Piece By Piece ~ Snippet 10

Viren

Last night, Elise was the first of us to actually recover a full memory. I mean, it was just some moment she had with her father rubbing her hair when she was a kid, but I guess that means Savannah’s plan did work eventually. As far as I’m concerned though, this is a much better use of our time. Overnight the storm cleared away, leaving a myriad of puddles in its wake, but no longer keeping us trapped indoors. Originally most of the group was pretty opposed to splitting up at all, but Danger was convinced that we can cover more ground by splitting up. So we grabbed our survival packs, Lana grabbed one of her too large collection of hats, and we split up in pairs. 

How exactly did I end up with the most boring partner though? Danger finishes his monotone hourly check-in via our walkie-talkies with the other two pairs. He looks at his compass to confirm the direction as we continue on. I kick random pebbles and trash in passing. Danger seems perfectly comfortable walking in silence, but it is absolutely driving me crazy. I sigh loudly, and he doesn’t even flinch. My eyes narrow and I walk faster to catch up with his gangly legs. 

I sigh again dramatically and one of his eyes shifts over to me. “Can I help you with something?”

“No. I just thought this whole exploration thing was going to be a lot more interesting.” I kick another rock. “This is pretty boring.” A follow-up kick accidentally sends the pebble flying into the side of Danger’s leg. My eyes widen as his narrow. 

“Maybe if you were paying an ounce of attention to your surroundings, like you’re supposed to be doing, instead of trying to bruise me with stones, you’d be less bored.” His eyes face forward again. 

“Okay, the rock was an accident, sorry about that,” I admit. “It’s still boring out here though. What am I going to pay attention to though?” I point to a vacant building. “Look, a boring, blocky, building.” I point to another. “Look, another boring, blocky, building.” 

Danger rolls his eyes and comes to a stop. I walk past him by mistake. “Well, maybe if you payed attention to this boring, blocky building, you would have noticed that this is a pharmacy. We should go in to look for medicine.” He strides past me and into the building. 

“He’s lucky we just happened to stumble across something useful,” I grumble as I follow him inside. “Whoa, what happened to this place?” Danger’s stopped just within the entrance, his eyes roving over the same scene mine are. Shelves are toppled on their sides, the few upright are barren. Empty containers litter the floor, some squashed by obvious footprints. 

“This store was looted.” Danger takes a long step into the mess, eyes scanning, hunting for traces of useful items. I pick up an empty carton and see that it’s for a fever reducer, before I toss it aside. 

“Well, that’s pretty obvious,” I remark. “But why loot the pharmacy and not the department store? We found some medicine in there too.”

Danger shakes his head, and his ponytail swishes across his back. “I don’t know. We’ll have to look at the store when we get back. Maybe it has some type of protection we didn’t notice before.”

I snort. “Clearly it wasn’t very effective. We just walked in through the front door.”

Danger takes a moment to look back at me. “Whatever defenses that building had clearly worked at the time. They kept the looters at bay then. This obviously took place awhile ago, there’s even dust covering the wreckage.” 

“Oh,” I say. “I hadn’t thought of that.” 

Danger continues to weave his way through the mess towards a window. He grabs one of the bars over the window and shakes it. “Solid. I guess they were there to protect the pharmacists.” 

I climb over the piles with a little less agility. I reach the window where Danger is and peer through the next one. “Doesn’t look like it worked in the end.” The glass behind the bars is shattered in this window, and beyond it I can see the back room in complete disarray. 

Danger sees the same catastrophe that I do. “You’re right.” 

I turn back around to face the devastated store. “You know, we haven’t seen any other people outside of our group, but clearly people were here.”

Danger’s eyes grow distant. “And clearly something happened to them.” I swallow, but try to appear strong when he looks to me. “Come on, we should check inside the other stores too. We should figure out which stores were looted. Maybe that will give us some clue as to what happened.” 

I follow him back out. It’s apparent we won’t gain anything more from the pharmacy, either in supplies, or in information. “Hey,” I call after him. “Are you going to radio the others? I think maybe they should know.” 

