» Seagulls are tormenting creatures, Open

[Ash]

It had been a week since Ash had spoken to someone. Somehow he kept track of that. In the beginning, he used to remember how much time there was between the day they left the hotel and now, or between when his little brother had disappeared and now. He had stopped doing that though. It didn't seem to be important anymore. What was more important was who he had seen, where he had seen them, and what they had looked like.

Ash hadn't been the kind of person to remember clothes or hairstyles, but he had to, now, because he wanted to find out how many tribes there were and how many people were in them. Which was practically impossible if he never spoke to anyone.

That night, he had slept at Haven Point, which he still remembered visiting with his parents. There used to be tourists and shops where you could buy souvenirs and postcards. Well, the shops were still there. The tourists were gone. He had found himself a place to crash at the docks, which hadn't been the best idea because of the seagulls. They kept waking him up with their cries, and he kept trying to think of a way to get them down from the sky. He wasn't sure how seagulls tasted but they were bird. People used to eat goose as well.

He was just walking, not sure where he wanted to go, but that was unimportant too, because he had nowhere to go. Nowhere in particular. He had no one to meet, nowhere to go and nothing to do except find a meal. A few months ago the thought of that made him depressed, now it didn't. It was reassuring, if you thought about it, that he had no obligations. He didn't have to guard some sort of territory as his, and he didn't have to go out to find food for other people. That was exactly why he hadn't joined a tribe.

Another reason of course was that most of the kids seemed to be in the city centre, or maybe that was only what Ash thought. But out here, in the suburbs, there were not a lot of big fights at night, so he wouldn't be woken by anything but animals, and he wouldn't be forced to join in to assure his place either. He wasn't meant to fight, although at some point in the future he might have to learn to become a fighter as well. As of yet, he was just some kid.

Ash found himself in front of the hospital. All he had to do was cross the street and he could go inside, if he wanted to. He hadn't planned on that. He didn't really want to be near the hospital, it was like this constant reminder of how things could have been. Although he hadn't been thrilled with his parents, whenever he was near the place they propably died, he thought about how he could've still been in Brussels now, in a city he had known for all of his life. With or without his family, that didn't matter that much to him. He had quickly accepted the fact they weren't here anymore, and he didn't really miss them. In fact he didn't miss his old life at all. But all the stuff that was probably still in his old room, some of that he did miss. He would've liked to have the opportunity to visit his old life sometimes.

It was too spooky here. Why was he even here? Why hadn't he focused more on the direction his feet were going? There were loads of bodies in there. It was like a huge hive of contaminated corpses.

The thought of that was too much. Still on the other side of the street, he ignored the sight of Anthonius Hospital and started to run. He could run, after so much time on his own, faster than he had ever been at school, where he was forced to run during PE. He used to hate it, but he had discovered that running calmed him down. And of course it was the fastest way to get away from the graveyard that was once a hospital.

Ash ran, turning corners, crossing streets. He didn't care if his trainers made any noise on the asphalt, and even if they did, it would probably not be very loud. A few blocks away from the damn place, he stopped, leaned against the wall of a building and looked around. There was no one in plain sight, though that meant nothing. There could always be people.

He sat down against the wall and pulled his legs up, wrapping his arms around them. Time for a break. It wasn't really that smart anyway to be walking around, 'cause he would use energy that would later have to be compensated by something decent to eat. And he hadn't found anything yet, since yesterday morning. Except for the stupid seagulls of course, they were food he didn't know how to catch.

[Lindsay]

Lindsay had left the school again. She didn't know what it was about that place, but sometimes she felt like she couldn't breathe in there. It wasn't as if there were too many people (though there were more than enough), she just never found herself being as comfortable as if it were home. Not that home was comfortable either, but there was comfy furniture. In fact, she had been thinking about her bed lately. The girl would trade anything to have that bed back. It was recently bought, before the virus. It felt like you were laying on feathers and Lindsay always feel asleep as soon as her head touched the pillow. There was nothing like her bed, but of course it was no more. Even if Lindsay managed to make her way back to Berlin, she was sure she would find her house ransacked and some kid sleeping in her bed.

