasphemous. am i usin’ that word right? anyway, i would l o v e to. lay it on me.”

“I never went.” The words were spoken weakly even by a strong girl with a husky voice–the deficit of her peers’ education her BIGGEST insecurity. Hunter made the effort to look like she knew what the girl was talking about. Of course she had heard 9/11 mentioned–in arguments where her mother begged for the kids to have normal lives and her father invoked names and dates. It was years before she knew about it, by then it seemed so distant and removed from her reality in rural Oregon. “What do they sound like? What makes this sound?”

“Maybe they got hit hard by raiders?” Hunter mused aloud, walking side-by-side with the girl. “Some last ditch effort to either get help or revenge on those who come down on them?” It was a possibility, but it would put the other camps at risk. Still, drowning men sometimes drowned those who tried to rescue them–it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. “I–” Shit, should she have known the girl? At the time she’d been so caught up searching for Eden and Shaw, she hadn’t paid anyone there much mind. “I hunted mostly. Was rarely there but as a place to trade and leave my stuff.” Brows furrowed she added. “Not really one for minglin’.” 

           for a moment she was confused - but then understanding DAWNED on her. janicka would never have guessed that the other woman had not attended school - some hadn’t been as fortunate as her, consider her adoptive mother had demanded she attend the best school alongside her adoptive sisters.    ( funnily enough, the german-born girl would go on to top all her classes despite her adoptive mothers disappointment in janicka’s lack of failure. )     “the fire alarms are more, i don’t know... rapid, like a police siren - but kind of SHRILL?       but this sound...” they fell into an easy pace - moving towards the sound.

          “honestly, it sounds like an evacuation alarm.   it’s not a BOMB-THREAT siren, or a nuclear warning - it just sounds like an emergency evacuation alarm from a prison or a school or maybe even a hospital?   like a BIG institution is my best bet.     i can’t see how it wouldn’t be coming from one of the camps, i guess that’s what’s making me the most nervous.   but yeah, it wouldn’t surprise me if it was a camp of raiders - they may want to flush everyone out with a horde and then take over cheyenne for themselves.   good way to save ammo and their OWN arses.”    janicka snorted, derisively, it would be a cowards plan.

the sound of the siren —– his  chest TIGHTENED. ❝ what the fuck ?? ❞ a hand lay flat atop his chest. his fingers gathered the fabric of his shirt, he grunted. another arm rested on the frame of the door before he balanced his weight against it ENTIRELY. the twinge in his chest only grew as his breath became rapid. he fell to one knee and while he heard footsteps APPROACH he reached for his gun, aiming it in the direction of the sound. with a scattered breath he spoke, ❝ honestly, if you’re alive, don’t make me shoot this gun. i’ve had a very STRESSFUL day and this, this is just rude. ❞

The cascade of blonde waves, emanating from the crest of a wildflower crown, was a ghost image of the girl who had once been her dearest friend. She wasn’t here anymore; Eden was not a place on Earth. This girl, beneath the tousled hair and big eyes, contained a stronger edge–and she was friendly, a rare combination.

“Don’t know that I’d even thought ‘bout the school alarms.” Hunter nodded seriously. She’d heard alarms, sure–they’d hand them in the compound–but she’d never been to a public school. Perhaps the rest of the world hadn’t been as entirely unprepared as her father had led them to believe. “You thinkin’ Saddle Ridge?” Hunter didn’t really know anyone there and hadn’t lived at the camps in a long time, but she had a healthy respect for the idea of them. 

“I’m Hunter. I used to live at the Country Club awhile back, but I’ve been livin’ on my own–” she didn’t include Huan in case the girl wasn’t as trustworthy as her young face suggested. “–If you don’t mind, I’m happy to accompany y’ back in case things get harry.”

               “most of the schools got huge alarm systems installed after colombine and after the terrorist attacks on 9/11 - it kind of became sort of standard issue.   you know, in case something like that ever happened again.    most of the schools had them installed, even some of the smaller public schools had security doors and fire exits wired up to sound alarms,” she looked back to the source of the sound - to HOME - “but... fire doors don’t MAKE that sound.”  her light brows creased to show her confusion and frustration.

“The hell is that noise?” Hunter said as she picked up her pace to meet the other survivor, emerging from the unkempt fields along the Lincoln Highway, crops that had once been tended to with care had long since overgrown and spread out in disarray. On her way to and from hunting trips in Colorado, Hunter often wondered if the long dead farmers turned in their graves ( or else above ground, twisting their joints and decaying flesh impossibly ). “Is that some kind of emergency alarm?” First what had been some manner of sonic boom had shaken the survivors to their core and now this? She wasn’t paranoid, but the sound made the hairs on her neck stand up. “You headin’ to Cheyenne?” She asked, an inquisitive brow raised. “Or you returnin’ there?”

         janicka jumped at the sounds - flinching as she had done over two years ago as a sixteen year old girl.   now... despite how she had TRIED her best to nullify the strange DESIRE to destroy - she reached to the knife concealed at her hip.    a girl with a knife at her hip and a flower crown on her blonde locks - what a sight...   ( a far cry from the girl who walked up and down the streets in a pink sequinned dress with blood spatter on her arms and a gore-y baseball bat as her only weapon. )