The night felt like a uninviting storm of coldness consuming me second by second, goosebumps formed down neck, and followed through down to my arms. I felt nauseous, for the long night ahead; silently hoping that we wouldn't be discovered while sleeping. Matt and I were huddle up close together trying to share his jacket in order to protect our skin from the cold chill around. The worse part was that we didn’t know each other that well, which only made matters worse. Soon enough though, I did drift to sleep. Couldn't say so much for peaceful though...

          My family seemed to be perfectly intact, except for the fact that my big brother was just as pale  as a ghost. Anybody could see the sweat gleaming off his forehead while he took deep ragged breaths trying to calm himself, before going on stage. He couldn’t seem to stop reading over the lines he’d written for his speech. On the other hand, my father just shrugged that fact off, like it was nothing, But, it was a big deal, his oldest child was about to gain a position , a critical one that my brother was not ready for... Dad was always trying to push Maliki to be just like him in the future, so that everything my father worked so hard for wouldn’t be gone when my brother gained his position.

    My mom's gaze slipped from Katrina and I, landing onto my dad’s bright blue eyes, giving him a loving smile. Suddenly she threw her arms around him, whispering something into his ear before giving him a light kiss on the cheek. I allowed my younger sister to sit on my shoulders in order to see the stage more easily . All the seats in the Town Hall had already been taken. We must've looked like the perfect family to anyone from the outside. Well, that was all wrong... The room gave an unsettling aura, though I couldn’t put a finger on why.

The entire room slowly grew silent when we heard boots clacking loudly across the stage. There stood a man of about eighteen to twenty years. He had curly dark red hair, a stubble across his face, and eyes of hazel. He had the physical body type appropriate for a soldier, and when he cleared his throat, the microphone gave a screech that filled the room. I jumped back at the sound, but the man didn’t have any problem with the microphone because he immediately recovered, and began to speak.

"Good morning everyone, my name is lieutenant Evan. Today is a very special day. I get to enjoy the pleasure of introducing our new GEN Maliki. Most people here already know Maliki because of his father, some may even remember the day Alan’s first born came along. I can't say So much about that, because instead of remembering, I grew up knowing this kind gentlemen we know of as Maliki.” The man seemed as if he’s rehearsed those lines a million times. He took a breath and motioned a hand in Maliki’s direction. “So meet General Maliki, with his father our one and only, army official, Alan."

      That was when my father marched confidently up to the stage with my brother cautiously making his way after our dad. I guess you could say things went downhill rather quickly from there. My brother looked like a statue standing in the center of the stage, with the exception of his hands constantly shaking out of nervousness. He just couldn’t maintain a confident stance... On the other hand, my dad was quite the opposite, he paced back and forth across the stage while speaking clearly into the microphone. It was a long and boring speech for the most part, but of course there was one thing that  made my whole world begin to spin.         

"Upon the many attacks endured, our population has seemed to make a decreasing spiral in the past ten years alone. No, we will not stand for this anymore, we cannot afford this treatment, therefore officials are left with no other option. I cannot see any other option guys, we’ve been putting this off way too long. War has officially been declared with the Pendomites.”

        I jerked upward slightly dazed from the confusing dream… Breathing heavily with sweat gleaming off of my forehead, I wandered if it actually had been a dream. I stared wearily into the distance, just long enough to let the dream sink farther into my mind… I was right, it wasn’t a dream. I soon found a pair of dark sapphire eyes watching curiously. It was barely the crack of dawn, because the dim daylight had not yet warmed up the forest.  I leaned  forward, laying my pounding head into my hands trying to calm myself down. I don’t know why, but that dream, It was too familiar, yet I couldn’t place a finger on why.

I heard Matt's boots shuffle clumsily through the dirt. Then he stopped directly in front of me. I took a shallow breath before finding the courage to look at him. "Are you alright?"  He whispered with a gentle voice.

I didn’t give him a real answer, I just nodded silently, not finding the energy to speak. I held my knees up to my chest, feeling slightly insecure, as he continued to watch silently. After a few seconds, Matt took a couple steps back and leaned tiredly against a separate tree, while crossing his arms.