Sometimes Lindsay wondered why she had even left Berlin at all. Everything she knew was there. All of her stuff was there. Robert knew she was there. That was what hurt her most of all. If her brother was still alive, he would head to their house in Germany first. She had left him a cleverly placed note, in their favorite childhood hiding spot. The girl wasn't sure if he would remember it or even think to look there, but she had to try. If he managed to find his way back to their house, he could find her in Gardum City. It was a possibility and Lindsay clung to that.

Not wanting to be suffocated by her thoughts, the girl had left St. Jonathan's. Careful as ever, she made sure nobody had seen her leave. The children were always warned not to leave the school grounds. Lindsay knew that if any kids saw her, they might be persuaded to follow. They could be hurt or killed. And it wasn't just important that they didn't see her. For possibly endangering the children, she would be punished. Luckily, Lindsay was rather good at sneaking away. She had plenty of practice at home and had done it enough here to know the secrets. Finally making it off the grounds, Lindsay walked for several blocks before she was assured that nobody had seen her.

It was a small victory, and probably a stupid one as well. Lindsay didn't quite care though. Tasks that would have seemed easier before took on a whole new meaning now. Sometimes the simplest of tasks could seem like an Everest summit had been made. Wandering around, Lindsay was careful to keep a close eye out for others as well. It was still dangerous out and she had to be particularly vigilant. After all, her own death wasn't something she looked forward to either. If she had only a few years left, she wanted to make the most of them.

Somehow Lindsay found herself down by the water. It was peaceful there and the girl like it. She had always liked the water. The Spree river in Berlin had been company to Lindsay over the years. Even though it wasn't the cleanest (but what city river was?) she still enjoyed sitting by the banks. Sometimes, she had just sat there for hours on end until eventually someone found her and brought her home. It was usually her brother who did that, but when came to find her, they would sit for a little bit longer.

Not really wanting to think about that anymore, Lindsay kept walking. She made her way back toward the houses. The suburbs were nice and Lindsay wondered if she had missed out not living in them. Her family had lived right in the city. Even though they had a full house to themselves, it never had the quiet feel of what she thought the suburbs did. The ones in Gardum City must have been nice when they were full of people. Continuing down the street, she thought of the place filled. There would be the children playing in the backyards while neighbors chatted from their gardens. An occasional couple walking their dog would be on the sidewalks. Cars would be driving on the streets, slowing down for a runner. It was then that she saw a figure running past. Blinking to make sure it wasn't still her imagination, Lindsay looked again. No, it definitely wasn't. There was a boy running down the street. Curious, the girl decided to follow.

It wasn't long before he had stopped. Lindsay examined his figure from across the street. She wasn't in plain view for her own protection, but seeing him curled up she thought it wasn't likely he was a Psycho. Tentatively, the girl made her way toward him. Soon, she was standing not ten feet away from him. "Are you alright?" she asked quietly. Lindsay would wait for him to acknowledge her before coming closer.

[Ash]

Ash was still thinking about the seagulls when he saw something from the corner of his eye. There was someone across the street. Quickly he tried to remember where he had put his knife. Not that he was going to attack the person, but it was stupid not to know in which pocket his only way of defence was.

The person turned out to be a girl. She was rather small, and seemed to be on her guard while approaching him. The way he looked at it, she still had the upper hand as long as he didn't stand up, so she didn't have to be like that. But then again, almost everyone was like that nowadays and if you weren't, you were probably not going to last very long.
Still in the same position, his muscles tensed as she came closer, ready to jump up in case she did something unexpected. He tried to size her up, but she looked somewhat harmless to him.

"Are you alright?" The sound of her voice confirmed his previous conclusion: she was not going to attack him. She just stood there, a small distance away from him. He was glad about that, the only thing he wasn't very pleased with was that she hadn't just left him alone. He was quite sure he didn't come across as someone in desperate need of company. In fact, he tried very hard to come across as someone independent.

