Chapter Text
Connie had always been there. David couldn’t exactly remember when they’d first met. Had it been kindergarten or first grade? It was hard to remember. It was hard to remember life before the civil war between the Government Militia and the Guerillas had started. So much had changed in the three years that had passed before war had been officially declared. In that time David and Connie had lost their homes, their families. All they had now were each other.
The Government claimed they fought for its citizens and laid the blame for all the violence and destruction squarely on the shoulders of the Guerillas and their supporters. The two 10-year-olds, like so many others, believed these claims, and they rang in their ears as they walked through what was left of their city.
They didn’t care come out during the day while most of the fighting happened. They waited until night to venture out of their hiding spot to look for something, anything, to eat. Earlier that evening, they had heard a neighborhood north of theirs had been evacuated. They were headed there now; hoping that in the rush to get out the residents had left enough behind to keep them for a while.
They passed one of the Government’s Food Stores. It had been closed for hours and it would be hours yet still before it opened again and people lined up with their cards for that day’s rations. David and Connie didn’t have cards anymore. They had been lost along with everything else. There was a small group of people huddled on the side of the squat building, ratty blankets pulled around their shoulders as the only protection from the night’s chill.
David glanced at them as they passed. A woman with too much grime on her face for David to tell how old she was locked eyes with him. Quickly she started to crawl towards him. “Spare some food, child,” she begged. “Spare some change.”
David took a step back. “I don’t-”
“Spare some food,” the woman repeated as she crawled closer, reaching out a gnarled hand. “Spare some change.”
“Hey,” Connie looked over her shoulder, “What are you doing? Go away!”
Before David realized what was happening, the woman had grasped him by the shoulder. She tried to pull herself up, but only succeeded in getting to her knees. She pulled David down, closer to her with her efforts. “Spare some food!” She cried, her yellowed eyes wild. “Spare some change!”
Connie grabbed David by his other arm and tried pulling him away. “Leave him alone, you crazy old witch,” she yelled. “We don’t have anything!”
“Spare some food!” The woman cried, her rotting breath hitting David right in the face, “spare some change!”
“Let me go!” David pleaded desperately. He tried wrenching his arm free from the woman’s grasp, but she held on tightly. “I don’t have any food!”
Connie tried pulling David away. She saw the others of the group starting to move towards them as well, each one of them with the same wild look of desperation on their faces that the woman had. “Spare some food. Spare some change,” they all murmured as though it was their mantra. She gasped and tried harder to pull David away. The woman let out a screech and shoved her away as though she thought Connie was trying to keep all the precious food for herself. Connie fell to the ground with a grunt.
The moment Connie let go of David the woman had him by both of his shoulders and shook him roughly, as though he were a fruit tree and she simply had to shake the food loose from him. David closed his eyes tightly. He could hear the others coming and he was sure between all of them he’d be torn apart.
Connie quickly pushed herself to her feet, gabbing hold of a pipe as she did. She whirled on the woman shaking David. “I said. Leave. Us. Alone!” She swung the pipe and hit the woman in the arm. The dirty hag screeched again, finally letting go of David’s shoulders. Connie grabbed his hand and ran as fast and as hard as she could.
The two of them ran as far as they could, the woman’s screams and the chant of “Spare some food! Spare some change!” echoing off the buildings around them. When they couldn’t run anymore, they ducked into one of the many abandoned and shelled out buildings to hide. They huddled together in silence, catching their breaths, but no one came after them.
“Are you alright?” Connie asked when she had summoned enough courage to speak again.
“Yeah,” David answered her softly.
“Lemme see your arms.” David obliged, taking off his well-worn coat so she could take a look. The light from the streetlights outside provided just barely enough light for Connie to be able to squint and see the skin on his biceps already discoloring. “Does this hurt?” She asked as she poked her finger into the flesh.
David winced.
“It’s just a bruise,” Connie told him. She let his arm go and got up on her knees, laying the pipe across them. David rubbed both his arms before putting his coat back on.
“Are you ok?” He asked.
“Fine,” Connie said. “I told you not to look at them, you know.”
“I know.”
“They’re all crazy,” Connie said quietly, looking down at her makeshift weapon.
“Everyone in this city’s going nuts. I guess that’s what happens when you go hungry for so long.”
David sat and looked at her. She looked sad and scared. David hated it whenever she looked this way. It wasn’t fair. Connie had been happy once. She had shown him how to be happy even when he didn’t want to be, even when he’d been picked on for being small and awkward. He took a breath. “That won’t happen to us,” he told her. She looked up at him. He gave her a smile, the same smile she’d always been able to coax out of him before. “We’re too smart and tough for that.”
Despite herself, Connie returned the smile, as she always did. “Yeah,” she nodded her head. She got to her feet and offered him her hand. “C’mone, lets go.”