"You don't look like you're okay." He whispered, edging me on.

Hearing his words, I took in a deep breath, it felt like my lungs had been frozen over. I didn’t want to think about it anymore, so I stood up, crossing my arms helplessly. "It was just a dream." I reassured him. It was a lie though. Even if I couldn’t remember what had happened before, I could feel it was true… Every single thing that had replayed in my helpless state of mind.

Matt soon interrupted my dreadful thoughts after a few long seconds. "Do you want to talk about it?" Matt questioned, sitting beside me thoughtfully. His eyes sparkled patiently as he waited for a response. I knew that I did, but then again I didn’t want to at the same time. I didn’t trust Matt. He was just some random guy that showed up, I’d never even talked to him before the explosion.

      "No, not really." I mumbled quietly under my breath, resting my head tiredly against a tree so that I had a reason not to meet his gaze.  I could sense him watching me still before he let out a tired sigh, and pulled himself back up. He continued pacing back and forth, biting his nails nervously. Deciding to change the topic, I looked over, taking my forehead off of the tree, and spoke. "Anyways, Matt... What’s our game plan? What are we going to do now?" I stepped towards Matt, trying to take my mind off of the dream I’d had.

         "Well," he paused trying to find out if he even had any options. "I'm not really too sure. We could either hide out for a couple more days, or I guess we could maybe head back that way and find more people."

      "They both sound like a pretty good idea, if we had fully loaded guns up our sleeves in order to shoot down a helicopter...” I started sarcastically. “But… I’m thinking that maybe we should lay low and head towards Rasnic. It shouldn’t take all that long, just a three or four days at tops. It's to the west of the Town Hall... Not many people really know about it anymore, it's like a ghost town, but at this point I think it's our best option."

      "You know what Destiny, you're way smarter than I imagined you would be at first." Matt whispered in awe.  

     I rolled my eyes annoyed, he was an asshole. "I don't know whether to take that as a compliment, or as an insult."  I crossed my arms and began to walk forward, completely ignoring the shuffle of his feet trying to catch up with me. I knew that he didn’t mean to be rude, but I was always being underestimated, and honestly I didn’t like the fact that Matt had done the same thing as everyone else.

      "No! Destiny, stop. I didn't mean it that way!" Matt called out hesitantly. He grabbed my shoulders, and forced me to turn so that I was facing him. "Gosh, you try giving a girl a compliment and the world burst into flames." He mumbled under his breath.

       "You know what Doormat, you're really not helping your case out that much." I retorted.

       He rolled his eyes, while an annoyed breath escaped his mouth. "You know you're not such a ray of sunshine yourself."

     "I would suggest you shut your trap right now." I huffed, continuing to step forward. “We don’t need to stick together if that's what you want. I’m perfectly fine from here, so if you want me gone, then I’ll be gone. Just say the word” I whispered angrily when turning towards Matt.

“Calm down would you?” Matt whispered placing his hand on my shoulders while looking deeply into my eyes. I could feel my face burning, but I never understood why. “We need to stick together, if we like it or not, for all we know we could the last people left from the explosion.” Matt stated calmly.

“Don’t you even tell me that!” I yelped. “My mom was there, my dad, my brother and sister… My whole family was there Matt. Could you be anymore inconsiderate.” I felt hot tears falling down my face when I collapsed to the floor.

Matt didn’t know what to do after that, he just sat down beside me as I cried uncontrollably. “I know it’s hard Destiny…” He whispered pulling me into a weak hug. “I wasn’t there alone either…” I could feel his stomach tense. He hugged me tighter, and for some reason I actually found myself hugging him too. “I know for a fact that my parents are gone. But, that doesn’t mean anything. I shouldn't have said that. Who knows what could’ve actually happened. All we can really do right now is hope for the best.” There we were… Two strangers, hugging each other while crying in the middle of the woods. I don’t know how long we stayed there like that. I could feel the start of something, but I didn’t know what.

Finally, I had calmed down, and was just staring off into space. Soon realizing that we were wasting time. We needed to get going or else we were never going to make it to Rasnic. “Matt, we- we need to go.” I whispered shakily. I knew we weren't on a time limit, we had an endless supply of time. Though I didn't want to use it.

