Page 5 of Heart of the Hunted
CHAPTER TWO
Natalia
"We can stay one more night, but that's it," Amberly said.
"Yeah, I know," Natalia told her.
Amberly had been Natalia's best friend since they were young children. Natalia couldn't remember which one of them joined their group first, but she was glad they met. Being the same age, they’d grown up more like sisters.
As much fun as it was to spend all day every day with your best friend, being on the run constantly was no way to live life. Moving from one shitty bunker to the next. Natalia was fed up of never being able to stay in one place longer than a few nights, but that had been every Humans way of life since before she was born, ever since the Great War.
Unless she was able to build a time machine, like the ones she had read about in some of the books she found occasionally when she was out scavenging for supplies, it was likely to be that way for the rest of her life.
When Natalia was younger, she used to dream she was one of the characters she’d read about. The dreams never lasted long though. Real life would always come crashing down on her before too long.
If only she had been born before the Great War, when life was simple and easy. Back then, nobody knew that the monsters they read about in books were actually real. They soon found out differently when the Great War started.
Everything from Demons to Shapeshifters and Vampires to Fae, it was all real. What was worse, they were all out for blood…Human blood.
From what Natalia had been told about the time of the Great War, more than half of the Human population were killed in less than a week. The rest of Humanity scattered, trying to stay out of the way of a war that had nothing to do with them. Some succeeded, otherwise she wouldn't be here today, but most weren't so lucky.
Within a year, the majority of Humanity had been wiped from the face of the planet. It wasn't any better once the war was over either, as those that survived were then hunted down and killed mercilessly.
Nowadays, the last few remaining Humans alive travelled in small groups. Not only was it safer to travel with others, but the groups were kept small so they weren't as easily seen. The smaller the group the better, but it needed to be more than four to be on the safe side.
Natalia remembered a time when there was over thirty people in their group, now there was less than half left. Over the years the numbers had dwindled drastically in their group. So much so that if their luck didn't change soon, then there would be none of them left.
"Donovan's cooking dinner tonight," Amberly told her.
"It should be edible then," Natalia said.
Not everyone they travelled with could cook. Many a times Natalia and Amberly had come down with food poisoning. It was that bad at one point, Natalia had refused to eat anything that was cooked by anyone other than herself, Amberly, or Donovan. At least they knew how to cook properly, unlike nearly everyone else.
Not long after the last bout of food poisoning... which lasted nearly a week... Amberly took it upon herself to teach everyone who couldn’t cook how to. Now most of them could cook at least simple meals, with the exception of Rafe. It didn't matter how much time Amberly spent teaching him, he didn't seem to get it. So, whenever it was his turn, Natalia went without.
"Has everyone returned?" Natalia asked.
"All but two," Amberly said.
"Shit! It's nearly dark,” Natalia said worriedly. “They should have been back by now."
"Rafe wants to go looking for them," Amberly said.
Natalia's head snapped up at the news. "I hope someone stopped him? It's not safe at night."
"You don't need to tell me,” Amberly said, raising her eyebrows. “I know just how dangerous it is."
"Did the others at least come back with anything?" she asked.
The whole point in them going out in the first place was to scavenge whatever they could, whether it was for food, clothing, weapons, or whatever else they needed to survive. If they came back empty handed, then they would have lost another two people for nothing. Not that they should be losing people full stop, but there was nothing she could do to change that, and at the end of the day they needed the supplies. So they had no choice but to risk lives.
"Yeah, they managed to pick up a few bits. Not nearly enough though," Amberly said.
The problem was, they had to venture close to the creatures that were trying to kill them in order to stock up on supplies. There was nothing else left from their own kind, it had all been looted long before she was born.
"Fingers crossed the others will be back soon," Natalia said.
"If they don't, we're going to be down another two people," Amberly sighed.
