Catch My Breath {MARKIPLIER X OC & LISBUG X OC}

Eight - Luna

Shaking my head, I look at Brittany, who was smiling innocently at me. There was something about her that I hated. I hated it with a passion but what it was I couldn't place my finger on it.

"Why film this?" I ask her as she turns on the camera and sits down.

"We're about transparency here." She says with a small smile. "How long have you been out there?" She asks, leaning forward in the chair.

"Since the beginning." I say, looking down at one of the many scars that covered me.

"How did you find each other? Did you know each other before or--?"

"We didn't know each other before." I cut her off, looking up at her. She stopped for a moment, shifting a bit under my gaze.

"I was a congressperson. Ohio, 15th district. You?" She asks, giving me a small smile.

"I don't think it matters anymore." I say, leaning back in my chair.

"Oh, I know it does."

"What is this place?" I ask her.

"This is the start of sustainability. That's what the brochures we found say." She says with a slight laugh. "This was a planned community with its own solar grid, cisterns, eco-based sewage filtration. Starting in the low 800,000s..." she laughed, ".. if there is such a thing. And they sold them all."

"How did you end up here?" I asked Brittney, my gaze wandering around the room.

"Well, my family and I were trying to get back to Ohio so I could help my district manage the crisis. And..." she sighed, "The army stopped us on a back road and directed us here. They were supposed to come later. They didn't. But there were supplies here and we made the best of it." She says, looking towards the window before looking back at me.

"You put up the wall?" I asked her.

"Well, there was this huge shopping mall being built nearby. And my husband George is a professor of architecture. And who he was mattered quite a bit. He got the first plates up with our sons. And after a few weeks, more people arrived and we had help. We had a community." She says to me.

I raise an eyebrow to her. "You've been behind these walls this entire time?"

"We need people who have lived out there. Your group is the first we've even considered taking in for a long time." She says and I shake my head at her.

"You should keep your gates closed." I say, locking eyes with her.

"Why?"

"Because it's all about survival now. At any cost. People out there are always looking for an angle. Looking to play on your weakness. They measure you by what they can take from you. By how they can use you to live." I say to her, leaning forward in my chair.

"So bringing people into a place like this now-- Are you telling me not to bring your people in? Are you already looking after this place? Michael says I can trust you." She says and I shake my head again.

"Michael doesn't know me. Not anymore. I've killed people. I don't even know how many by now. But I know why they're all dead. They're dead so my family, all those people out there, can be alive. So I could be alive for them."

"Sounds like I'd want to be part of your family."