“I know.” Was his reply.

We both got, up and recovered from everything that had been said. I felt bad for yelling at him, but I wasn’t ready to let him know that. I just wanted to be back home, I wanted to be with my family. We were both ready to go now, we were ready to head towards Rasnic. No matter how long it was going to take to get there. But then I had a sudden thought I couldn’t just rid of.

"Matt… Don’t you think it would be smart to have something on us... You know, for defence... Just in case" I whispered abruptly.

He only nodded, not having the audacity to say a word. His dark eyes scanned the area of bushes, tree, fallen colorful leaves, and dirt surrounding us. Soon enough his eyes landed on a lousy rock lying all by itself on the ground. To my utter confusion, he actually bent over picking the thing up, and then he flipped it in the air, and caught it with the same hand.

I raised my eyebrows confused with his actions as I crossed arms expectantly. "Now, just what do you plan on doing with that rock? Throw it at anything that crosses our path? You can’t honestly think that’s going to work, can you?"

"As logical as that sounds... No." Matt gave me a sarcastic grin and then he picked up a stick from the ground. He spinned it between his fingers probably testing its durability and weight. Matt then sat down, placing the stick between his feet. He ran the rock across the rough surface with it’s jagged edge, smoothing it into a wooden spear. Okay, maybe Matt wasn't an absolute idiot. He sat there for what felt like ages, repeating the same action over and over until the stick was pointed at both sides. I waited patiently, sitting against the tree beside him just watching. I took note of how to make a spear just in the slight case that I’d need to it the future for myself. "And, that Destiny, is how you use your resources." Matt bragged, holding the stick in one hand, as he tossed the rock up and tried to catch it with his open hand.

Yeah, tried, because I lunged forward to catch the rock, and caught it before Matt could. "Oh would you stop gloating?!" I rolled my eyes and tucked the rock into my pocket. It really wasn't a smart move, seeing as Matt now had a weapon. He must’ve been thinking the same thing, because I was soon trapped me against the tree behind me, while he pointed the sharp edge of the stick at me. I threw my arms in surrender. "Okay okay, calm down,  I'm sorry, I don't think that a stupid rock is worth dieing for." I mumbled.

         Matt smirked at me, his eyes sparkled mischievously. I huffed, irritated at him, and  reached to my pocket. Once I found it, I shoved the rock in his direction. He happily took it from me and placed it into his jean pocket. How he had the audacity to wink at me? I don't know, but he did. "That's what I thought"  Matt tried to sound intimidating, but Matt being the guy he was,  it didn't really work.

Time passed by slowly, as we walked through the tangled up forest. I didn’t know where we were, which only made me feel more ansy. It felt like days had passed, but the sun was still up, and I knew it hadn’t been that long. I didn’t like the idea of not knowing where I was, it always threw my senses off. It made me feel aggravated. It made me feel  as if I were helpless. I needed to calm down, I needed a break from everything, but I knew there was no break when you were in war. Everything you did was dangerous, you couldn’t ever be sure there wasn’t someone following you in the distance.

We were tired when our feet came along a pond. The water wasn’t silent, but then again, it wasn’t roaring as if it were a high pressured water stream. There was also a thick fallen over tree branch wide enough to sit on, it wasn’t fallen over because it had rottened. The tree was in good shape, it looked as if it had fallen over because of weather. I didn’t follow Matt as he tried to completely skip by the scene. I was too mesmerized to just leave, it was beautiful. Instead, I inched forward, ignoring the glares I could feel Matt sending in my direction. I kicked off my tennis shoes and ran to the shallow area over the pond. My feet were in the water, and I felt relief rush through my bones. It felt amazing after walking so long, and I could feel some stress escaping my body after everything that I’d gone through.

"Calm on Destiny what are you? Five? I really wouldn't do that." Matt called, which allowed me to give him a glare in response. He didn’t get to tell me what to do, I was having fun, and I didn’t want that to change. "Seriously Destiny, you don't know what could be in there." He warned farther. Not listening to him, I began to splash my feet in the slippery pond.

