13

Slowly thumping my head against the classroom's tiny desk, Miss Flynn eventually reached my seat as she lay her test paper over my skull with a dark chuckle.

"Better shape up, Daniel. You don't want Beth to score higher than you, now..." She teased, as the little blonde girl three seats in front of me cast her cheeky tongue out, further taunting my discomfort.

As it turned out, there weren't many children or teenagers in Patch - the fifteen or so of us that were roped into the education system all had to share the same class. Obviously, this meant that the teaching material was stretched out to cater for every age group, and it fell on the older student's shoulders to assist and teach the younger ones.

Harry had escaped this unfortunate fate by pretending to be twenty-one, so that he could serve out his sentence in the garage... A white lie that Tomás and I weren't clever enough to tell, thus resulting in our forced re-education.

A few friendly faces popped out to me in the classroom; Stacie was whispering and giggling with Beth near the front, while Tanner was seated beside me, although he was too invested in ogling one of the older girls in the class to notice my presence.

It was probably a good thing. I still hadn't entirely forgiven him for peeping in the showers and getting me slapped in the face with community service.

With all of the empty chairs in the class, it was abundantly clear that Alisha's students from the bus were not present. It must have been bothering her from the moment she stepped inside, but she hid her disappointment well...

Those kids had to be somewhere in Patch, after all. As soon as we could get our hands on Blessing's near-mute brother, we would force their whereabouts out of him if we had to.

"All right. class." Our teacher smirked as she returned to her wooden desk at the front of the half-demolished hut we called a classroom. "Get your pencils out. We're going to have a pop quiz today, so every other row of seats can turn to their right and pair up for this exercise."

She was loving this... It must've been obvious that if I paired up with Tomás on my left, our combined sarcasm would blow this test out of the water. Turning to face Tanner, his smile dropped when he noticed my presence... and contorted itself within seconds into a cruel laugh.

"What are you doing here, Grandpa? The bingo hall is across the street!"

"Oh, just shut up. You think I want to be here? This damn town is screwing with me..."

"Whatever, greenhorn... Just put the date down before that new teacher starts the first question. She looks like she could get real scary when she yells."

I wanted to say that he didn't know the half of it... but my mind was still trying to process what he'd muttered before that. I looked to Tomás' seat in confirmation, and he appeared to be equally confused with his partner.

"Wait, umm... I... I don't..."

It was embarrassing, debilitating to be brutally honest. We'd just rolled in from the Route, and before that, we were out in the wild.

We had to try our best to survive each day, the small details had never even crossed our minds. Now that we were being integrated into some form of society, we had to retrace our roots of normality; keep track of the daily rituals that used to restrain us.

A blubbering sound came from the front of the class... I couldn't blame her, it made me feel emotional as well. Alisha bent down to comfort Beth as she held back her panicked sobs from the distressing fact. "Honey? What's wrong?"

"Miss... Miss, I... I don't know the date!! I'm so stupid!"

The teacher's face froze like a statue, and I could tell that she was as stumped as the rest of us. My eyes flitted to Tanner, growing impatient as he grabbed my pencil and jotted down the statistic that had eluded me.

'24th July 2018'

Late July... No wonder it was so warm outside. My stuttering hand grazed my mouth in an attempt to not gasp in amazement. I was barely in control of my senses, and I knew that Tanner was catching on as he glanced up with an audible exhale.

"Shoot, sorry... I always forget what it's like for new guys, to come back to all of this. I was born and raised here before the walls went up, we've never had to rough it out there. Musta been part of what kept us sane, I guess."

Wiping my face free from the pitiful expression, I chuckled a little as Alisha wrote the date on the blackboard for everyone to see. It wasn't something I planned on forgetting anytime soon... Time was too valuable to waste in ignorance.

Pretty soon the pop quiz went underway, and for the first couple of questions, I wasn't sure what we were being taught.

"How can you find your way North during the night?"

"What methods can be used for purifying drinking water?"

"Name three places where you are likely to find petrol/diesel for a vehicle."

We had been scribbling down answers for barely five minutes, and already the rest of the class seemed to be stuck. Tanner just sat back and scoffed as my pen flew across the paper, for once able to flaunt my basic survival skills.

