when the party's over

Chapter Two

Chapter Two (written by Daisy)

They had been driving for a good thirty minutes, and Clementine still hadn't found anything that looked good to check out. AJ was sound asleep and Marie barely spoke, leaving the car sitting in silence the entire ride. Clem enjoyed the silence though, giving her time to think about all that has happened to her all these years. Meeting her dæmon for the first time, Lee's death, dealing with Carver's group, the birth of AJ, being apart of A New Frontier, it all brought back the memories. Clem looked down at her hands gripping the steering wheel, noticing her missing ring finger on her left hand. She remembered that day like the back of her hand, recalling AJ's cries and Marie's whimpering at the sight of Clem's messed-up finger.

Clem was about to recall another memory when a building of some kind caught her eye, speeding up to get a better look at it. She saw what appeared to be a rusty looking train station, seemingly abandoned for quite some time. She pulled up to a worn-out part of the train, not able to make out the words that were on it. The sudden stop made Marie perk up, looking around, "Why'd we stop? We already out of gas?"

"No Marie," Clem stated, looking around the place, "I think we found ourselves somewhere to check out."

The movement of Marie seemed to wake the other human in the car, him sitting up and rubbing his eyes. Car naps weren't the comfiest way to sleep in the world, but it was way better than sleeping on a hard rock or laying on a dirt road. AJ observed his surroundings, seeing the train station. "We gonna do it?" He simply asked.

Clem narrowed her eyes at the decently large building beside them, "Think so."

Rosie crawled out of AJ's arms, running over to Marie and jumped on her head, getting a better look of what was outside. There didn't seem to be any signs of life nearby, and the place looked like it hadn't been touched in quite some time.

Clem thought for a moment, thinking about whether they should go for it or not. This could be an easy trap, maybe someone was waiting inside the building already stalking them from a window. Or this place could be an easy come and go run, where the four of them could just easily scan the place out for anything useful and leave right afterward. She liked the sound of the second idea. Clem looked to her side, eyeing a pocket knife sitting in the door holder. She picked it up, handing it back to AJ, "We're doing it."

AJ smiled, eagerly taking the knife in his hands. Rosie squeaked, jumping off Marie's head and going back into AJ's arms, cuddling up to his chest. Marie got up from the seat, ready to finally get out of the cramped car. Clem opened the door, stepping out with a backpack in hand before shortly followed by the others. AJ and Rosie made their way over to a sign with a bell attached to it, while Clem and Marie went off to the trunk to grab some last-minute things before going and exploring the place. Clem opened the trunk, revealing a canteen, a pry bar, and a colorful toy with a hole near its face. Marie poked her head inside, eyeing everything, "We don't have a lot back here,"

"No, we don't." Clem picked up the pry bar, earning a confused look from Marie. "In case we need to pry open the door, idiot."

"Ooh, oh- wait hey! I'm no idiot!"

"Yeah, uh-huh." Clem held the urge to laugh, shoving the pry bar into the backpack, the tip of it sticking out of the opening just a bit. Her eyes wandered to the canteen, picking that up next. "God, we need clean water too, haven't had any in days."

"Who needs water? Can't we just look for food?"

"Just so you know, the human body needs water, otherwise we'd be dead. So, unless you wanna go poof, we need water."

The cougar groaned, knowing what Clementine meant. If the human dies, the dæmon dies. If the dæmon dies, the human dies. And that's something Marie isn't quite ready for yet. "Okay okay, I get it."