"Last time I checked you weren’t my father." I took a short pause smiling mischievously at him, I cupped some water into my hands, and splashed it in Matt's direction. I laughed when he jumped back and gave me a look that read, ‘when you get out of there I’m going to kill you.’ Which really only made the situation more funny, because I wasn’t afraid of Matt at that point. "Come on Matt, what could go wrong?" I reasoned. “Doesn’t it look at least somewhat fun? I mean we can’t just have one break?”

“Destiny...” Matt sighed. “We aren’t safe here.”

“Then, where are we safe, Matt?” I gave a tired argument. “I’d rather die happy, and carefree, than constantly hiding and living in fear. It’s not fair to always live like that. Don’t we get a break?” I smiled, and splashed a little more water at him.

Matt gave a shy smile, but he didn’t move. “I get what you're saying, but you’re not getting me in there.” Matt winked, and sat down on the fallen over tree. He took in a deep breath and watched me as I stomped playfully in the water.

“Oh, come on Matt! Don’t make me drag you in here!” I whined watching him sit peacefully on the tree.

Matt only laughed. “You know that you’re not going to be dragging me in there.” I crossed my arms and glared at him.

“You want a bet?” I remarked, running in his direction through the slippery pond. I soon realized that I was indeed not running but instead sliding, not able to keep my balance,  I fell under the water with a squeak. I couldn't find the ground, when I tried to recover from my fall. I didn’t know that the pond actually had gone as deep as it did. My lungs were burning, I had accidentally inhaled some of the water in my trensy to find the top of the pond. It felt as if I was being smothered by the water, it shot through my nose, and all of the oxygen that filled my lungs disappeared. It took a couple of seconds for me to calm myself down. I couldn't control my movement all too well, but I had to try at least.

It took forever before I finally got myself under control. I repeatedly told myself that I had to reach the top of the pond, I had to live, and to live, I needed to breath. It couldn’t have been fast enough, but I could see the ring reflection above the pond. I swam faster to it, but, it still felt like it couldn’t have been fast enough. But then, I was warmly greeted by oxygen, and I found myself coughing shortly afterward. I swam as quickly as I possibly could towards the shore, pulling myself up from the shore still coughing from the lack of air. Breathing hurt both my chest, and throat. Looking at the ground, I gathered as much oxygen as possible.

After I could once again breath, I noticed that something had been missing... There was no sarcastic remark anywhere around me. Realizing this,  I whipped my head upward feeling slightly confused. I couldn’t find Matt, he was nowhere in sight. "Hey? Matt?" I whispered weakly. Standing up to my feet, I impatiently waited for a response... But, there was none. The first though that filled my mind was that Matt wouldn't have jumped into the pound to save me... Right? Worried, I creeped towards the pond, trying to look into the water. I couldn’t see anything though, it was too dark to see the bottom of the pond. Although, there had been proof which made my heart pound quicker once I saw it. Matt's jacket was randomly thrown on the ground near the pond. "Shit." I muttered.

I don’t know what made me feel obligated to jump back into the pond that had once already drowned me, but I didn’t think once, I just dived into the water. Instantly when I dived, I felt a sting against the palm of my hand, but I didn’t care enough to feel the layers of skin being ripped off of my palm as it was sliced. I even pushed the memory of almost drowning to the side, and swam deeper into the water. I had bigger problems at the moment, Matt was somewhere down here and he needed my help. I frantically swam in the water aimlessly looking for a hint of Matt in the pond. I was feeling discouraged, but I knew I couldn’t just give up. I wasn’t going to let Matt die on my behalf. I felt like ages before I saw Matt, struggling to free his leg from some sort of vine at the bottom of the pond.

I swam faster in order to reach Matt quicker. His body slowly became stiffer and stiffer. By the time I finally got to him he was barely conscious. He wouldn’t move at all, and his mouth was wide open. I felt sick at the sight of it, my chest was tight, but I knew he still had a chance. I reached for his foot, and pulled the vine away from his foot. Although, his other leg wasn't as easy as the first.

