Page 1 of Shattered Home

Chapter One

Three pieces of gauze. Half a container of prescription antibiotics. Six painkillers. And five bandages. That’s all that was left. And yet it seemed that each day there were more injuries than I could count. I guess that was expected when a group of strangers were living in a half-burned forest.

Heaving a sigh, my back rested against the trunk of a tree behind me, the grooved edges digging into my thin shirt. My eyes drifted upward, smoky tendrils still tainting the blue hue three months after the fires first started.

A weight sitting next to me drew my gaze, a small smile crinkling my lips as I gazed at my companion. Her shirt was too large, drowning her already small frame, her jeans turned to shorts torn and muddy. But a light still shone in her emerald eyes, one that had long vanished from my own.

“How are the supplies looking?” Mina asked, brushing flakes of dirt off her knobby knees.

“Abysmal.”

A word I used to use far too much, that would cause my brothers to chuckle at my pessimism, no longer brought even a trickle of laughter. There was no space for such things out here. No strain in your cheeks from smiling too wide or a cramp in your side from laughing too hard. Out here, there were only three things that I could count on.

One: the lavish life I had so grudgingly taken for granted was long gone. Two: the family I rolled my eyes at for being too involved was nothing more than a memory. And three: each day in this forest I was one step closer to death.

“The twins have used up most of the bandages and I’m sure the antibiotics will be gone sooner than we want.” Frowning, I poked my toe through the hole in the top of my shoe.

The once white shoes, now stained with mud, were a reminder of life before. I still remember the day my mom gifted them to me, along with a brand new pair of scrubs, for my first day at my new nursing job.

Speaking of the scrubs, I watched as Elizabeth used the torn lilac material to scrub dishes, sitting by the dying fire. Her weary eyes looked to the sky, sun patches dotting her cheeks as she washed aimlessly.

Turning from the somber sight, I nudged Mina gently with my shoulder, gesturing to the clearing in the forest we now called home.

“Where are the others?” I asked, our tiny camp feeling empty without the presence of everyone.

“Emmanuel took the kids to the creek for some fishing,” Mina responded, “the other three headed off to hunt and sneak into town.”

As she spoke, the two of us looked at each other, and I wondered if she felt as helpless as I did. The others all had a role to play, a skill that they adapted to help us survive. And here I sat, clueless to how to help besides bandaging up the small scrapes the eight-year-old twins, Lucas and Stephanie, seemed to always have.

“Glad to see you’re getting lots done here at camp,” a snarky voice sounded behind us.

Turning my head, I spotted Rainer, a large deer slung over his shoulders, his pistol sitting in the waistband of his worn jeans. His muscles strained as he carried the deer toward the fire, his full lips frowning. His arms were taut from the strain, yet his wide shoulders relaxed, the sun haloing his shaggy blonde hair as if welcoming him into the wild.

Mina jumped up at his appearance, scurrying over to his side, eyes wide as she took in the dead animal. However, I didn’t dare move, knowing that his company would only include insults aimed my way. To him, I was a stuck-up, spoiled princess that had never worked a day in her life. And he made those thoughts perfectly clear every time we spoke.

Each time he hurled an insult my way, I wanted to scream that he didn’t know me, that none of us knew each other. We were all just strangers trying to survive. But I never did, knowing that as I sat here, unsure of how to help, each cruel word held a truth I was too ashamed to admit. I didn’t belong out here.

The sun was just beginning to set, later and later each day as summer approached, our small group sitting around the fire. After Rainer had returned with the deer, the rest were close behind, getting to work cleaning and cutting the meat to cook for dinner tonight. We still had some rice to cook as well, a small necessity the others had picked up from their last run into the nearest town.

“Did you get anything else for dinner?” Mina asked Sasha, the two sitting on a charred log beneath them.

Sasha sighed, pushing a dark lock of hair behind her shoulder. She glanced at the twins playing in the distance, presumably to make sure their young ears wouldn’t overhear what she had to say.

“There’s nothing left of the town. The buildings are completely vacant if they're still standing. It’s like no one ever lived there.”

A somber cloud fell over us at her words, realizing we were worse off than ever before. For the past three months, we had been able to get small supplies from runs into the town, just enough to prevent us from completely living off the land. But with this news, I knew that everything would begin to change even more than it already had.

Trying to shake off the feelings of doom, I darted my gaze toward the twins, their innocence still intact. Their parents, Elizabeth and Emmanuel, made sure that they didn’t know the truth of our situation. That they didn’t have the same struggle on their shoulders as the rest of us.

Murphy stood before the twins, a large smile widening his face as he jumped from stump to stump, trills of laughter spilling from the kids. His ripped shirt blew in the wind as he spun, sending a wink their way with a cheeky grin. He seemed to be able to keep the darkness out better than the rest of us.

In fact, although best friends, Murphy and Rainer were polar opposites. If Rainer was akin to his name, a dark and stormy cloud, Murphy was the sunshine that washed him away. They were the two that had found me in the forest three months ago, the ones that had brought me into the fold of people that had slowly transformed this area into a camp.

The smell of cooked meat drew my gaze from Murphy and the kids, my eyes landing on the plate before me. Small pieces of meat and an even smaller heaping of rice sat on the plate and I took it gratefully.

“Thank you.” My stomach groaned at the smell, wishing for more.

“You can thank me by washing the dishes,” Rainer responded gruffly, glaring at my stomach as if I was shouting to the rooftops that it wasn’t enough.

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