What troubled him, though, was that she seemed to have followed him. How long had she been behind him, for how long had she gone unnoticed by him? There was a possibility that she had seen him appear from behind the crates on the docks, that had been put there for shipping months ago. They were Ash's favourite part of the city because he was alone there. But if she had seen him there, it was no longer a safe place to sleep. He didn't consider the fact that he had been walking for the entire morning and had already crossed the entire industrial area on his way to the hospital.

Still doubting between several possible answers to her seemingly friendly question, he checked again for signs of hostility. Only then he relaxed a little. "I'm fine," he said, "I was just trying to get away from the hospital as fast as possible."

He stood up, feeling like it would be a little weird if he kept sitting against the wall while talking to her, because she obviously wasn't going anywhere sometime soon. He wondered if she was part of a tribe, but he wasn't sure and he wasn't going to ask. He wouldn't mind finding out either, but she was alone now and therefore, it didn't matter much to him.

"So that leaves the question of why you are here."

Ash leaned back, supporting his weight with his left foot against the wall, his hands deep in the pockets of his jeans. He couldn't really see how old the girl was, except that she was younger than him, but that could also be something he just assumed because of her height. Her clothes looked like she had randomly put them together, which was something he liked compared to other girls he'd known before the virus who used to spend hours in front of the mirror.

Perhaps she wanted him to introduce himself. Not that his name would tell her anything more about who he was, but she probably thought it did. Well, she hadn't told him her name either. She had only asked if he was alright, which he was, and he had told her so. He cared about her name as little as he cared about her tribe. He only wanted to know if he had been followed and where she had first seen him. Everything else was of little importance for now, as the place where he slept had to stay his place and no one else's.

[Lindsay]

Lindsay watched the older boy carefully. He didn't seem to be too interested in her, but who was? Her look quickly changed from one of carefulness to one of curiosity. It wasn't often that the girl was able to get out and even less often that she was able to meet new people. Most everyone in the tribe was younger or older than her. There weren't too many around her own age. And if they were near in age, they had that sort of superior complex that they usually weren't aware of. Not all of the teens did, but Lindsay had found that to be in more than one. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that they were the oldest people on earth. That would get to anyone's head, Lindsay was sure.

His eyes searched her and Lindsay let them. She knew she had come out of nowhere and probably had no right to even talk to him. Some kids were like that now. They wanted nothing to do with anybody else and stuck to themselves. That was the difference between members of a tribe and non-members. You could tell, or at least, Lindsay always thought she could. Those people who acted like the last person they had spoken to was dead: those were the loners. Not that everyone did that, but there were certainly those kids. This boy didn't quite give off that aura, but there was something about him that said, "I don't want to talk to you."

Sighing to herself, Lindsay thought that of course she had run into someone like this. Sometimes all the girl wanted to do was talk and it was clear that it wasn't going to happen anytime soon. When he said something back, she perked up a little. Maybe there was some chance for conversation. But what he said! The hospital was not a great conversation starter. Everyone who had been there thought it was more than just a little bit creepy. Lindsay had never been there herself, but had always been slightly curious about it. If everyone else had such opinions of it, the place might be interesting. As it was, she didn't know enough to have a whole conversation on the subject. However, she suspected that was just what the boy had in mind.

"Did you actually go inside?" Lindsay asked, letting her curiosity get the best of her. "I heard you had einen Vogel haben to go there there." There she was again, mixing her languages together again. Normally, Lindsay didn't do that, but when she got excited her words would switch from English to German. It was a horrible habit, but she couldn't help it. She had basically called the boy crazy, but it wasn't what she meant. Not even bothering to explain herself, Lindsay continued on. Well, she almost did. Deciding to stop while ahead, she paused and the other kid managed to ask a question of his own.

He was standing now and Lindsay suddenly felt bad about standing up before. "Well, I was..." she paused before deciding to really share what she had been thinking. It wasn't like they would ever see each other again. So what if he decided to think she was crazy? "I was imagining what the streets would be like Before. I saw a jogger going down the street, but instead of my imagining, it was real. On a second glance, I saw that I wasn't just dreaming somebody. We were about two blocks back and I decided to follow you. I'm sorry. I was just curious." Her last words came in a slight rush. Lindsay looked at him a bit sheepishly and shrugged. That was what happened, as odd as it sounded.

