The Eden Trilogy, Tome 0.6 : The Raid

I exhaled slowly, creating small, wispy clouds as we moved silently through the still evening. Dew collected under my fingers, freezing my hands to my shotgun. The cold of March crept down my neck, wrapping around my body, and sinking into my skin.

I glanced at my companions when we stopped at the tree line. They were tired and cold after traveling the last two days, one of which snow fell from the sky. Despite the danger that lay before them, they were determined, focused. They looked back at me. Bill, Graye, and Tye – my brothers in arms.

We were the elite defenders of Eden.

And this was a raid.

We waited as the last traces of light disappeared from the horizon. The stars fazed into the sky and the moon rose over the city, washing it in pale gray light.

The darkness brought safety in an unsafe world.

“Let’s go,” Tye whispered as he stepped from his hiding place toward the road.

Our feet moved silently, our firearms held at the ready. The dark road stretched before us, illuminated by the flashlights Tye and Graye pointed into the night. The concrete was broken and cracked. Patches of green spread across its dark surface, nature reclaiming what was rightfully its.

There were abandoned cars everywhere. Some parked on the side of the road, some sitting in the middle of the street, the doors hanging open and the keys still in the ignition. The buildings around us started to crumble. And animals that at one time stuck to the mountains out of fear of humans prowled the alleys and wild backyards.

The four of us had been on dozens of raids together before. We moved as a well-trained team, aware of one another’s movements, able to communicate without words. These were my comrades, my fellow soldiers.

I may have only been a seventeen-year-old girl, but they still respected me. I was one of them.