         I swam down farther to remove a tangle of vine, that were trapping Matt in the bottom of the pond. It was starting to get hard to breath for myself, seeing as I’d already been out of breath.The more that I tried to untangle the mess, the more the vines loosened, but still it took a while to untangle all of the vines enough for me to slip Matt’s foot free. Once he was free though, I managed to wrapped an arm around Matt's shoulder. I weakly swam to the top of the pond feeling as if I were going to pass out the entire way. I reached the sweet taster of air, and then dragged Matt to the shore. I climbed out of the pond and pulled matt onto a more stable ground.

            Matt's body was still, and his eyes were shut. He looked awful, I watched him hesitantly not knowing what to do. What if I was too late? What If he was as good as gone? I crossed my arms trying to bring warmth to myself as I shivered. My hand was burning, but I didn’t care about the pain I’d suffered during everything. I felt a hot tear fall down my chin, but I wiped it away as quickly as it fell. I rocked myself back and forth trying to calm my rapid breaths. I felt like I never did anything right, but this, it was right… I knew it was. I’d saved Matt, hadn’t I? He was okay wasn’t he? I hovered above him watching him carefully, I couldn’t tell if he was breathing. But before I could do anything, he began to cough, and I was watching him with worried eyes. He seemed weak as he coughed with his head aimed to the dirt. His eyes seemed weary, and his hands were shaking. No, I wasn't going to watch him like that, he couldn't act like that. He needed to go back to his cocky-wannabe-self.

"Destiny." Matt muttered weakly.

"Oh my god! Matt, don't ever do that! Please, don't you ever risk your life like that ever again." My voice was cracking, because I had already been crying. I snagged my arms as tightly as I could around Matt. I cried silently into his shirt, and I balled my hands behind his back. Matt was shocked and had his arms out with a complete blank expression. Well that was until he too wrapped his arms around me just as tightly. We had hugged once before earlier that day, but this was different, it felt more passionate, and more needed than the first.

I let go of him first feeling a little bit embarrassed by how desperate I’d seemed, I backed away from him, shivering against the cool breeze. Matt, placed his hand against my shoulder watching me closely. "Destiny, you know you did the same thing for me. Don’t you?" He whispered hesitantly.

"I-I" I stuttered before deciding against talking. Shuffling backward, I leaned tiredly against the fallen over tree. The cold shot like daggers across my skin due to the early fall wind. After all the adrenaline had left, my hand was burning. I couldn’t move my fingers at all, it felt like my hand was twice the size it already had been. I was afraid to even look at it, shaking, I found my eyes on my hand. I yelped at the sight of being able to see the bone within the cut. Why I hadn’t felt it at first? I didn’t understand, but the best explanation for it probably would have been the fact that Matt was no longer in immediate danger. All the adrenaline that had helped me save him, it was all gone.

Matt seemed to instantly noticed that there was something wrong with me. He sent a worried glance in my direction. Soon after which his eyes found what I had been looking at on my hand, and he too flinched. “That doesn’t look good.” His eyes stared into mine, without warning he ripped off the sleeve of his damp shirt. “This will have to work for now.” He whispered gently. “May I see your hand?”

I nodded my head weakly, not exactly finding the courage to speak. Then Matt inched closer to me with the cloth in his hand. His eyes never left mine, which oddly made me feel slightly better. Instead of immediately wrapping my hand up Matt placed a cold hand against my face and stared intently into my eyes. We both didn’t move, we didn’t say anything. We were probably half a foot away, and the tension felt unbearable. I don’t know why I felt like someone actually cared, and Matt seemed to be the only person that ever made me feel that way.

“It’s probably gonna hurt.” Matt warned, pulling his hand away from my face, while shaking his head from side to side as if he were trying to forget something he had been thinking. I nodded, putting my hand out for him to see. Matt then tightly wrapped the cloth around my hand. I’m not going to lie, it burned. I flinched, but did my best not to show the pain I felt, for him. Matt then tied the cloth together after he’d gotten it over the wound. I leaned my head tiredly on him, grinding my teeth so that I had some way of keeping my mind off the pain my hand was in. Matt placed his arm carefully over my shoulders, as if I would break if he hadn't. “Let’s make a pact.” Matt whispered to break the silence.

