Gunpowder
Chapter Five

Another day, another near death experience, Poppy thought as she was thrown against the leather back of her seat. The rebels were chasing them once more, but this time Poppy was sure it was her fault. She had puked when they were out on another data-collecting mission, finally giving in to the bile in her starved stomach. Now, everyone was convinced that they had tracked them with the regurgitation. And

they weren’t being too subtle about it either.

“Are you two years old!” Oak yelled in anger as he sped their automobile over a treacherous mountain path, “How can you just puke in the middle of nowhere!”

Poppy didn’t really know what she had even hurled. She hadn’t eaten in, well, she truly couldn’t remember how long it had been. But her hunger wasn’t the main thing her body was screaming at her. She had Oak had ended up in a spat, and, with Poppy’s perceived lack of strength, it wasn’t hard to imagine who won said brawl. The brief fight had left her with countless wounds; Most of which were bruises, but some were cuts that tore across her skin, most notably one that marked her left cheek. It was bleeding, but not a lethal amount. She had suffered much worse.

Poppy clung to the seat as the car drove on with the steadiness of a one-legged cat. The old station wagon had no chance of outrunning a unit of advanced, robot-riding cavalrymen. All they had on their side was strategy.

Oak forced the steering wheel to the side, steering the automobile into what appeared to be a cliff. Poppy covered her eyes, prepared for the worst. But, to her surprise, the cars wheels met solid ground. When she opened her yes, however, the sight wasn’t too comforting.

The car was barreling down a steep hill, narrowly dodging stalagmites that reared in front of its windshield. Oak’s eyes were laser focused on the area ahead, screaming obscenities too graphic to be written. His shoulders were just about as tense as they could be under his tattered red muscle tee. Abbet was screaming something too, but Poppy couldn’t make any of it out. Poppy’s lungs screamed for air, and she started to feel dizzy. She was mentally screaming broken sentences at herself.

It stopped. But only for a second.

The car had lost grip on the slope and was free-falling through the air. It reminded Poppy of the time she was flown to the Americas. No one on the flight had ever been on a plane before, so when it began to descend, everyone panicked and prepared for their demise.

Poppy felt the exact same way right then, but this time she knew she wasn’t going to make it. She wasn’t going to land safely.

CRASH!

The car landed windshield-first on the sandy wasteland below and flipped over numerous times, Glass sprayed the inside of the car upon impact, and dents formed with every turn. Abbet, Rouge, and Oak scampered to the back of the car, cramping the back seats.

This was death.

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