When We Were Humans | Book I

Chapter 25: No One Ever Means Their Promise

Viewpoint: Eli

It was getting late. I have no idea how many times I've looked up at the sun to estimate how much time has passed. I hoped they were okay. I should've been there with them. That would've made me feel better. It sucks; just waiting for something to happen. It sucks knowing that you have a potentially dying friend and you can't do a damn thing about it.

This sucky ambiance floated throughout our camp. Kristen wasn't fully out of it, granted she went back to sleep after Nate and Dwayne left, a worried Annie was attending to an amputated Zoey who hasn't woken up yet, and Athena was stalking the outskirts of the camp for Lurkers.

I felt useless. I couldn't say anything to make this better. I would if I could. I could have prevented this entire thing if I had just listened to Zoey back at the law firm. I knew Owen was a bad person, but I didn't do jack shit about it. Because of me Kristen almost got raped. Because of me I almost lost the girl who I've formed a bond with. Because of me... my best friend is out there risking his life to fix my mistake. The cruel world before was child's play. The new world forced me to kill another human being to survive.

But then I remembered that it was to protect my friends. Yeah, that's my motive. Not to live just to live, but to live for my friends. Not to kill just to kill, but to kill to protect my family.

Night had fallen and all of us gathered around the campfire.

"So on tonight's menu is baked beans and some bread," Annie said cheerfully, pulling out a wide tin cylinder of baked beans and a loaf of slightly crushed bread. She poked a hole in the top and cut out the circumference of the cylinder. She discarded the disk, throwing it like a frisbee into the trees. She placed the cylinder over the fire and started to hand us the bread.

I graciously took the bread because I was starving. I took a bite of the bread and my teeth didn't slice through the bread the way I wanted them to. It was stale. My stomach lessened in pain, but my face didn't reciprocate my satisfaction.

"It's fucking stale," Athena said grumpily, still eating the bread while staring at the cooking cylinder of beans. Thanks for saying it for me.

"It's all we have," Annie responded. "Remember that we're going for nutritional value and not for satisfaction," she said, stirring the beans with a stick she found close by. Athena just chewed on her bread silently.

Five minutes and the beans were ready to serve. We used old, tin cans as our as our eating utensils. Ironically, these cans were cleaned bean cans. I scooped up the piping hot beans into my can and started to pour it into my mouth. I forgot that heat was still a relevant feature of being alive and I scalded my mouth. Everyone else got their food and ate it eagerly, except for Kristen.

"What's wrong Kris?" I asked, "Waiting for it to cool down?"

"I'm not hungry, thank you," she said coldly.

"You need to eat," Annie said, placing the can into Kristen's hand. She reluctantly stuck her tongue into the sauce and ate quietly.

Suddenly, leaves started to rustle behind us. I instantly pulled out my revolver and everyone else became apprehensive. I kept my gun trained on the rustling bush while approaching it. A bag flew over the bush, which made me jump back a little. Then, Dwayne emerged from the bush, looking bloody while panting for breath.