My partner kept shaking his head as each question was called out. "The heck, man... When would we ever need to learn this crap? We've got everything we need right here!"

Just as the words left his mouth, a cleverly-dressed woman poked her head in through the tattered door of the school hut. She'd apparently been listening in from the outside, and sternly called Miss Flynn to discuss some pressing matter.

They traded some intense whispers for a brief moment, before the fiery-haired teacher threw her hands up into the air and left the classroom. The awkward air she left behind was the perfect condition for juicy gossip to fly between the veteran students.

Tomás, Beth and I shared an uneasy look as the only 'adult' in the room cleared her through to make an announcement. "Children, on the behalf of Patch's City Council, I would like to apologise for today's lesson. We remind you all that there is no cause for concern, and our ordinary curriculum will return tomorrow."

She cast a shady eye backwards through the window at Alisha, who was grumbling to herself in the distance before turning the street corner. "Rest assured, that Miss Flynn will not be returning to the classroom. You may all have the rest of the day off while we prepare a proper lecturer for tomorrow's lesson."

As the students shrugged off the sudden departure and started cheering for their liberation, my head shot to Tanner with wide eyes.

"...What was that about?!"

"Well, what did ya expect? This slot ain't supposed to teach us how to live outside of Patch... We always learn about how to maintain the town's water system, repair the walls, shit like that! She meant well, but... trust me, greenhorn. People who throw thoughts like that around, they're usually arrested instead of fired. Count your teacher friend lucky."

Lowering my head, I felt that strange chill running up my spine once again. This town, why did their safety measures bother me so much?

For a place that served as the hub of the freedom-inspiring Route 66, the city council were trying their best to keep their local youth contained and locked down. Even lessons regarding survival on the outside were forbidden, or so it seemed.

I had to question that very fact, after what I'd seen... whether any of this was a matter of safety at all.

----

Moving my dinner tray along the cafeteria line, the entire floor was buzzing with idle conversation and children laughing. There were three dining halls in total, one in each of the towers' respective basements along with laundry rooms and manual-powered generator gyms.

It had been a very uneventful day, after the abrupt end to the school lesson. Tomás, Beth and Stacie left listen to him play guitar in his room, while Alisha was probably scouring the streets for any sign of her school bus. I had no idea where Harry's garage was, which left me on my own...

I didn't want to see anybody, really. I spent my time walking around Patch, taking in the friendly and upbeat atmosphere as vendors yelled their products at me and teenagers from my class ran around with incessant high-pitched screaming.

The sharp cries had me constantly on-edge, snapping my head around whenever they ran past the residential blocks. I associated the noise with fear, instead of the good-natured fun that those sounds used to hold in the good old days.

Perhaps I was hoping to find some clue about where Blessing or her brother had ran off to, but my heart just wasn't in the search effort. If it was TS-19b, I could handle him easily. However, the very thought of bumping into Blessing... It was enough to turn my trepid feet into stone.

In the end, I arrived the dinner hall alone and just grabbed a tray. The queue was long and painful, but eventually the hair-netted dinner-man-lady was glaring back at me with a sneer across the stained counter.

"Card?"

"E-Excuse me?"

"Credits. Hand over your card."

Glancing back at the impatient line nervously, a hand flew past my face and flung a laminated white card at the server.

"Tanner Burnside, it's on me. Oh, and throw in some Pollies too, will ya? My treat!"

Perplexed by the sudden generosity, I decided to follow my prison buddy as he collected his fries while pinching several more handfuls when the gruff dinner-man-lady wasn't looking. We both found an empty table across from some of our classmates, and set ourselves down.

It was hard not to feel like 'the new kid', what with the way everyone was throwing eyes in my direction. I figured that if I stuck with Tanner, I could at least fit in a little and not have to worry about being recognised from my wanted poster.

"Don't worry about the food credits... They were supposed to give them out at school, but you'll get yours tomorrow." Tanner tore open the strange bun-like item on his plate, and some yellowish gel slopped out. It seemed to be some kind of delicacy to Patch, as almost everyone had two or three on their trays.

"...I'll pay you back, dude. What is that you've got, anyway?"

"Hmm? Pollies?" His voice was muffled through full cheeks, almost spitting at me across the benched table as he spoke. "Shoot, everyone knows what Pollies are! They're delicious, give it a try!"