 “Okay?” I mumbled tiredly.

“Have each other’s backs?” Matt said hesitantly.

“Like you’d even have to ask me that.” I smiled, leaning closer into him. What was this feeling I felt? I had no idea, but I knew Matt meant so much to me, and I wasn’t going to just leave him to die. He wasn’t just a common guy you would find on a street, he was so much more and I didn’t understand why it took me so long to find a person like him. He was the first person that actually listened, and the first person to care. He was the best friend I’d ever met at that point.

I don't know how long we sat there silently trying to recover from the events that had happened. When you don’t know the time, minutes can turn into an hour, and hours can turn into seconds. I was tired, so tired of everything by that point. Although, I didn’t say anything, and I could feel my eyes getting heavy with exhaustion. I felt years older, and it had only been two days since the attack.

Matt eventually wobbled towards me, trying to seem as if he hadn’t just drowned. Sure, Matt wasn’t the strongest looking guy, but he was way stronger than he seemed. I finally realized why he always felt obligated to show that he wasn’t hurt. He thought that guys weren’t strong unless they never felt pain, or cried. I knew that it wasn’t healthy, but I couldn’t ever figure out how to tell him… "Maybe we should camp out here tonight. We're both worn out from today. I'll get wood for the campfire, you can just stay here and take it easy" He paused giving me a small smile. "Okay?"  

"No." I breathed, “I’ll help you out by setting up a area for the fire. I’m not completely helpless. I can help you.” I smiled tiredly while leaning my head against the tree.

“Okay, just be careful.” He gave a weak smile, then Matt began to slowly walk away from the area we’d been sitting by the pond.

Well that’s before an idea hit me like a bolder. "Wait!" I called out. Matt quickly turned in my direction, looking a little worried. "What if someone were to find one of us." I felt a shiver run along my spine. I shook it off, and my eyes fell to the floor.

         "Don't you worry too much about that, Destiny. I won't be that far away from you, and you know that I always have your back." Matt chuckled quietly, probably to make me feel better about this, which didn’t really work too well. I nodded, not saying anything. Matt watched me for a couple seconds longer then disappeared into the woods.

After he was gone I scanned my surroundings trying to find anything that may have been semi-useful for the fire. It was just open space everywhere, I couldn’t really find anything resourceful in the area I was at so, I stood up and began to walk around. My eyes carefully searched the ground. I made a mental note to find rocks, dry grass, and sticks just in case the fire were to burn out too quickly. I didn't venture too far back Into the woods. I grabbed a handful of rocks in my good hand, then I scanned the area once more, trying to find dry grass, or sticks.

There was nothing there so, I decided it was about time to go back to the place we’d be sleeping that night. I didn’t want to get lost in the tangle of woods, and end up alone in the massive forest. I wasn’t so on edge at that point anymore, because we’d almost gone a full day without any interruptions from the Pendomite’s. I was beginning to think that they’d lost interest in the whole deal. Maybe they wanted to do just one attack and then lay low, to see what our army would do in response to the motion they’d carried out.

  I was almost back to the pond when I felt a gruff hand twist my arm back in a painful position. My heart was pounding, and I felt as if I couldn’t breath. I had no other option at that point, they way that he had twisted my arm forced me to come face to face with my biggest nightmare. He was a rather tall, muscular man, wearing a pendomite uniform, with brown eyes and dirty blonde hair. I didn’t know what else to do, I couldn’t move, the man was too strong, and any time I pulled away he just bent my arm further back. "Matt!"  I screeched at the top of my lungs in fear.  I still couldn’t find a way of freeing myself from the tall man's grip. I felt like I was going to cry, the pain that the soldier was putting me in was the least of my worries though. I had no idea what was to happen if he were to actually get away with taking me.

"Shut up, girl!” He yelled in a deep scratchy voice. “What a miracle. We thought you were dead.” His disgusting brown eyes were mocking me, which for some reason or another made me feel as if I were the smallest person in the world. He pulled out his walkie talkie. “Subject number two has been found. I will take them in for questioning.” He spoke into the device, then tuned it off.

