ditto
still kicking :)
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DERON FRAZIER
S T A T U S :
Conscious. Alive.
H E A L T H :
100%
L O C A T I O N :
on the road
T A S K :
head to haventon
Deron watched Cara’s methodical gathering of the
citrine with a cold, focused gaze, but he couldn’t shake the feeling in the back of his mind that associated this crystal with a balled fist or a blade near his neck. Deron didn’t believe in fate, but the primal depths of his brain warned him that it was certainly an omen. He quickly dismissed the idea. “Five minutes,” Deron repeated, and he started back in the direction of the barn.
Within him, as he approached the abandoned truck, there was a conflict on whether or not to lift some of the supplies from the back of the missing team’s truck. Because they were on a rescue mission (of sorts), Deron’s team had brought little more than the bare essentials so as to have room in the truck bed for the missing team members when they were inevitably located. Certainly, they would be taken back to this location and expected to get themselves back to the compound, but they wouldn’t need these supplies for survival anymore, as they would head straight home. It didn’t look as though they were using this place, intended as a storehouse, like they should anyway, judging by the dust on the boxes. Grabbing another box for food would certainly help them feel less distracted by their hunger. Deron would reluctantly admit that he was notorious for delving out mission rations that were only barely small enough to get one through the day (and he was more prone to admitting it due to the rumble in his stomach).
But—and this stopped him short of taking anything from the truck—an image flashed in his mind of the team, worn ragged, stumbling in in the late hours of the night, a few days behind schedule, cursing themselves, heads held low in shame, stomachs empty, reaching for a box of canned goods only to find that they had been ravaged by the man who had provided it for them. His son would be the first to say some smartass comment like, ”Look at the kind of thanks we get for doing the hard stuff, huh?”
Deron then, with a soft sigh, walked back up to the truck door and popped it open, then heaved himself into the driver’s seat with a sigh. He took several moments to collect himself, closing his eyes and doing his best to get a moment to get ahold of himself.
His mind went back to the strange crystals, and he got the odd, almost supernatural feeling in the back of his mind again. The O’Malley kid had mentioned that it was some disease that he’d seen sometimes. Deron, who had gone on several missions (though admittedly none too far from the base), had never come across anything like it, nor had any of the people returning from missions ever mentioned it. (He reminded himself to scold Jesse and his team for that at a later time.) Lionel, the resident mad scientist, would certainly have mentioned something if he’d known about it, or scribbled it down frantically in his pocketbook, but Deron had heard nothing from him, either.
Perhaps he would after this trip.
Deron breathed out a long sigh. Next stop, he supposed, was a place called Haventon—a rather large city about twenty miles away. He retrieved his map from his pocket and studied his route, which he now had to admit was rather poorly drawn. He followed the roads with his finger, wondering how many street signs would still be legible (that was always something interesting to observe). There had been a few expeditions to Haventon, and a lot was always retrieved, so they never lasted long or went very deep. That, of course, was some of the purpose of this expedition—to go deeper and see if such a place was livable, if there were others to bring back to the compound, or if their regular routine of stripping a block at a time of its valuables was to be continued. Of course, this was to be repeated in the other cities, too, but Haventon was the first because it was one of the smallest.
Deron closed his eyes for a moment and focused on the pulse in his veins. He was the leader, and his mind had to be clear—or else his brother would try and assert his “dominance” and everything would go to hell. A little crystal couldn’t shake him up, and omens were a bullshit idea. With his eyes closed, he folded the map and put it in his pocket and then, sitting up and opening his eyes, he trekked toward the truck.
As he approached, everyone tossed themselves into the truck, and Deron breathed out a soft sigh of relief. Everyone was in place for once, and that was all that he could ask for.
He threw himself in the driver’s seat and shut the door, then glanced back at Cara. “The samples are secured, I trust.” It was supposed to be a question, but it was more of a command. They seemed like a stable substance, but he couldn’t be certain. The last thing he needed was an unsealed container that became a makeshift bomb.
In the next few minutes, they were on the road, headed across the fields toward the large city—or toward what Deron trusted to be the large city. For now, there were only large expanses of fields to be seen—some blooming with wild flowers, most dead.
♡coded by uxie♡