Danger shakes his head. “Not yet. I want to see what else we can learn first.” He looks back at me. “They shouldn’t be in any danger, if that’s what you’re worried about. Whatever happened here, it wasn’t recent.” 

“Why would I be worried about them?” I shrug. “Besides, we haven’t come across any concrete dangers. Right now, they’re just as unknown as they were before.”

“You’re right,” Danger agrees. “Although, you’d be a fool not to worry about them. In a world as uncertain as this, they’re our most valuable resource.”

“You’re the one who tried to go off on your own,” I remind him. 

“I get the feeling I’ve been a loner before,” he replies. “I probably could be again.” 

I don’t believe him for a second. “Pssht. With the way you sleep? You need us just to keep watch.” Calling the rest of us a resource may be as close as he ever gets to saying he needs us, but the honest truth is that we all need each other. 

We come to another store front, this one a clothing store. This time, when we push the doors open, we’re both more wary. Our caution seems unnecessary however, because it doesn’t take long to realize that this store wasn’t looted like the pharmacy. Just to be certain, we walk through the first floor, and even quickly take a peek up at the second floor. “Untouched,” Danger comments. 

“Just like A-Mart,” I agree. “Should we check the next store?” Wordlessly, Danger nods. He seems pensive, lost in thought. The next few buildings are locked apartment buildings, and the one that’s unlocked is blocked just inside the door by a cave-in from one of the upper floors. “What are you looking for in an apartment building, anyway?” I raise an eyebrow at Danger. 

“If there was some serious event that happened here, we should see signs of the way people reacted in their homes.” He looks away from the unlocked, but useless building. He keeps talking as we move on. “If there was some disaster, people likely either hunkered down in their homes, or they fled. Maybe we could get an idea of what they faced by seeing what they left behind.” 

I furrow my brow. “Are you sure you don’t have any memories, because you sure seem to know a lot about this.” 

“No.” He shakes his head, but his face never changes. “I don’t have any memories. This all just seems like common sense to me.” I don’t have enough memories of my own to tell him otherwise. 

“What’s this building?” I look up at a building with a design different from the others. It’s still one giant boring cube, but something about it seems older even than the others, like it was old when its neighbors were constructed. 

Danger points at the lettering above the embellished double door entrance. “It’s a bank, Viren.” 

I walk up to the door and try to push it open. It won’t budge, so I put all of my weight against it. “This one’s still locked up tight.” I peer through the glass pane of the door. A metal gate stands untouched as a secondary defense, but beyond that I can see that the bank is neat and tidy. “The looters didn’t hit the bank.” I turn around. “What kind of looters don’t go after a bank?” 

Danger shrugs. “The same ones who left food at the department store. Maybe the bank’s protection was too good.” He starts to leave, but I bend down and pick up a rock. I hurl it at the glass door and it sails through, shattering the glass so that it clatters loudly to the stone of the entryway. “Viren!” Danger’s eyes are narrowed at me. I think I startled him. “What the hell was that for?” 

“What looter wouldn’t at least try to break in?” I toss another stone up, and catch it again in my palm. “Maybe they weren’t targeting the bank at all.” 

He still seems annoyed by my test. “So, by your logic, the looters would only have targeted the pharmacy.”

I shrug. “I didn’t claim to understand it. I just don’t want to overlook any evidence.” 

“Danger, Savannah, come in.” The radio crackles with Aiden’s voice. 

“We hear you,” Danger replies. “You’re early for our check-in.”

“We hear you, too, Aiden.” Savannah’s reply comes over the walkie next. “What’s up?”

Aiden answers. “Guys, we found something.” The radio is quiet for a moment. “I think you should come see this.” 

-Thank you for reading this week's snippet, and as always, I hope you enjoyed it. This past week I know there were quite a few graduation ceremonies, so I'd like to extend congratulations to all of the graduates, as well as the friends and family who helped them get there. Piece by Piece will continue with a new snippet next week. Stay tuned to learn what Aiden found during the group's exploration.