"I'm Lindsay," the girl introduced, wanting to put her hand out. However, it would probably be slightly awkward just hanging in midair. One of them would have to move for an actual handshake to occur and she figured it wasn't going to happen any time soon.

[Ash]

Was it just him or did she suddenly seem to be interested in him? Ash sincerely hoped she didn't think he was interesting, because he wasn't. That he had walked past the hospital had been a coincidence, he wasn't the kind of guy to go out looking for interesting things to do.

"Why would I go inside?" He noticed that she said something in what looked like German to him, but he didn't really want to go through the effort of remembering stuff he had learned in school. German was just too complicated, so he wouldn't try to speak it to her. It was interesting, though, that she mixed up languages like that. When he had been little, he had done it, too, but since he had only known Flemish people who didn't want to speak French and vice versa, he had soon learned not to. Of course every kid had learned both languages, but they didn't want to use it. And then there were some who were really too stupid to learn another language.

Ash didn't mention that his parents had died in the Anthonius, although he could have. He could've told her the last time he had been inside was when his mother was dying. But then he would've told her too much about himself, something important that she would remember. And then whenever he would meet her again, she would know that.

So she had been two blocks back when she had seen him. That was good. The rest of what she said seemed a little strange to him, but well, imagining life wasn't something he had never done before either. He would never tell anyone he had, but it was really tempting to walk through the city and imagine cars and busses driving around, people shopping, just like how it was before the virus. He also realised, though, that it was absolutely useless to do so.
The girl looked like she was a bit ashamed to admit it, which she shouldn't be, Ash thought, because it was probably normal behaviour. He had never read anything about how people reacted after big events like this, but there were probably books about it. There had probably been people who had graduated on this.

"I'm Ash." After her entire story about daydreaming the past, Ash had decided she wasn't here to taunt or fight him, or anything else. She was just here to talk, which was fine by him, for a little while. He had nothing else to do that was awfully important, now had he?
He didn't want to shake hands because he figured that they didn't need to do that anymore. Kids weren't born with the natural instinct to shake hands of the people they met, they had been taught to do that by their parents. Because it was looked upon as polite. Well, if kids nowadays were fighting with everybody, and setting buildings and cars on fire, being polite when meeting people was ridiculous.

"What you were imagining, did it look better to you?" Now he was the one who was curious. He wouldn't have asked her, normally, but he had just been thinking about how life would have been like if he had still been in Brussels. And he wanted to know how other people thought about the situation they were in.

All of a sudden he thought of something. If it was impossible to catch the seagulls, he could also just find a store where they sold fishing items and try to get his food out of the sea. The birds did that, too. His attention shifted from the conversation with the girl to how stupid he was for not realising there were fish in the sea. Probably a lot. It was like this never ending well of food. Food that was better than canned rubbish that was going to expire in two days or had expired months ago. Better than dirty pets that were really too gross to think about eating. The fish were probably healthy, too.

"By the way, don't be sorry. I was worried if you knew where I slept. But I shouldn't've been so hostile." Now he was really overdoing things. It was just because the girl hadn't said anything mean yet, which was something he didn't experience a lot anymore. He wasn't sure if he really meant it, because he had every right to be hostile to whoever he wanted, but he sort of wanted her to feel like he wasn't one of those kids who were angry to everyone. He tried not to be, anyway.

[Lindsay]

"Why would I go inside?" he asked. Lindsay shrugged and produced a sheepish smile. Everyone did things for certain reasons. Some kids still dared each other to go there. The girl knew that was a bit ridiculous, but true. Others went there for health reasons. The hospital still had medical supplies, though they were rather untouched. Most thought they were infected, but some were desperate enough...Lindsay didn't know if this kid was one of those. He might have had a reason to go inside. She wasn't sure. Apparently, though, he hadn't gone inside.

Lindsay wished he hadn't gotten up. She would much rather have sat down so they would be on the same level. It was far too late for her to sit down now without looking like an idiot. Sighing to herself, Lindsay resolved that she must stand for this whole conversation. The only consolation was that it might not even last very long. Out of all the strays the girl had ever run into, this was the longest conversation she had ever had. Usually, they weren't inclined to talk much. That was probably a large reason they were strays. Tribes meant that they had to talk. Or at least, interact with others.

