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Clear. The streets were clear; nobody was wandering around, lost, at the risk of being caught by the invaders. That was something, Aurora guessed. It was something...unless all it meant was that the invaders had killed everybody who hadn’t managed to hole up somewhere already. She wasn’t entirely sure, when it came down to it, because she’d yet to be able to get any kind of read on their tactics, on what they were doing here; there were other bands of rebels, she was sure of that, but as far as the invaders were concerned, hadn’t they all but razed this town to the ground? She would have thought that they’d be moving on to the next town by now, and the next, until, what, they took over government? That was a depressing thought, to say the least, but she couldn’t think about things on a global scale, right now. She’d tried to radio out, tried every frequency she could think of, tried to radio the nearest army base with the emergency codes, and nothing; Rory was relatively certain that they were alone, in this. Anyone who was still in this town and alive had only the other people who were here to rely on, now. But they would survive. People like her would assess the situation, do what they could to make sure that nobody got hurt, and she had to hope that eventually, they would find another group of rebels just like them, and they’d have safety in numbers. They’d be able to organise an actual resistance, or something, gather intel on what the fuck was happening here, and then, maybe, they’d get out alive. But the invaders had forces that they didn’t. They had weaponry, they had pretty much everything that had been burned to the ground, here. The odds were definitely stacked against them, but that wasn’t going to stop Rory fighting. It wasn’t going to stop her planning. This was what she did, wasn’t it?<p>

Not exactly this, sure, but at least she was better equipped to survive under these conditions than someone who was a hairdresser, or a stay at home mum. That wasn’t to say that Rory wasn’t panicking, of course, because she was; it was just internal, not ruffling her cool, calm exterior. All she wanted, really, was to find her brother. She needed to find Brandon, she needed to make sure that he was alive and well, and she felt sure that she would know, somehow, if he’d died, because they were twins and twins were linked, they always had been, even when they’d been fighting, but she needed to know for sure. She needed him to be here, so that she could protect him, so that she could make sure that nothing happened to him; it was selfish, but she cared about him more than the other people she was now protecting, and she didn’t even care about that fact, because he was her brother, and she loved him. And yes, Aurora was hoping that she found him out here. She was hoping that he’d have been taking refuge in the Town Hall, or some abandoned shop, and she’d be able to find him, bring him back to the general store and be reunited again, because that was honestly all she wanted. They had fought so much, but that didn’t matter, anymore. She’d yet to find him, though. She’d yet to find anybody, and Rory slipped inside the Town Hall, leading with her rifle, just in case, as she checked around every corner, but nothing. It was supposedly safe here, at least for a few moments while she caught her breath, but she wasn’t going to be taking any chances. Instead, she sat on a seat, rifle still out, still alert, just resting, for a moment before she moved out again, stealing what supplies she thought might be useful from the shops on her way back to the store.

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