2028

Ruins of North America

Somewhere in what used to be Los Angeles

Andrew trudged through the broken glass that he had made by smashing through a window in the abandoned shop. Walking through the aisles he looked for food. “OH MY GOD! Billy come here.”

“What?”

“Look what I found.”

Buried underneath stacks of beans was a bag of chips.

“YAY!” yelled Billy in excitement.

“SHHHHHHHHHH!”

“Fine.”

“So who gets it?”

“If you take it then I get the next good thing that we find.” Said Andrew

“Deal.”

The bag of chips was quickly devoured and thrown away.

“Ok now we need to get essentials.” Said Billy, mouth stuffed with chips.

“Right so, um get a cart and we’ll stock up.”

“Wait, stop. I hear something.”

They both froze and from the roof jumped out 3 kids of about 8.

“Alright now we can do this the easy way or the hard way.” hissed the leader of the group, a girl of about nine.

“Wait what are you doing here?” asked Billy.

“Well we’re here to eliminate competition. You see, less people means less people also searching for OUR food.”

“So we kill you, we have 2 less people to worry about.” Finished the second boy. And with that they attacked, using their superior numbers to their advantage. Billy took on the girl alone since she was most developed. Andrew was having trouble dealing with both of the boys and he took 3 hits on the shin, head, and stomach. Cries of pain sounded out from both teams as they both battled for supremacy. Finally, the second boy got knocked unconscious after 2 minutes with a hard punch to left temple. The other boy and girl backed off and grabbed hold of the unconscious boy since they were outmatched and began running. Andrew and Billy saw no paint in chasing after them since it’d just be a waste of energy. “Now back to work eating right Billy?”

“Right!” Billy said as he grinned.

Hours later they returned to their makeshift home near Pasadena. “It’s your turn to cook this time Andrew.”

“Argh!!! I hate cooking!”

“You cook or we starve, it’s your choice dude.”Andrew sighed and took out their battered old cookbook and started cooking. As they finished their food they heard distant sounds of fighting.

“What’s that?” Andrew asked.

“Ehhh probably it’s another gang war fighting like the people who attacked us earlier. Those idiots are always fighting. If it’s not over this then it’s over that. If it’s not over that it’s over this.”

“Shouldn’t we get in a gang? I mean it’s only going to get more dangerous here.” Said Andrew, washing the dishes.

“Nah, I think we should start our own gang but just for protection though. We could build a fortress and be kings of our universe.” Said Billy, pretending to be heroic and holding a sword. They both burst out laughing at that point.”Yeah OUR universe, not everyone else’s.”

“No Andrew I’m serious. We need to get our act together as humans and reform what our parents left behind for us. We could rebuild and get progress moving again. Let’s send out messengers to our neighbors.”

“Alright.”