So, he shared his name. Ash. Lindsay rolled that word around in her mouth a little. It was nice, as far a nicknames went. Some kids had these really awful names that made no sense at all or were just plain dumb. A ton of kids in her tribe had names like that. In fact, Lindsay was one of the few to actually keep her name. There were a few reasons for this, the main one because of her brother. How would he find her if she used some ridiculous name like Willow or Tennis?

The silence stretched for a little, but Lindsay couldn't think of anything to say. She had come to initiate this conversation and now she had nothing to show for it. When Ash asked her a question, she felt better. "Better than now?" she answered with her own question. Not giving him time to answer (it was more of a rhetorical question), she continued. "Loads, of course. I don't really know if it was better to what Gardum City had. I'd never been here until After. Everything was so normal. There were adults and kids; they were all playing together like nothing had ever happened. It looked like one of those cookie-cutter neighborhoods that you hear about in America. I'd always thought they were bad, but this seemed so perfect." She could have, and probably would have, kept going if she didn't glance at Ash. Remembering that she was with someone who probably didn't like rambling, the girl stopped. To sum it up, Lindsay quickly said, "Yes, it was better." That answer probably would have sufficed in the first place, but she didn't care.

Lindsay noticed as his gaze focused in another place, as if there was something else on his mind. There was always something with her, so she understood. After another moment of slightly awkward silence (for her, anyway) Ash spoke again. She accepted his...whatever it was...with a smile. Of course he would be worried about his shelter. For all he knew, she could be some Psycho and wanted to steal his stuff. Of course that wasn't true, but she didn't mind his protectiveness. "It's alright, I understand.I wouldn't want anyone to know either."

(OOC: Sorry, it's mostly crap.)

[Ash]

He hadn't really expected for the girl to give such an elaborate answer to his question. In fact, he hadn't expected the girl to give a real answer at all. Ash thought it was strange for someone he had just met to tell him so much about herself. He didn't usually have that, he didn't usually meet those kind of people. He met people who hid in shops, who chased cats down the streets, those people he kept running into for some strange reason. This girl, Lindsay or whatever her name was, she was different.

Maybe he was falling for the trap of these stupid tribes. That would be a cliché, them sending out this really nice girl to go and buy him into the crap of togetherness or whatever they wanted the world to believe it was they had together. And he would, he would buy into the crap if she kept going like this. She said "of course" it was better, and it was "normal" and "perfect".

Although she might not be one of those people who ate cats, but she was one of those kids who desperately longed back to how it used to be. That could also be the reason why these people grouped together, to try to recreate some sort of society. Well, there was no society, Ash thought.

Thankfully, however, she cut it short and summarised the rest of what she probably wanted to tell him.

She smiled when he tried to be a bit nicer, and told him she understood. Did she? Ash had decided ages ago she was probably a tribe-person, and probably not the oldest of her tribe either. That, to him, meant she would probably be one of the people being looked after. That tribes were more complicated than that he didn't know, he just assumed the oldest kids, seventeen or eighteen years old, would take care of the rest. In his mind, they would be like how the grownups were before, they would make sure they had a place to sleep and stuff to eat, and sometimes they would ask the younger kids to do stuff they didn't want to do.

"You wouldn't? Well obviously you're already in a tribe, aren't you?" He wasn't absolutely sure, but sure enough. She didn't seem to be worrying about her next meal as much as him. She didn't seem as independent as him. There were both good and bad sides to belonging to a tribe, but to Ash, the bad sides outweighed the good. He didn't care he didn't have that much to eat because he had no one to share it with.
His voice was suddenly less friendly than before. After all he had been trying hard.

"So where are you from anyway? I mean, you said you only came here after the virus, right?" He didn't mention he had a very limited knowledge of Gardum before the virus either, because he had been here for a weekend. How ironic, actually, that one of the few times they would actually go somewhere with the family had been the time his parents and sister had gotten the virus. He had never wanted to go here in the first place. He had just wanted to finish this level of this new game he had been playing. In fact, he had also wanted to see what Grand Theft Auto IV was like. And a million other games that were supposed to be released but had no one to release them anymore.

