Heart of Fire- ON HOLD

IV

Chapter Four

Almost a year after the Explosion, there was a group of people travelling through our town.

As usual, we were weary of new people since in these times, people always ONLY look out for themselves and their own, disregarding everything and anyone else.

Their group was 6 adults and 4 children, and they were passing through on foot under the green haze of the looming acid rain storm. We let them, watching from the building rooftop as they passed us.

I remember laying on my stomach on the roof with the other adults, gun in hand and aimed at someone in the passing group. I was only pretending to be studying them in case they drew weapons on us like I was supposed to be, but really I was just so fascinated at seeing other children in almost a year.

It was then that the first crack of thunder sounded, so loud and earsplitting that it shook the earth. The travelers stopped frozen in their tracks, looking around at each other helplessly. They knew that if they didn't find shelter in the next few minutes, the acid rain would dissolve through their flesh and kill them in a grueling and agonizing death.

They started arguing with each other immediately, trying to decide the best plan of action. They knew that even if they did find shelter, they would most likely die anyways. You can't go outside during an acid rain storm, meaning they'd be stuck in a building with no food or water for weeks at a time before the storm let up.

This knowledge caused the adults in my group to start arguing as well. The 9 of them were deciding whether or not to help them; whether inviting them to stay with us and our healthy stock pile of supplies was the right thing to do.

My dad was a good man, but he was smart, and he knew survival came first; he argued against letting the strangers stay with us. A few other people sided with him, a few people switched sides a couple of times, and I stayed silent. I didn't want to send these people to what I knew would be their deaths, and I would love to talk to other children, but I learned the hard way to never question my father when it came to matters of survival.

In the end, 6 of the 9 adults voted to let them stay with us, and we came down from the building, quickly ushering them in before the sky cracked open and beat down mercilessly with toxic acid.

At the time, we were living in the old elementary school. We decided that it was better for us all to stay together, and the elementary school was big enough, but not too big for all of us and our stock pile of supplies. We welcomed these people into our home, and treated them like they were our own.

As the only child in the group, I was so ecstatic to have other children to talk to.

I was even more ecstatic about Logan.

I was an almost 14 year old girl who hadn't spoken to a boy that wasn't a full grown man in almost a year. It was a gigantic bonus that Logan wasn't just "cute because he's the only boy around," but actually, in the standard definition of the word, FREAKING CUTE. He was tall for a boy his age, with dark black hair and the bluest eyes I had ever seen.

I was smitten immediately.

In the weeks that we spent together trapped in the school, Logan and I became close, and my crush intensified immensely. He was 2 years older than me, but he didn't care. He made me laugh freely, blush deeply, and smile just by looking at me.

I was the happiest I'd been since the Explosion.

About two weeks into the acid rain storm, I was alone in one of the gun rooms cleaning the rifles. Logan surprised me by sneaking in to visit me, silently closing the door behind him.