[color=#408014][h2]Maria Hallins[/h2][/color]
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[b]August 18th, 2039 5:09 AM
Thirty miles from the Knight's Hold trading post[/b]

Maria always was awake early enough in the morning to watch the dull light come from the clouds noting the rise of the sun. The dull, grey skies reminded her that she hadn't seen the blue skies she had loved so much again since that day. Maria had taken to simply refering to the day the bombs fell as 'that day' as it was better than recalling the memory of thousands crying as death fell upon them. She could clearly remember the horror when she and her parents saw the ruins of their former home. The damage caused by the bombs was irreparable, the lives lost impossible to replace, and the families destroyed were a mere casualty of war. Maria had left her old life behind when her parents died and decided that she wouldn't dwell on a life she could no longer have.

For a year Maria had been traveling with Joy, a girl ten years younger than her. Joy had been born into this world and knew not what the past was like. Maria knew but she was unwilling to tell Joy anything about it whenever she asked for it was better the child know not the past. She had learned many things from Joy's lack of morals and had actually found surviving easier with the girl.  She could provide the pair with supplies on a more stable basis than Maria's hunting could. In turn, Maria had taught Joy how to survive out in the wild if she ever had the need to do so. While Maria was sure Joy was using her, she was also sure she could use Joy as long as they were together.

The pair were about thirty miles from a trading post called Knight's Hold. The larger outpost was set up in what use to be the small town of Callahan, Florida which was twenty miles from Jacksonville.  A rather large band of raiders had set up the area around Callahan and Jacksonville as their territory and 'protected' everybody who was in the area for a price. This price was usually something such as ammo, weapons, food, or perhaps sex if you find the right group. Maria didn't like the Knights, fools they were for trying to rule over the survivors as if this was a government. The last time Maria had encountered the 'tax collectors', as they had taken to calling themselves, she had to clean off her arrows and hunting knife from their blood. Disposing of their bodies wasn't too hard, all she had to do was burn the bodies and nobody could tell the difference between them and regular survivors killed for not paying their 'taxes'.

Maria wanted to spend as little time as possible at Knight's Hold and simply trade the books and cutlery she had found in abandoned houses for food and maybe a gun if she could afford it. But guns were expensive weapons in the New World and one was better to steal it from the corpse of a tax collector if they had it. Occasionally one would happen across a tax collector with a gun but they were only often see a few miles from the Knight's base in Jacksonville and often traveled in groups of six to ten with at least five guns in the group. As such, Maria had never had the chance to properly kill one with a gun and thus decided to try and trade for it even if it meant having to leave out food from her lists. She could have just as well steal the food from some survivor at the trading post. Maria turned back towards the camp, she hoped Joy was awake so they could get an early start and get to the post before noon so they could get out before it turned night again.