“Good work, soldier.” I heard an older sounding voice speak as the pendomite stuffed his walkie talkie back in his pocket with his free hand.

"Let me go!" I cried in a panic, somehow finding the will to struggle from his grip. How he hadn’t yet broken my arm at that point, I didn’t know, but I could’ve sworn that he had it twisted all they way back. I was panicking too much to care though, and miraculously my arm had not yet been broken.

"I would suggest you shut your mouth." The soldier spat in my face angrily, which made me shrink down in fear. “I’ve already found you Destiny, there's no way you’re going to get away from us now.” I didn’t know what to do or say, I also knew that I had no way of getting out of his grip without my arm being broken. So that being said, I almost gave in. I almost let him have the better of me.

Well, that was until I heard someone struggling somewhere near the soldier and I. Although I could see nothing, we were surrounded by tall leafy trees, and bushes, with vines hanging low on the forest floor. Then I heard a young squeaky voice that sounded weak, as if it they had been crying. "Let go of my sister! Just, let her go now!"

I recognized that voice all too well, my eyes grew wide. I had actually started to believe that she was dead, and now I knew the truth. She wasn’t gone, which was such a relief, yet not at the same time. "Katrina." I breathed astounded. “Katrina, It’s okay, I’m fine.” I called trying to calm her down.

“Damn right you’re fine.” The soldier growled at me. “At least for now you are.” The soldier turned afterward, throwing a glare in Katrina’s direction. "Would you shut up already stupid bitch." He yelled at my six year old sister, which sent me into complete rage.

"You bastard, she’s only six. You can’t talk to her that way" I growled at the muscular soldier. I should’ve known better than talking to him that way, but, that was my baby sister he was talking to. I wasn’t at all surprised when I felt his hand slam against my face, probably leaving a red mark behind.

"Did your father ever teach you two manners? It disappoints me, what type of children your father has raised in his family. From this point on, you will listen to me, with no hesitation whatsoever, or... Let’s just say that you’ll regret it." The soldier intimidated.

I heard a distinct russell somewhere in the bushes close to us."No I don’t believe she’s going to regret anything, but you, you’ll regret everything, asshole.” I couldn’t see anything that happened, which probably was for the best. Before I knew it the soldier was on the floor, holding his hand on a stick with his bloody hands. I gasped, and jumped back startled with the whole situation. I saw Matt pull the stick out of the soldier's chest, blood dripped from it onto the floor. His hands were shaking after seeing what he’d done. He just shook it off and threw the stick behind him. "Are you okay?" Matt whispered, I could hear the worry in his voice.

I nodded but didn’t care enough to say anything about what had just happened. Katrina was somewhere here, and I needed to find her. I turned to look where I had heard her voice. "Katrina?" I whispered, creeping forward. “It’s okay now.” I whispered… Only to find my six year old sister's hands tied together with a zip tie. A deep cut ran along the side of her face, blood crusted around it, and it looked a little green on the inside of the gash as if it had been infected. "Oh my god, Katrina." I whispered at the sight of her. "Matt... check him and see if he has a knife or something." I ordered, my worried eyes seeking him for help. Matt did, and revealed a pocket knife as he stepped towards me. When he handed the knife to me, I switched it open, and cut off the zip tie on Katrina's hand. Afterward, I handed the knife back to Matt.

Of course, Katrina was crying the whole time, she was so young, and looked so vulnerable. I didn’t know what else to do, other than wrap her in my arms like a baby. She held onto me tightly as she sobbed into my shoulder. I rocked her back and forth trying to sooth her. I didn’t know what what to do, I was just glad to have Katrina here in my arms. "It's okay, I'm here now." I whispered in her ear.

Matt carefully slipped the pocket knife into his torn-up jeans. I noticed Matt take off the jacket the pendomite soldier had been wearing off of him. He took the man's walkie talkie and smashed it into a million different pieces on the floor probably trying to let out his anger. After that, he picked up everything I had dropped up, threw it in the jacket, then led me back to the campsite. I held my sleeping sister in my arms, and watched her the whole time, glad to know she was alive.

          It had been a long day.