setting: post-apocalyptic wasteland

[rukonkid]

Gin can never get anyone to talk about the catastrophe. Never mind that finding someone in the first place is a feat within itself. Sure, the city has its tiny portion of residents holed away in various corners, but they prefer the inner city. If they hide among the wreckage, surrounding themselves with buildings far beyond repair, it almost looks

Comments

[rocksascarf]

Three months of traveling have told Lea one thing: wandering through desert and wasteland sucks. Long hard days of sand-blasting wind, nights when temperatures plummeted and strange things rustled in the brambles, times when he would see dust clouds on the horizon and hear the sound of bullets and screams. Not to mention the constant worrying about food and water; his stores were still good and he had ways to get more, but anyone who looked at him would think him easy pickings and just take what they wanted...

But he'd known, of course. He'd known it would be difficult. Hadn't everyone in the settlement told him so before he'd left? You'll just die out there.

There's nothing to find.

Savages will capture you and chew on your bones.

It's not like you're going to find him, anyway.

"I'll show them," he mutters for maybe the hundredth time. "I'll show them. He has to be somewhere out there. He can't have just disappear--"

Then he's jumping, skittering back several feet and reaching into his pocket while jerking his head up to scan the buildings that loom on either side of him.

"Who's there?!"

[rukonkid]

"Woah - yer jumpy~ Look up, look up!" Gin can manage to lean over the balcony's concrete railing just a bit more, and wave. This stranger isn't quite as big as other travelers Gin's been exposed to. He's always a little hesitant to approach the men, and oftentimes the women are beyond desperate for salvation. It's a fine line that has to be walked with those he doesn't recognize, and to find someone who isn't quite an adult - it puts Gin at ease, even just a bit.

"Take yer hand out of yer pocket, though, or else I'm gonna disappear!"

[rocksascarf]

"...up. Right." Lea feels his cheeks prickle with a little heat, but it's not like anybody can see from from a distance, right? "I heard you the first time!"

He dutifully looks up, spotting the scrawny, light-haired kid hanging out of one of the buildings - and how he didn't fall or it didn't crumble under him, he had no idea. Suspicious, pride stung, but with no other option than to just turn around and take off, Lea eases his hand back out of his pocket, glaring up with narrowed eyes.

"You really mean what you just said? About the fruit?"