Poking at the hardened dough on my tray slightly, it seemed to wobble to the touch. Even picking it up was a challenge, and I could already tell how 'greenhorn'-ish I looked without Tanner chiming in for the hundredth time.

My first bite was something similar to xenophobia, but upon tasting the sickly-sweet nectar dribbling out onto my tongue, I was already hooked. The questionable appearance was nothing compared to how rich the melding flavours were, tickling my taste buds in a playful manner.

"Mmph... This... This is incredible!"

"Haha, I'm sayin'! Tell ya what, greenhorn... I think we're gonna get along just fi-" Once again, Tanner was lost in thought as the same girl he was pining over during class strutted past us, allowing me to scan the cafeteria with a mouthful of mind-blowing Polly.

Everybody looked so peaceful, chattering with their families and laughing away... I could barely remember my uneasiness from before. This was the kind of place I would want to live, if I didn't know what I already knew about the Shezmu virus.

A town that was able to bear down and move on with life, instead of trying to revive the days when the Lost weren't outside those walls. It almost made me wonder whether I should be doing the same, too... Giving up 'the big fight' and just spending the rest of my days in Patch, away from the horrors and tragedies that Telos would inevitably throw at us.

"Daniel!! Maldita sea! There you are!" I almost choked on the syrup-or-jam-filled Polly as Tomás came running up to us, breathless with the two girls in tow behind him. "Some... Someone's... stolen... my guitar case!! Oh man..."

Sharing his intense glare, I almost shrugged it off entirely in the ecstasy of my first proper meal in weeks. "What do you mean? You always keep it close, right?"

"W-Well, yeah! It was there when I was playing Señora Alegría, and we stepped out of the apartment for two seconds... Some arsehole must've broken in! You haven't seen anyone suspicious, have you?"

Shaking my head, the reality of the situation had started to dawn on me... This was his most prized possession, the only part of his old life he had held onto.

Harry had been acting weird about the same thing that previous night, and it had nearly escaped my notice. He asked me in a hurry about whether Tom had kept his guitar case with him, which seemed a little off. Did he know something about the theft?

A high-toned bell rung throughout the noisy cafeteria, abruptly ending our dinner and signalling the start of my undeserved community service. It was all I could do to give the musician my sympathies, but I couldn't stay any longer without having another sentence tacked onto my existing one.

Two hefty guards practically tore Tanner and myself away from Tomás, who could only stare at the littered floor in pitiful silence. I made a mental note to check up on him after my time was up... The whole situation with Harry seemed sketchy. For now though, I had to focus on staying out of prison.

----

As it turned out, our community service was two feet away from Tower Block C. Well, not exactly - there was a dingy manhole we had to climb down first, much to my dismay. We were handed two flashlights, and our assigned job for that day was to unclog some of the waste build-up in the sewers... by hand.

I wasn't even going to ask what we should expect. As soon as my feet hit the bottom rung of the ladder, the smell hit me and I could already envision the task at hand. Tanner flew down the shaft after me, landing on his feet with an almost-energetic howl.

"Man, I missed this smell! Good ol' community service..."

"Dude, are you all right in the head?! This reeks like... well, a fucking sewer!"

Turning on our torches, the grimy-green sludge along the walkway was enough to turn my fresh dinner right back up. At least the frothy-brown stream of water running on either side of us would catch most of my bile.

In hindsight, it wasn't that terrible of a job - all we had to do was wander around aimlessly and kick at piles of gunk until we could go home. If it wasn't eerily black as night, it may have actually been a lot of fun.

After coming across our first messy build-up of recycled toilet paper and leaves, I allowed Tanner to take this one as he enthusiastically drop-kicked the slimy mound. Things had been fairly quiet since we were chucked into the manhole, so I decided to question him a little about what he'd said before.

"...You said that your name was 'Burnside', right?"

I could barely see him through the darkness, but Tanner appeared to stop for a moment, almost pondering something before shaking it off in the next instant. "Yeah? What of it?"

"I mean, isn't that your guardian's name? Barry or whatever? Just seems weird that you took his name, since he's kind of a newbie here too."