Actually, computers should be the last on his mind. It had been very long since he had found batteries, which he had used for a while in a flashlight before it had been stolen off him. Including the batteries.

If Lindsay would just stop making references to her apparently pretty protected life, he would stop thinking about things he couldn't change anything about. He would also stop doubting about his opinions, because doubt was worse than nostalgia.

[Lindsay]

Lindsay watched as Ash considered her day dream. Initially, she was a bit embarrassed about it, but gave up on caring. She had never cared much in the past what other people thought of her, so why this boy? There was nothing special about him. Nothing that made him stand out from the other people she had talked to. So, there was no reason for her to be embarrassed. Standing there in silence was boring for the girl. She scuffed her foot on the ground, in attempt to fill the emptiness. This was not what she expected when she decided to approach the stranger.

Actually, perhaps it was. Kids were different these days. Nobody wanted to talk about anything. Especially the older ones. She supposed that they were worried about dying soon. Lindsay thought about it too, but it wasn't because of her age. In fact, she was fully sure that she would die before she ever got to eighteen. It used to scare her, but now she had accepted it. Any day could be last, so the girl decided to make the best of them.

Lindsay's smile disappeared from her face when he took on a meaner tone. It was in regard to tribes. She knew that most strays hated tribes for one reason or another, but had never thought more of it. After living on her own for as long as she had, Lindsay decided that a tribe would be best. If only so she could have somebody to talk with. That was what had gotten to her the most. The silence was more likely to kill her then lack of food.

Lindsay almost refused to answer his question, but he seemed to think he already had the answer. She thought she should confirm it just to make him feel better. "Yes, I belong to a tribe and no, I wouldn't want anybody to know about my shelter." She wasn't talking about her tribe shelter, but didn't stop to specify. "I know all about coming back to my 'home' to find nothing left. All the food I had found, gone. Or to even find somebody sleeping in it and taking precious care to make sure that I could get my stuff out without waking him. I know what's it's like, so don't think I don't."

Once again, Lindsay shared more than she should have. However, she couldn't help but get slightly upset at his haughty assumption. Anybody who didn't belong to a tribe seemed to think they they knew so much more than those members who did. True, most of the kids in a tribe had been there since the near beginning. Lindsay, hadn't been like that though. She had to travel for weeks and weeks by herself. Even when she got to Gardum City, she stayed on her own for a few weeks. The tribe concept was new to her then, and when she finally decided on joining one, it took her awhile to figure out how. So, when this boy stood across from her and pretended he knew so much more than her, it was natural she got a bit upset.

Now he was asking for more information about her. In truth, Lindsay was becoming slightly annoyed. She didn't want to keep giving out facts about herself and getting nothing in return. "Where are you from?" she asked. "I'm not an expert, but you don't sound like you're from here either." If he really wanted to know where she was from, he would answer her question first.

(OOC: I am SO sorry!)

[Ash]

Ash raised his eyebrows a little when she gave him the sudden attitude. Just a few minutes ago, she had been the smiling girl that told him things he didn't care to know. Now she was a little angry, it seemed, and Ash smiled. She did have other emotions, she was affected by the way things were after all. Honestly he didn't care if she thought it was strange of him to smile. This entire conversation was kind of funny.

Well, funny and annoying and boring at the same time. Ash had never been good a talking with people, when he was growing up. He had thought, however, that the fact it was a girl he was talking to would help. He had grown up believing girls were less likely to make a fuss. He knew, of course, that nowadays he couldn't count on any of his pre-virus truths to hold. Everyone was angry in a way.

"So things did happen to you." He was trying to find out why she seemed so careless then. He didn't get it. She would probably think he was being mean again, but he wasn't. He didn't realise that questions like these would probably only make her more aggravated.

She wanted to know where he was from. There was still annoyance in her voice. Ash was in doubt here. The stress on "you" was so obviously made to sound like he was supposed to be offended. Or maybe offended was not the reaction she was aiming at. It was clear to him though that she thought him to be irritating. Still she seemed persistent to get through to him.

