Starting a book. What do you think?

Desolate nothingness. It was a land void of any life or existence. The trees stood naked, the ground nothing but ash and cracked clay. The sun bared its harsh light toward the emptiness that was this place.

Our bus rumbled along this forgotten road in the middle of nowhere. The dust kicked up by the tires clung to the windows like paste, making it nigh on impossible to look out of them. It made me wonder how our driver could even see where he was going. And, although the AC must have been blasting due to the rapid movement of my teacher’s silk scarf, it felt like it was nearing Equator level temperatures. These long bus rides were a torture like no other.

What are we even doing here, I wondered. Probably another one of those “this is what life used to be like” tours. Man, I hate those. It’s always the same trip, the same routine, in which they try to tell us all about what life was like before the war. What it was like before we humans started destroying each other, leaving most of the world inhabitable.

Long, arduous bus ride into no-man’s land. Check. I started to make a list of all the things identical to our previous field trips.

I sigh and leaned my head back against the seat. All around me my classmates caused all sorts of ruckus. All of which my teacher seemed oblivious to. They don’t know it yet, but they’re in for one boring day, I think to myself. Boring with a capital B. This trip will be no different than the others, of that I was sure.

We turned onto what, I’m assuming, used to be an asphalt road. Now, it was nothing more than a torture chamber for my butt as we bounced and jostled mercilessly up and down, side to side. Out of a cloud of dust appeared a chain-link fence, heavily guarded. Beyond, three lone building stood. As we approached, I realized two of the buildings were houses. Well, old houses I should say. Their build was nothing like we use now.

Decaying ruins of days better left forgotten. Check.

The bus pulls to a stop and we wait. From behind the first building came a long line of security guards. They formed a tunnel leading all the way to the building’s door. A well-built man stomped into the bus.

“All of you form a single-file line. Walk straight through the line of men to the door and enter the Visitor’s Center. No talking. Period. Not even to my men. Let’s get this done as quickly and efficiently as possible. Now, move!”

Visitor’s Center, pfft, you mean dilapidating shack! I laughed to myself.

He turned and left. Everyone seemed tense and jumpy as they gathered up their belongings and headed, as ordered, to the door. I shook my head and sighed. All these big guys are the same. Their job is to scare so we don’t do something stupid while under their watch. I said as much to my friend Joslyn who seemed especially frightened.

“Come on, he’s just trying to freak you out so you don’t go wondering off or something. Their G.I. Joe/ black ops stuff is just an act. Lighten up! Some of them are kind of cute. Especially that one.” I said giving her a nudge with my elbow. I leaned closer to the window and winked at the closest guard to us. Unfortunately he seemed less than impressed.

“Knock it off Bren, it seems pretty real to me,” she said pulling me away from the window. “So, don’t do anything stupid to show off, you know how Miss Tate hates that. Just follow the rules like the rest of us. And stay close; I don’t like the look of some of those ‘cute’ guards out there.”

I reluctantly agreed, and picked my backpack up off the floor. What a waste, I thought with a sigh. All those good looking security guards and no one to give them a hard time. But, I promised to be on my best behavior, so I washed all mischievous thoughts from my mind. Now I just had to figure out what my best behavior was.

Over protective security guards. Check.