"...I don't really want to talk about it, Dante." Kicking once more at the pile of leaves, its grip on the sewer bed was loosened and it floated gracefully down into the waste pipes. "If anyone asks, Burnside was always my family name."

I didn't expect someone as carefree as Tanner to turn that cold so quickly, it almost gave the the shivers. If he knew that I was best friends with the man acting as his 'guardian', what would his reaction be?

It was probably wise to wait until we were not stuck thirty feet underground before testing those waters though, so I tried to strike up another conversation that he might like.

"Well, I've waited long enough dude... Aren't you gonna tell me what her name is?" Turning back to face my smirk, his eyes narrowed as he slowly realised what I was talking about. It was the same girl he'd been staring at during dinner, she was the one from the classroom as well. For someone who was openly perverted, it took me by surprise to see him practically blush at the accusation.

"C... Charlotte. The mayor's daughter. You think she's cute too, right?"

"Haha, yeah. So what's the deal? Are you gonna ask her out?"

Tanner threw a petrified look my way, as though I'd just set him on fire with my last three words. "Are you freaking crazy?! She's way outta my league! Besides, her dad has the power to boot people out of town! I ain't gonna mess with that hardass!"

A loud snapping noise made us both jump in surprise, our heads threw themselves back at the pitch-black archway we'd just strolled past. The pervy teen took a small step forward, but stopped himself as he panicked over the unknown possibilities.

"H-Hello?" His voice croaked, and the thought of him addressing some unseen individual was already sending my mind into overdrive. "Is anybody there?"

"Sssh! What makes you think that anyone else could be down here?! It's dark as hell!"

"There are rumours, dude! Stuff that we tell kids to freak them out... They say that zombies live down here, moaning through the pipes to call their next victim down-"

"W-Why would you bring something like that up?! Just grab the torch-" A loud splash sent a jolt through my body, and I instinctively grasped Harry's switchblade in my pocket. That one sounded closer... Someone was definitely down here with us.

Waving my hand at Tanner, I wasn't sure if he could even see my gesture in the lightless tunnel. "Stay back... I've got this." He didn't seem to be in the mood for arguing, cowering up against the dripping wall as I tiptoed forwards with my flashlight poised.

A blurry red figure leapt around the corner before I could even register the abrupt advance. The outline of a person attached itself to my face, smashing my head against the wall as I struggled to fight off the confusion.

"L-Let go of me!! Fucking-" My face was crudely forced to the floor, arms pinned down and my mouth wrestled under the grunge-like water, nearly swallowing buckets of the stuff. I gasped for breath, slowly feeling the oxygen leaving my system... I was being drowned.

Punching through the surface of the sewage, I swung the closed switchblade around desperately to defend myself, until I felt my fist connect with the red figure's head. It was almost a calculated decision, and I wholeheartedly went for the opening as I pressed my weapon against the attacker's skull and pressed the trigger to extend the blade.

I couldn't hear any screams with my face submerged under the water, but the trickle of blood and sudden cease of movement told me everything. The darkened body went limp, and I pushed myself upwards to choke and inhale the dank sewer's sweet air.

Tanner was still attached to the other side of the cavern, mouth agape in the limited torchlight. I climbed back up onto the walkway, completely spent as I huffed heavily.

What was that? A Lost? Had they found their way inside the town's sewers as well as surrounding the walls?

Whatever it was, it seemed to be dead. My kill was floating in the narrow waterway, and I came close to feeling bad for how pathetic the thing looked. Pulling the body onto the concrete path, I froze as it rolled over lifelessly.

"W-What happened?" Tanner slowly pottered towards me, and I almost didn't want him to see what I had done. I heard his gasp the exact second he noticed, and the resulting scream wasn't easy for me to hear. "Shit, dude! That was no zombie... You killed a person!"

I was almost about to protest that point... The man lying at my feet didn't seem like the kind of creature I'd call a 'person'. As it turned out, the redness of the corpse's figure wasn't down to the tattered clothing, but his blood.

He had pre-existing wounds running all down his arms, bare torso and forehead shimmering in the torchlight. What I recognised most though, was the bandana... The red-soaked bandana, a symbol I hadn't seen in months, and hoped to never see again. It left a hole in my stomach, fearing what it all meant for this delightful safe haven.

The O-Saints were hiding in Patch.