Why Time Goes By

           An alarm rings somewhere, I squint up at the dusty grey ceiling of the boat. Reloading my pistol I grab Anne. The small girl’s eyes a brilliant blue in contrast to the fog-like dust crowding the remains of the vessel once called Peach.

Grabbing one of the weak ceiling boards, I push up with my gun hand, creating a crack. I hoist Anne onto the deck of the boat and into the rest of the groups’ arms, before climbing up, myself.

A gunshot is heard and I turn to see a few dozen figures racing toward us, armed with various weapons, the most dangerous being a shotgun, held by what must be their leader. Shouts and calls are heard and we race away from them, firing a few careless shots over our shoulders, jumping over the deck railing and into the tallest grass I’ve ever seen. 

“Aisha! Catch!” Mitch practically screams at me, tossing a bundle. I have to slow my sprint to catch it, slowing down even more to unwrap the cloth. Buried inside is a small, makeshift smoke grenade, one of the ones we used to store in the old refuge lockers. 

I start sprinting faster, clambering over a slight slope, I unbuckle the grenade and climb onto a steep ledge, turning to face the crowd, I nearly sigh in relief, they aren’t even close enough to even dent us with a sniper rifle. Well, maybe that’s exaggerated. I climb a little higher, the group is already sprinting again above me, except for Evelyn, I hand her the grenade and hoist myself up over the rest of the slope, gasping for breath. 

Evelyn hastily wraps the grenade onto a thick arrow, her compound bow shoots it all the way to where our pursuers are still giving chase. A small area of it, including the part where the leader is, is engulfed in the ashy fog. Tucking my pistol into my backpack, I continue to sprint, Evelyn is one of our fastest runners, even with a head start she easily passes me, the group isn’t too far ahead. In our haste to loose the gang of Scavengers, we forgot about wild animals in the area. 

 A gunshot causes me to stumble, I fall back, slamming my head into a nearby tree. Then the world goes dark.