He smiled, again. "You're getting the hang of avoiding nasty questions." What he meant to say was, that he would've done the same as her. Maybe he did like her. He wasn't sure.

"Is it me or isn't this conversation going anywhere?" He let the silence stretch, purely because she had acted before like she was uncomfortable with long silences. He realised he still hadn't answered her question. But she hadn't answered his. So really he could do two things: give in and answer, or stay quiet and watch what she would do.

It was kind of cold, now he stood still for a while. He figured it was probably only going to get warmer in the next few weeks, considering the weather before, but he wasn't sure how many weeks it would be until summer would start. He didn't even know if it was spring already. With that thought, he put his hands deeper into his pockets. The question of how to get his meal was still in his mind, more than if he was going to answer or not. He could try to find a fishing store. They probably had had stores like that around here. He wasn't sure he knew how to fish.

"I'm from Brussels, if you're desperate to know. Was away for a weekend when the virus hit. Didn't bother to go back, and I don't really care I'm stuck here now. I don't think the people I knew before would make great company. I get in less fights now than I got in when I was in school." He'd almost asked her if that would be enough personal information for now, but he had stopped himself. He had managed not to mention his little brother, which was good. She didn't need to know that. She didn't need to know about his sister either. Claire would have made a great tribe leader, if the virus had struck a few years earlier. She would've been one of those people who thought they could tell everyone what to do. She had done that without tribes or virusses too.

Maybe Lindsay thought he was annoying, but it was no surprise, really, that he had turned out annoying. His parents and Claire had been annoying as well. Maybe even Eric would have turned into a pain in the ass by now. He had no idea, the only thing he knew concerning Eric was that whenever he would see him again, he would steal that knife back. Or something else.

Thinking about Eric had almost gotten him to sigh. But he wasn't going to give in to what Lindsay might have expected from him. Because he didn't want to let her think he missed anything from before, the way she did. He didn't, not really. He had accepted the fact that Eric was gone in less than a month, the way he had forced himself to adapt to anything that happened. Ash would be totally Zen about everything, no matter how crappy life turned out to be. Just don't get attached and don't take things for granted.

[Lindsay]

Lindsay resisted the urge to roll her eyes when Ash responded to her little rant. Of course things happened to her. They happened to everybody, didn’t they? She just didn’t go about shouting her sorrows to the world. There were enough kids doing that and some had far more tragic stories than she did. There were kids out there still clinging to their sorrows. Lindsay wasn’t the type of person to do that. Sure, she still thought about everything was wrong with her life, but she didn’t lament. Instead (and perhaps stupidly) she was hopeful. There was always a chance for what she wanted to happen to come true, was her philosophy. Looking at Ash, the girl knew that it was clearly not his attitude. He was most likely of the pessimistic variety. Those sort of people annoyed Lindsay.

The girl took a few seconds before replying. She thought she had calmed herself down well enough to talk again. In all honestly, this anger was somewhat out of character for Lindsay. She didn’t like to get angry, so tried not to. There was something about this boy that was different. Not quite sure what it was, the girl continued on in her conversation, if it could be called it. “Some things happened to everybody,” Lindsay told Ash matter of factly. “Some things happened to you, didn’t they?” The question was more rhetorical than anything. At the moment, she didn’t really care what happened to him.

Now he was talking about something else. Lindsay wasn’t sure exactly what he was getting at. Then again, she had always wondered why kids kept their pasts to themselves. She never saw anything wrong with talking about what had happened before. Sure, there were some things that hurt to talk about but that didn’t mean that nothing could be discussed. What was wrong with telling him where she had once lived? Was this going to affect her in some terrible way? Was he going to make the trek back to her house in Berlin and ransack it? No. Besides, there would be nothing left for him. Risking sounding dumb again, she asked, “Nasty questions?” Lindsay wanted to say more of her earlier thoughts, but decided against it. It wasn’t going to be worth it anyway.

