Morning hits hard. 

Jasper wakes me gingerly, shaking my shoulders slightly. Sebastian simply moves forward and Monique, who was leaning against him, ends up falling face first into the ground. She jump starts awake and spits out a mouthful of dirt. Gritty streaks of gray and brown stain her cheeks and forehead and chin. 

I snicker. 

Jasper lightly nudges me off of him and stands, turning to offer me his hand. I swat at him and stand without his help –using the tree to pull myself up. His baby blues roll. 

I brush the dirt off my butt and back. 

Monique stands and shouts something unintelligible at Sebastian before wiping her face off. I adjust the sword on my back. My shoulders roll, a feeble attempt to work the kinks out. Jasper slides his gun into his holster. 

“Climb.” Sebastian shoots me a look. 

After a few moments of heavy glaring, I turn and search for a suitable tree. The one Jasper and I were using as a bed last night is too thin. I find one swiftly and jump up, fingers curling around a branch. I hoist myself up onto it, using the tree trunk to push myself up, and then slowly begin to climb with one leg. 

I obviously don’t move very fast.

Squeezing the trunk in a death grip, I weasel myself up higher, until I can’t go any further. I peer around the side and my eyes scan over the treetops. 

Nothing; there’s not even a bird or a cloud. 

I swivel around against the tree trunk, shifting so I face another direction. Something glints against the sunlight. I gasp and shift closer. And the trunk snaps beneath me. 

“Oh!” My voice cracks up an octave as I slowly start to fall back, arms coiling tighter around the trunk in my grasp. 

An ear splitting shriek rips past my lips –for all but a short burst. My stomach leaps up into my mouth, cutting the scream off instantly, and I let go of the branch, batting it away from my face. With a sickening lurch, my fall is halted by two strong arms. 

I blink, swallowing back sickness. 

“Why hello there, fancy you dropping in.” Jasper imitates a horrible English accent, smiling cheekily. 

I groan loudly in warning. Jasper slowly sets me down, feet first, and my knees buckle. I stumble forward, cringing at my ankle, and collapse to my knees. I promptly throw up what little is left in my stomach. Fingers tug on strands of my hair, holding the loose strands back away from my face. 

Once I’m finished, I shakily wipe the back of my hand across my mouth and sit up. 

Monique lets my hair drop, a mildly disgusted look on her face. I shoot her a thankful one and slowly stand, quickly averting my eyes so I don’t see the contents of my stomach. 

Jasper sighs loudly. “Climb on.” He gestures for me to climb onto his back. 

I stare at him confusedly, “Huh?” 

“You saw something, right?” Monique nudges me towards him. “We’ve got to move fast if we’re going to find whatever you saw before nightfall. And we all saw you fall. You twisted your ankle.” 

I roll my eyes. “So? I can still walk.”  

“It’s already all swollen and puffy,” She scowls, “And you’ve already strained it enough by climbing that tree. Give it a rest. Jasper won’t bite.” 

I hesitantly glance over. 

Jasper wiggles his booty. I glare at him and turn back to Mo, prepared to protest, but Sebastian quickly cuts me off, “We don’t have all day.” 

Grumbling, I limp forward and climb onto his back. My legs curl around his waist and his arms wind around my knees. I rest my forehead against the back of his neck and my eyes flutter shut. I am perfectly fine. Jasper shouldn’t have to carry me. 

We move forward anyways, despite my grumbled complaints. I briefly explain to them what I saw as we walk. I’m positive now that I saw the dome. There’s nothing else even remotely reflective like that in the forest. 

A flicker of hope sparks inside my chest, like a stone bird shivering to life inside a broken cage. 

If we could just get back to the city…if we could just get home…A decent shower, warm and delicious food, clean crystalline water, lights, warmth in the nighttime, it all sounds so appealing. 

We’ve only been out here for three days. Three days of hunger, pure horror, and stress. It’s enough to demolish what’s left of our sanity. 

Maybe we could also warn the others of the zombie infested woods that lie mere feet from the city. The Government should be able to fix it, right? They can stop the use of nanobots and demolish all the zombies. If we can make it so that the children don’t have nanobots inside of them, future generations can be salvaged. Or at least they could come up with the solution or a cure of some sort for the array of mini-robots. 

We could save the world. 

By the time the gray sky starts to darken at the edges, my stomach is roaring so loudly I think it’s having a full on conversation with Jasper’s. “Dear god, can you guys be any louder?” Monique snaps irritably, hand clutching at her stomach as we push forward through a mound of fallen charred trees. 

“I’m sorry,” I retort, “I’m just not used to repeatedly starving myself for long periods of time just to get skinny like some of us.” 

“Isn’t that some sort of sickness?” Jasper’s blonde brows furrow in confusion. 

I nod and pat his head. “It’s technically called Anorexia Nervosa, but most normal teenagers know it as Anorexia.” 

“Are you implying something?” Monique shoots me a swift glare. 

I snort. “Took you long enough to figure it out.” 

“Shut up.” Sebastian snarls, “All of you -before I kill you myself.” 

“Touchy, touchy,” Jasper whistles lowly, facial features twitching into a sly smirk. 

Sebastian glares icily at him. “You’ll be first, Blondie.” 

Jasper rolls his eyes and coos, “You’re so easy to mess with, Teddy-bear.” 

“Okay, both of you shut up.” I huff. “Your annoying voices are killing my head.” 

They both fall silent. Monique glares at the burnt scenery as we pass, her lips curling back in disgust at the broken heaps of festering limbs and remains of dead trees. It’s amazing to think that humans did this to themselves. That they were so wrapped up in the idea of power they destroyed three-fourths of their home. 

It’s a shame. I wonder what Earth was like before the Nuclear War, before all the fighting. 

“So how much further is it?” Jasper tilts his head back to get a quick view of my face. I shrug. “I don’t know.” They all slow to a stop. I carefully slide off of Jasper’s back, hand gripping his shoulder for support, and scan the area for a suitable tree. 

But I don’t find any. 

“There’s not a single tree that I can climb.” I scowl darkly, glancing around towards the others. 

“It makes sense.” Sebastian states silently, cold eyes flickering from tree to tree. “If the dome protected Crescent City during the war, then wouldn’t the enemy attack the dome with more radiation just to try to land a hit?” 

Monique nods. “The trees around here have had more radiation poisoning.” 

“That must mean we’re getting close.” Jasper nods sharply. 

“Let’s just set up camp.” I sigh softly, plopping down onto the ground. My fingers immediately find my ankle, rubbing the swollen joint. Thankfully the swelling has reduced a bit. Monique walks over to me and sits down in front of me. She hesitantly reaches out to touch my ankle, and then pauses.

Her dark eyes glance up, “May I?”

Shocked, I nod slightly and move my hands back. She gently lifts my leg and sets it on her lap, angled upwards. “This is going to seem disgusting, but it will help the rest of the swelling go down,” She warns. My lip curls back in disgust as I watch her remove one of her socks. She mumbles something about wishing for cold water and then wraps the sock around my ankle. My head tilts back, “Ewe.” 

“Shut up, it’s all I can do for now.” She growls at me, “It needs to be compressed and elevated with ice, but unfortunately, we have nothing cold. So deal with it.” 

I grit my teeth. 

At least she’s being nice.