The Resistance

He pushed the peddle down a littler further, hoping to reach a suitable camping spot before darkness fell. He was never too sure when he would come across a Reign checkpoint and there was an ordered curfew for this area. If he was spotted or heard after dark, they would hunt him down and find him. He scanned the edge of the forest on his right and looked for a break in the trees. Finally, he saw one. About a hundred feet ahead of him, a dirt road curved into the trees and seemed to disappear. It seemed a little sketchy but he didn't have any choice. The sun was about to set and he was running out of time. He pulled his car between the trees before turning it off and stepping out. He looked around before grabbing his bag and rifle and starting further into the forest.

Eric had been in stressful situations before. He had only been four when everything changed and his parents and a few other families on his street ran away to try and fight back against the newly established Reign that had taken control of seemingly the entire world. As he and the other children grew up, they were taught the normal subjects like English and Math. But they also were trained in survival skills, hunting and gathering, and when they were old enough, everything there was to know about guns. Some of the people from his neighborhood left and never came back. A couple people did come back and brought stories, sometimes good but usually bad about what was going on in the world. When he was fifteen, his father handed him an airsoft rifle in a make-shift firing range and said "Shoot that target. Get as close to the center as you can." They were both amazed that, even with the inaccurate plastic weapon, he managed to be deadly accurate and consistent. Within a few weeks, he had been handed multiple real weapons from bows to pistols to rifles and showed the same accuracy with all of them.

But none of that mattered anymore. Now all that mattered was that Eric was out here, all alone, and that he had a mission. He was to recruit people into the Resistance and spread their influence so that they could start to plan an overthrow of the Reign. Not only that but he was headed into an area that was far from the quiet little suburb he had spent the first four years of his life in. This area was essentially abandoned. The Reign had used it as an example of their power and wiped it out immediately after taking over. The few survivors that didn't hide well enough were taken prisoner. Many of the ones that did hide left the city since there was not much left. But the Resistance had information that there were still people left. People that needed a cause to get behind. People that needed a reason to fight. That was Eric's job.

He finally found a clearing large enough to set up camp but not large enough to draw attention if anyone decided to go searching in the forest. He laid out his sleeping bag, set up a couple traps around the area and laid back. Tomorrow was going to be make or break and he had to be ready for anything. As he wondered what to expect, he drifted to sleep.