“And I agree,” Lindsay responded frankly to his question. “Since that seems to be the case, I want to sit.” And that she did. It didn’t really matter to her. Ash could even walk away for all she cared. The purpose of Lindsay being out was to get away from the suffocation of her tribe. She pulled her sweater closer around her shoulders, wishing again that summer would come soon. Living in Germany all of her life, she was used to the cold, but she also missed the heat. It had to get warm in Gardum one day, right?

Finally, Ash shared something about himself. Lindsay was relieved about this. To her, it didn’t really matter what he said. Lindsay just wanted him to say something. However, she did still listen to the words that came out of his mouth. Brussels. That was where he was from. Lindsay knew enough about Belgium to know that he probably wasn’t speaking his natural language. She wasn’t feeling quite as obligatory as usual, and didn’t bother switching languages. Never mind that it might be hard on him. He could deal with it. So, he had only been here on vacation. “Must have been some weekend,” she thought. It only took her a second to realize that she had said it aloud. Lindsay shot Ash a semi-apologetic look, not meaning to offend him at all.

“We’re not too far apart, then,” the girl finally answered his original question. Only my whole country, but that doesn’t matter, she thought. “Berlin.” There it was. The one word truth that she didn’t mind sharing. Who cared if Ash knew that? Lindsay certainly didn’t. “I walked here. Or rode with people. My bicycle worked for a little bit but the tires deflated. That’s how I got here.” There, she had shared the exact same information that he had. Crossing her arms, Lindsay looked up at Ash, waiting for him to do something. It would only be a matter of time before he felt stupid standing over her. She was waiting to see if he would sit or ask her to stand. Maybe he would just leave. She didn’t know.

[Ash]

"Some things happened to everybody," the girl said. "Some things happened to you, didn't they?"

He wasn't sure if she wanted him to answer that. Frankly, he didn't. What was he supposed to say, my mother was in the hospital, my father disappeared and my sister cried at night before she died too? My brother ran off with half of our belongings while I was asleep? She didn't need to know that. It was totally useless information.

"Nasty questions?" What Ash also understood was that she didn't see the world in the same way as he did. She didn't get why he didn't want to tell people a lot of personal things. Therefore, she didn't know that he felt like answering any question about himself was potentially dangerous. It was, wasn't it? If he told someone who didn't like him that he had a brother who might still be in Gardum somewhere, they might go looking for Eric. If he told them he had never liked the way his parents acted, they could hurt them with that.

He didn't quite see why she would want to sit down. The ground was cold and once you were cold yourself, it took some time and effort to get warm again. But maybe he was thinking too much about consequences again. She obviously wasn't when she blurted out something about his weekend.
"Yup. Wasn't quite the family trip you would imagine." He tried to put as little emotion into that as possible. He wanted himself to get used to thinking about it, to get used to missing his parents, Eric and Claire. Because he did miss them, but she didn't need to know that.

He stared at the ground between them while she continued talking. She was from Berlin. He wanted to point out that if she would have been from, say, Antwerp, her comment would've made more sense than now. He didn't though, she would only think he was trying to be a know-it-all. Which he wasn't, because there were loads of things he didn't know.

It seemed like she had been on the road for weeks, but he wasn't sure, he had never tried to walk to Berlin. He had never tried to really walk anywhere outside of his own city. It might have taken even longer than just weeks. He admired her persistence, but he wondered who would ever go here voluntarily. "Why?" he asked, perhaps a little too directly. "I mean, why would you do that? I can see why you might want to leave your old town, with the memories and all, but why go to Gardum? Of all places?"

Ash wondered if she would want to speak to him while he was standing up. Maybe she was getting tired of him - suprisingly, he wasn't getting tired of her yet. In another time, he might have tried to befriend her. Now the thought seemed a little strange. He didn't see any reason to befriend anyone. Not even girls that didn't attack him and bravely tried to find an answer to everything he said. He knew he was hard to talk to. Well, today he was going to try to be a bit easier.

He looked at her, smiled a little and sat down. Of course there was one disadvantage to sitting, which was that he couldn't just leave at any given time. That he sat down meant he had nothing else to do, which would have been a great excuse. Up until now, he could have used that to get away from her.

"So why are you out here? Not with your tribe, and all."