Insomnia

Chapter 4: In the horizon

Chapter 4

The two of us had been walking for a day. Most wouldn't find it that hard, but in this time, a day felt like a week. Not only that, but the sun was out and it's hot rays hit the earth and us, making the ground we were walking almost scorching hot. Swift bent over with his hands resting on his knees.

"When can we stop? I'm tired and need to rest." He said as he stopped. I grunted and kept walking, not caring if I was leaving him behind. "Hey!" He yelled when he saw I had walked ten meters away from him and didn't stop. I sighed as I finally did stop walking, and turned around.

From the distance we were apart, I still narrowed my eyes at him. He looked back at me with his blue eyes, a look of annoyance in them. "Will you at least tell me where the hell we're going!" He yelled out to me. I rolled my eyes and looked around the area we were in.

We were walking through streets, well, flatned and nearly out of existence streets. This wasn't the worst of what happened those years ago. I had seen cities that were once tall and beautiful, but were now nothing but a blank canvass of land. Using on of my hands to cover some of the sun out of my eyes, I spotted a rusted and old truck in the distance.

Making my way there, I didn't give my companion an answer, not yet. Swift called and yelled from behind me countless times as he tried to stop me and keep up. I drowned his voice out with the memory of a song. I think it was something about how the world was empty and horrible. That seemed about right for this situation.

When I finally got close to the truck, I jogged the rest of the way to the back of it. One of the doors at the back that opened to the container seemed very loose and easy to break. The lock that kept the doors closed seemed to be in the same conditon as the door. "Geez, at least tell me where you are going so I know." Swift said between breathes as he seemed to have finally caught up.

Rummaging through my back-pack, I found one of my knives and a hammer I had. Swift raised an eyebrow. "What are you doing?" He asked. I sighed at the stupidity of his question. Positioning my knife on the lock, I prepared to hit the hammer with it. In one quick movement, I brought the hammer down and the lock broke off.

Swift's eyes widened. "Huh, didn't know you could do that with a knife." He muttered. I rolled my eyes. "You normally can't, but the state of this lock made a knife easy to use. I'm going to have to sharpen it later." I said to him in a flat voice. He gave me a blank look before he looked up to study the door for seemingly no apparent reason.

Pulling the doors open, it screached loudly with rust. Once I had pried it open, I squinted my eyes to see what was in there. I could see the outline of a few things. Shelves and a few drawers were littered around it. Stepping into the container, I motioned for Swift to follow. He nodded and followed me in.

As he dusted himself off with the dust that was in here, I pulled out a torch from my back-pack. "How much stuff do you have in your bag? It's like you have everything in there." Swift remarked as I turned the torch on. I sighed at how annoying his questions were being. Do I really need him to help me? I thought tiredly as I looked further into the container.

The truck must have been used to transport some sort of goods or medical stuff as most of those items littered the shelves and floor of the container. "This must be our lucky day." I muttered as I picked up a bottle of asprin from a shelf. "I found these." I turned to see Swift with a few packets of beef jerky in hand. Nodding, I continued to look for useful stuff.

After a few minutes of searching, we ended up finding some pain killers, beef jerky and some supplies. "These will keep us going for a while, even more so with the stuff I have with me now." I said as I put the stuff in my back-pack. "Can we rest here for a bit? It's nice in cool in here, and I think we need to rest." Swift asked with a hopfull tone.

I looked at him. It was true, the temperature in the container was a lot cooler than outside, making it a relief. I could walk for a lot longer if I wanted to, but I knew even with my strength, I'd need to rest as well. I nodded and sighed as I sat on the floor of the container.

Pulling out one of the water bottles I had, I took the cap off of it and took a small swig. I held the bottle out to my companion. His blue eyes widened in surprise at my sudden kindness. I grunted and started to bring it back to to my mouth before he snatched it out of my hand. I glared at him with my dark brown eyes. Geez, it pretty much is the end of the world but he needs to be more polite. I thought angrily.

We looked at the the sky out of the open doors from inside the container. It felt tranquil, something I haven't felt in a while. The soles of my feet felt better as the hot ground that we walked on before heated up through the fabric of my shoes. If only things would last as long as this, but I knew we would have to leave soon.

"Hey, what's that?" Swift asked as he pointed in the distance in the sky. I looked to where he was pointing and saw a black dot in the sky. I put my hand in my bag and pulled out some binocluars. I put them to my eyes and ignoring the remarks of Swift saying again that I had nearly anything in my bag.

As I focused on the dot with my binoculars. Seeing what it was I smirked. "Well what do ya know?" I muttered. "What is it?" The blonde asked confused. I handed him the binoculars. "It's a bird. A very big bird." I said to humor him. I watched as he tried to see it.

"What type of bird is it?" He asked as he still tried to look. "It's a California condor." I told him blankly. He took the binoculars from his eyes and gave me a weird look. "How do you know that?" He asked. I shrugged. "I used to study birds before everything happened." I replied, almost a complete lie.

I watched the bird in the distance soar around in the sky. I knew that the type of bird it was, it didn't need to flap its wings. Not only that, it was a big bird, a very big bird. They were rare nowadays too. Something made my body freeze though, as a small sound of a gun-shot echoed through the air.

In an instant, I could see the bird start to fall from the sky. Jumping to my feet, I leaned forward and saw as the condor kept heading towards the ground. Because it was so far in the distance, I didn't see it hit the ground, but I knew it did. "Shit." I said under my breathe.

"Huh? What happened?" Swift asked confused. I gritt my teeth together and grabbed my stuff. "Someone shot it. And probably a pretty good shot seing how high the bird flew." I said to him in a slightly angry voice. "We're going." I told him as I jumped out of the container.

Swift hurrired to catch up to me as I walked towards where the bird was shot. "Why are we heading to the bird? Someone obviously has it before we would even reach it." He complained as he finally ran up beside me. "It's not the bird we are heading to. It's the city in the same direction we are going." I told him as we continued our way to the destination I wanted us to go to in the first place. The Thievs city.

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Another chapter. And I know it's been a while since I last posted one, but I'm trying to make this story very detailed and written properly. Plus I have practically permenant writers block. So the next chapter will probably take a while to do as well. Other than that, thanks for reading. And if you want:

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