The Hopeful- Part Two

The governments and rulers all over the world were now destroyed. Major leaders were dead. Capital buildings were destroyed. In America, the White House and the Pentagon were mostly destroyed. Major buildings in cities across the U.S. had fallen and killed thousands of citizens. People wandered the streets in awe; some mourning, others praying, and in the city of Atlanta, some were preparing. Preparing for what was to be one of the greatest moments of Earth’s history; the event now known as the Discovery.   
    Stepping over debris from a fallen building, Alex, their unofficial leader, lifted the strap on his backpack higher up his shoulder. The rest of his group was on the other side of the fallen Oxford building. He took a canteen from the side of his pack and surveyed his surroundings. Cars had exploded, and the ground was uneven, causing fallen buildings. Dust hung thickly in the air, and smoke issued from many flaming
buildings. Many things had caught them on fire, the most common being electronic appliances sparking and exploding. Alex walked over to a particularly large piece of concrete and sat on it, swigging his canteen. His walkie-talkie crackled on his belt. He grabbed it and pressed a button. “Yo,” he said, startling himself
with his deep voice. Although he was in his mid-twenties, since he took the lead of his “troop” he seemed to have gotten a newfound maturity, a deepness in his voice. 
“Alex, where are you?” It was Vanessa. A woman about his age, long flowing black hair. Alex felt no attraction to this woman, other than a brotherly one. 
“The other side of the Oxford building. I stopped to look at the mess we’re in.”
“No time for that. We’ve got a lot of work to do.” Vanessa was referring to the gathering of food, relocating of their base, and reorganizing of the troop. 
“I know. It’s just...” He swore. He had lost so much; all at the hands of the corrupt government that his group fought. 
“I know how you feel,” Vanessa said, sincerely. “Just come back soon, all right?”
“All right, I’m on my way.” Alex clipped the walkie-talkie back on to his belt. Standing and dusting himself off, Alex walked around the fallen Oxford building. 
    As he walked passed, something caught his attention.There was a little hollow in the side of the building, a little bit of a miracle in of itself, but Alex feared it would not hold long and was probably not inhabited. Still, he poked his head in. “Anyone in here?” He shouted. There was no answer. He turned to walk past but something kept him there. He look at the opening. It was like a little cave that lead to the center of the
building, probably held up by some slab of concrete or piece of furniture. It was about three feet high, large enough for a lean man to fit through, however uncomfortably. Due to the dust inside the hollow, Alex could not see what was inside it, and guessed it would collapse soon. No one could be trapped in there, except the luckiest son of a gun alive. Alex walked off. A snapping noise caught his attention. He took one more look at the cave and heard a low groan.

***

    Nearly ten minutes after he was expected back Alex arrived at the group’s camp, an area they chose and removed of most debris. It was pretty level ground. The members of the group pulled up furniture and other stuff to sit on as they talked about their next course of action. Alex came from behind a large bulge in the Earth- caused by the earthquake- which used to be part of the highway and still had some cars on it that had
crashed. The drivers were dead. Alex arrived with an unexpected cargo- a man in his late thirties with a sharp suit on and a bloody right arm, his temple caked with blood dragging on Alex’s shoulder. Both he and Alex were grunting and sweating- one with pain, one with his burden. 
    Roger, the youngest member of the group at nineteen rushed up to help Alex. Together they lowered the man on to a sofa, while other members rushed to get first aid supplied they had found in a crashed car. “Where’d you find him?” Asked Vanessa to Alex after he had had a drink of water. 
“He was in a cave, pretty much.” Said Alex, absentmindedly. “Who’d you find?” He asked, referring to members of the group. Grimly, Vanessa replied, “Well there’s me and Roger; we were with you when the Lurch hit (the group had already named the event that shook the Earth). Then we looked around for the others who were at the restaurant. We found Jackie and Koji.” 
“Where are they?” Asked Alex. 
“They’re out scouting for survivors, like you were.”
“Don’t expect much,” Interrupted Roger. He was leaning on a crashed car that was mangled beyond repair. “I can’t believe we survived.” He was especially grim looking. Alex dismissed him as just being emotional.
“What about Colt?” He asked. Before Vanessa could reply, Roger butt in. “He got squashed by a falling building.” The abrupt bluntness and out-of-place-ness of Roger’s statement made Alex want to hit him. Colt was their friend, and Roger seemed be showing no emotion. He was also being an git. The only reason Alex didn’t hit him was because, although younger, Roger was a star athlete and could probably kick his behind. 
    The threesome was silent, save the occasional chugging made buy the water canteens as their owners lifted them to drink. Alex went over to the man he had found. He carefully turned him over and searched his pockets for a wallet, which he soon located. He found some credit cards and a drivers license and was not pleased with the name on them. Jonathan Croud was the name on the card; the man Alex’s group was
aiming to capture. 

***

    Back in 2006, Alex’s group (which was later known as the Hopeful) was formed, consisting of Alex and his brother, Joshua. They were hoping to gain more members, but since they were only eighteen and twenty, not many people joined. Put simply they were pretty much conspiracy theorists. They believed that the government was hiding things they should not have been hiding. They were not talking about aliens or anything like that, nothing in specific. Just that the government had too much power to keep things from citizens. Joshua did not take it as seriously as his younger brother, and started to lose interest. Then, after talking with Alex at their high school, Vanessa joined the group. She too took only a minor interest in the topic, and was there mostly to flirt wish Joshua. By the time Alex contacted Kenneth via the Internet, Joshua enrolled in college hoping to get a football career. Two years later, he was on his way to Georgia Tech and unofficially left the group. Vanessa still came from time to time, and Kenneth had long talks with Alex over the Internet. Kenneth seemed to be the only one more interested in the conspiracies than even Alex. 
    In a lucky break, Kenneth, thirty-seven years of age, moved to Georgia and popped in to see the group at their meeting. When he found Alex and Vanessa sipping a cup of coffee and talking about school things, he was sorely disappointed. He soon, however, opened up and got the group interested again. With an adult in charge again, he soon attracted new members, the first of which was Colt, somewhat of an outsider who got
interested from Kenneth. Now they had a little bit of sophistication to their group and were getting serious. 
    One would think this would be a great time for the Hopeful, and for a while, it was. They were digging up government secrets from the darkest corners of local libraries, the Internet, and even some ex-cops Kenneth managed to round up. Then came the event that nearly broke the group up forever, the event that lead to the death of the greatest Hopeful member: Kenneth Brown. 

In the next part, Jason wanders the street of his city and discovers a new phenomena, and the story of the Hopeful is explained.