Survival

Protection

This part contains depiction of death

Read at your own risk

Dylan awakes in one of the beds in Jayden's room. She sits up and looks over at the balcony where Jay and Charlotte sit, look down at the city.

She gets up and makes her way over to them.

"Oh you're awake. How'd you sleep?"

"Considering I haven't been in a bed, really good." Dylan sits on the ground next to Charlotte.

"I was telling Jay about my Daddy." Charlotte says while playing with her bear.

"Yeah, maybe we should look for him? She said he went to the city." Jay says looking up at the darkening sky.

Suddenly there was car engines echoing in the streets. Dylan and Jayden stood up and looked down to see if there was anybody. Right below the building there was about 8 trucks full of men in black body armor.

"Is that the federation?" Dylan asked, slight worried and curious.

The federation was a notorious group of raiders that went around killing, stealing, and raping different camps.

"I think so, I've never seen them."

The men stormed into the building.

"What should we do?" Dylan starts to panic.

"We need to hide. Get somewhere safe." Jayden says. "You two go into the bathroom I'll stay out here and hold the for shut."

Dylan and Charlotte run into the bathroom while Jayden runs and shuts the door to the apartment, putting a chair in front of it. The men begin running down the hall, pushing open doors and taking anything they can.

There's pounding on the door.

"Open up." One of the men shouts. "We saw you on the balcony."

"What do you want?" Jayden shouts at the man.

"We just want to talk!" The man shouts as he pounds on the door again.

"I don't think that's a good idea."

"Bring the tear gas." The man says to someone outside the door.

"What? No!" Jay shouts.

"Would rather us shoot you through the door."

"No, just - fine. I'll open the door." Jayden reaches for his handgun inside his bag.

Jayden pushes the chair out of the way and raises the gun as the door bursts open and two men enter. Jay shoots one of the men in the neck, he goes down right away. The other man turns a shotgun towards Jay and fires.

Dylan covers her mouth to hold in a scream as she hears the gunshots.

Charlotte tug on her sleeve. "What's going on Dylan?"

"Be quite, don't make any noise." Dylan whispers covering her mouth.

"Anybody else in here?" The still living man shouts.

"Don't just yell, look around." A new voice says.

There's steps outside the door. Opening of closets.

The bathroom door slowly opens.

A man peers through the open door, gun raised. Dylan pulls Charlotte closer to her, shielding her face.

"Get up." The man orders, Dylan does as he says, moving Charlotte behind her.

"Let's go." He says, Dylan limps out of the bathroom.

Dylan gasps and covers Charlotte's eyes as they pass the bloody corpse of Jayden. His face nearly unrecognizable due to the gunshot.

Dylan begins to cry.

The men force the girls to walk downstairs and get into a truck.

"What's happening?" Charlotte asked as a man closed the door.

"I don't know, just stay near me okay?" Dylan wipes away her tears. "I'll protect you."