*how imagined Trinket's hand writing would look likeSomewhere in Greenville - 3:33pm
The department store was in shambles. The roof was little to none existent. Three sides of its walls had long since collapsed, any usable contents long raided. None would have bother checking the ruins for supplies, and even less if they suspect a resident, man or freak. You can never be sure what lurks in corners these days. Everything was out to kill you. But it was the corners where one is the safest, where one can rest without worry, and where edibles still remain in a city that has been shattered and raped by survivors.
The department store’s rest rooms, or would have been thirty years ago, was one of these spots. There stood a skinny girl hovering over a toilet seat, an improvised spear at hand, ready to strike. The toilet’s drainage had crumbled and one can see the sewers below. She was rat-baiting. There were many ways to catch rats. You can hunt them, you can trap them but nothing beats baiting them. By leaving food out in the open then taking position above the bait and staying still, you can spear them whilst they nibble on the on the food. It doesn’t require much resource or expend valuable energy, only patience.
Rats, especially the sewer kinds, are one of the few animals which hasn’t freakily mutated, being sheltered by feet of concrete does miracles against radiation. The girl’s late mother thought her that. It’s how she kept them alive after the skies went silent.
The sewers, the sewers! The girl faintly remembers her mother’s shouts. She was but a young child when it all happened. Her memories from the time before are scares and confusing yet a nagging curiosity exist within her. What was it like before? She would like know.
The girl’s ears perked, a faint scuttling down below. She tightens her grip on the spear and waited. The rodent nose appeared, head then its whole body.
Not yet, the girl told herself,
take the bait. The rat sniffed the air, nothing. It cautiously approached the teaspoon filled with honey, rare and valuable ever since bees have grown from a fingertip to 3 feet long. The girl held her breath. The rat took a bite then again and again.
Now! With one quick thrust, the poor bastard found itself from eating dinner to becoming one.
She drew the spear back and pluck her catch from the blade and placed it among the others. She counted eight, enough to barter with the group she’s currently following. After stringing them up together and wrapping them with cloth, the girl began detaching the blade off the spear. It’s a shiv made out of a filer with its tip sharpened. She gathered her stuff and made her way out of the rumble and under the sky.
The skies were always cloudy even after the Nuclear Winter. It’s still rare to see the sun shine through but it has gradually warmed the past years. Warm enough for stable communities to arise south of the states and corps to be grown. Most communities aren’t welcoming to strangers, seeing that those who haven’t settled down are either bandits or experienced hunters which can pose a threat to a community who're predominantly farmers. Often than not, it’s best to keep away from them.
The girl assessed that she has only has an hour or two of daylight left. Not enough time to get her stuff where she’s holding up at the moment and to double-back and track the group. If she remembered correctly, they’re heading south to the old city of Atlanta. She decided to hold up for the night and intercept the group in the morning.
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Boboclown89, you have some typos and spacing errors, you should fix it up, posting standards :)