Survival Of The Fittest/By Taran

Chapter 2

"Millie, pass me some water," Noah called out to me. He lay under the tree, moving his curly blonde hair away from his face, which dripped with sweat. I pick up the bottle filled with water and throw it toward Noah. Noah flinches but catches the bottle.

"You didn't have to throw it," He opens the bottle and starts gulping the water down.

"Really? I'm kinda mad at you Noah. So yes, I did have to throw it at you ok? I wanted to throw it at you."

He gets up from under the tree, tossing the empty bottle in the grass and walks up behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist, "And exactly why are you mad at me?," He kisses my cheek.

"Excuse me, you don't just wake up and leave without telling me, ok? I was terrified, and then all I heard was you screaming. My heart was about to burst right out of my chest. This whole place is a mess and the world is fucke--" He unwraps his arms and turns around to face me, he puts the strand of my hair behind my ear, cups my face and kisses me. "I'm sorry ok?" he kisses me slowly. I look up at him and nod, "ok."

"Are you love-birds going to follow or do you want to stay? We have to get moving as soon as we can. If you decide to follow, we could take this tent along with us in case it starts to rain along the way. It's useful," Isaac said rolling his eyes as he looks back at us talking among each other. "If you two don't care, just tell me. I don't want to waste my energy telling idiots all this stuff. Are you two coming or not?"

He didn't scare me. Although, I think many people were afraid of him but respected him too.

"Yah Isaac, we are," Noah says as he starts taking the tent down. Isaac gets on his knees and begins to help him.

"Guys!" Isaac calls out to his group, "This is Millie and Noah, they will be joining us for our trip up North. You two," He looks over at us before pointing at the little boy, "this is Carter, He is 10,"

Carter smiles at us and waves hello. Carter's mom, Julie; a thin, tall woman smiles at us too, grabbing Carter's hand. And an old lady sitting on a log, watching us. "That's my grandmother," Isaac says, looking toward her. "Her names, Claire."

I help Noah pack up the bag with our belongings, there wasn't much of it. We all start walking through the woods. As we get deeper, the site of the city is nowhere to be seen. When Noah and I had camped out, we could see the outskirts of the city, outlines of the buildings; lifeless. I guess it's a good thing we aren't staying there anymore. When we would wake up and look toward the city, it reminded us of our families and everything else that once was.

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Isaac in the lead, He gets us climbing up a huge hill. I can barely feel my legs. This isn't just a normal hill, I mean, it's huge. As the evening goes by, our bodies ache.

"Ok. This seems like a great spot to camp out for the night. Julie and Carter, stay close to Nana. Millie and Noah stay near me. Everyone make sure to have your weapons by you at all times, just in case a 'crazed' is nearby. We can't risk any more people dying."

He rubs his forehead, looking around to make the ground comfortable for his grandma and Carter to sleep on.

Noah walks up to Isaac, "What do you mean by can't lose anymore?" He starts helping Isaac set up a blanket on the ground.

"Exactly what that sentence means. We were a group of 10 when we started. Now it's just 6 of us, including you and Millie, of course," he says looking my way.

Noah goes behind the tree to pee, when all a sudden he yells, "Millie, I found something!"

Isaac was the first to race toward Noah. I follow right behind. Whereas, I was a bit excited to see what Noah wanted to show me, Isaac on the other hand was draped with stress the minute Noah yelled.

"Are you fuckin serious?!" Isaac yells, his muscles tense and body raging with anger.

Noah stands there, holding a flower -which was dead, and smiles at me when he sees me. "This is for you, Mill". He always cracks me up. Noah always has a way to make me forget about everything else for a while. "Thank you" I laugh as I kiss him.

Isaac's fist raises up and he punches Noah in the face, knocking him down on the ground. "Shit," he says under his breath.

"What was that for?!" Noah gets up, getting in Isaac's face. I grab onto Noah and he starts to calm down. The side of his face bleeding just a bit, his eye swollen.

"That's what you get for being stupid. You yell in the dark that you found something and it sounds worrisome. So what did you expect? You don't do that. Never do that. It's an idiotic move. It could have been anything and I'm not risking the lives of all these people for your damn surprise to your fucking girlfriend which is a fucking dead flower. Get back into the real world people," He pushes Noah away from him, letting out a deep sigh.

This shook me up back to reality to understand how serious it was, even though I was already aware of it. But Noah and I had already been through so much that little bits like this, made bad things a little better even if it were for just a few minutes.

Noah moves up to Isaac, in his face again, "You need to fucking calm down, man. I get it. I get that you are trying to protect all of us. I was stupid for doing that but you didn't have to punch me in the face for wanting to lighten the mood. You don't have to be tough every minute of the day. You are just going to fuck your own self up that way."

Isaac shakes his head at himself. He felt bad, about hurting Noah. "I'm sorry for punching you in the face."

He was disappointed by his violent actions. He didn't make eye contact with anyone, and when Isaac starts to clench his fists up again, Noah moves away. This time though, Isaac was mad at himself.

I give Noah a look, to let it go. He rolls his eyes, but he knew I was right about it. Who knows what this man has gone through. Who knows what any one of these people or any of those who are still out there are going through right now.

Isaac looks at Noah, he reaches his hand out and they shake hands.

Isaac turns around, zoning out at the group for a minute and finally walks around the perimeter to check if it's all clear and safe.

"Okay, everyone let's get a good night's sleep. No more goofing around, especially not at night," Isaac says taking off his shirt, as he lays on the rough ground.

I smile at Noah and he just stares into the distance. I nudge his arm, "Noah, what's wrong?"

Noah takes my hand and grips it really hard, my hand starts to ache, "Noah, that hurts."

He quickly let's go. I smile at him, letting him know it's ok and that I know he didn't mean to hurt me. He reaches for my hand once again.

"Sorry, I don't know why I did that. I was just trying to hold your hand."

"I know, Noah."

His eyes were blood red, and sweat still dripping from his hair. I glide my thumb, gently, up and down the top of this hand. His hands were burning hot. "You ok?"

Noah shakes himself off, putting his curly hair away from his face, "ah yah... yah I'm fine."

He gives me a weak smile and kisses my lips.

"Let's try and sleep." I nod in agreement.

here's part 2! please let me know what you think about this so far, about the characters too. give it a vote ! Ty for reading