Chapter 1: Missing You

The early morning mist curls around our party of 6 women. It shifts forms, hiding then revealing my 5 traveling companions. It makes the grass under our feet slush as we step. My dark green hair lets me blend with the surrounding. My new travel skirt swooshes with every step I make, taking me farther from my loved ones. Our foot steps untimed and random. The fog gives me a small sense of intimacy. I spend these moments thinking of the loved ones I have left behind and the dangers that they face without to keep them safe. I only hope they will be well, the universe guides me thus.

I am Chronos, the god of time. I now travel away from the Compound of the Kindred. The only home that I know of, in this time and place. The last place I expected to find love and understanding, some 100 years after the big one. The big blast as the Kindred call World War Three. I am traveling with two of their members, Protectors. Catherine and Diana. We three are escorting three other women to their homes. If we can find them.

"Why do we have to go back to the Brutes home?" Brin whines. She is a sturdy girl with short dark hair. Up until a few days ago I could not get her to talk. But that does not make me grateful for her tone.

"That will be the best way for us to calculate where you were stole from." I remind her again gently.

"We don't have the names and land marks on our maps, so we go back to the beginning and see what looks familiar." Diana adds, with an exasperated breath. She carries a small arsenal of hand guns under her travel cloak. Her short cut brown hair is hiding in the hood. She is no happier with the trip than I am. But a promise is a promise.

"What if there are Brutes there?" Nev asks. Soft brown eyes that see everything. She was the first to wake from the terror of being held captive. She seems to be the brightest of all of, or at least the most social.

"Then you hide and we kill them." Catherine growls out. She is the tallest of the women traveling. She does not hide her long curly hair, under the hoot of her travel cloak, but lets the black locks hang loose, over her shoulders. I have not made any friends with her, by taking up with the Healers. But I will not let them be hurt by the man she calls Elder Napoleon, what she doesn't know is she too is being used, as a pawn, by that man.

"We will deal with that, should they come upon us." I add in a calmer tone. These women have been frightened enough by rough handling. "I am sure our Protectors are able trackers and can tell us long before we are attacked that the Brutes are back." I try to reassure them.

"I don't want them to get me again." Alys says in a quiet voice. Poor Alys, pretty and blond was easy prey for the Brutes. She is now carrying more evidence of her captivity than any of the other girls. She is pregnant and frightened to death about it.

"While we are on the subject of tracking, do any of you girls know how to hunt or trap?" Diana manages to change the subject nicely.

"I can get a rabbit or two." Brin volunteers. "I have even been known to get a bird in flight as well."

"Well isn't that something." Catherine say in a biting tone. She is not going to let go of her anger. I can tell it is going to take some drastic measures to win her over.

"I guess that makes you the meat gatherer." I smile over at Brin to try and encourage her. "I hope you other two know how to cook because my skills are sadly lacking in that area."

Nev and Brin giggle. Alys look perplexed.

"I can not cook. You could put the sum of my knowledge on the head of pin." I try to explain to her.