Lost and Away: The Beginning - Ethan

We were just a couple of kids who sat on top of the rooftops and watched as all the world burned.  It was beautiful in a sickening kind of "end-all-hope" way.  But it just made us even more restless as a generation.  So we ran.  If the whole world went to shit, why should we listen to any adult?  Who were the adults now?  Violet had to take care of her sick little brother when her parents died in the bombings.  She was 14, he was 7.  She grew up faster then any of us.  My parents were taken when I was 12, so I had been living alone for two years before I met Violet.
   It was nearly dark, and the rain was pouring.  She was carrying Jericho on her back, and when she came across me she paused.  I assumed she was scared to pass me, I wasn't the most friendly looking back then.  But she did something that completely surprised me.  She spit.  And then she said, "Do you have food?"
   I shrugged and said, "No."
   She repositioned the little boy on her back and then continued on her original walk down the abandoned freeway.
   I don't know what possessed me to call out for her, but I did.  It couldn't be that she was beautiful.  She was covered in ash and dirt, and she seemed as plain as any other girl.  When I really think about it, it was how she carried Jericho.  She didn't seem tired, or upset.  She was strong.  And for such a little thing, this impressed me.
   She didn't stop when I called out for her.  "If you don't have food, I'm not interested."
   "I can help your brother."
   She froze in place.
   "Is he sick?"
   She turned around and stared at me with her cold blue eyes and waited, I'm sure, for more of an explanation.  
    And that's how I met Violet Wood and her little brother.