To Market, to Market...

Nicole's mouth opened as if she were about to say something, but nothing came out of her mouth. Her brows were knit close together as she stared at the shrunken batteries. She raised a hand and gestured to the batteries, yet she still couldn't form words. The teen was quick to assume that Ambrosius was just going to crush the batteries, but he didn't. He actually shrunk the batteries with his bare hands, and it looked as though the batteries were still in the same condition they were in previously. How did he do that? Not once had she seen or heard of such a thing. "How, wha, huh?" Her jumbled words tumbled out of her mouth in confusion. She lowered her hand back down and shook her head in disbelief.

"Nevahmind. We, uh, we gotta head back right now. Worry 'bout one thin' at a time," she said with a nod. "Right now, we gotta worry 'bout gettin' back before the dead get us." Her body shifted back towards the door, though her mind was still swirling around on the concept of shrinking things. Why wouldn't anyone mention doing that back in Georgia? It was something that stuck in her head, and she couldn't figure it out. She was certain she couldn't shrink things herself, nor could anyone else from her former group. Otherwise, they would have been doing that quite often.

Maybe it had something to do with the Fay? Secretive people that she had never heard of that were capable of of shrinking things? It sounded like a bit of a stretch, but who knows? The girl let herself wander in these thoughts as she opened the door, motioning Ambrosius to follow her with a nod.

The teen gave a nod in acknowledgement to Ambrosius' words. "Nah, we don't wanna run into nothin' like that. There's this drug store back home, well, sorta close to home ehnyway, and it's crawlin' with walkahs everywhere. Been picked clean for a long, long time. There's this big ol' flyin' machine stuck on the top of the buildin', too. Heli, helicoptah Ah think? Nevah saw one of 'em workin', but apparently they flew or somethin'. Dunno how such a giant thin' even got into the sky though. Buddy of mine said it was 'cause of these giant spinnahs on the top of the thin', but that didn't seem like it was even possible," Nicole rambled as she stepped outside, offering a small shrug as she did so. She paused for a moment. "Sorry, Ah shouldn't go ramblin' on 'bout home like that. Ah just, Ah dunno, get carried away Ah guess?"

She shook her head lightly and looked ahead. "Ehnyway, we best be headin' on back. Looks like we got a good haul for the day. Ah think there's a harbah somewhere nearby the junkyard. Might be worth takin' a look over there in the near future, just in case there's ehnythin' useful we can find." Her steps were light and slow as she kept walking, taking care not to walk too fast or attract too much attention to herself.

Nicole gave a nod in acknowledgement to what the boy said. "Exactly. If there's any fish in there, and we got some bait, we could try some fishin'. Ah don't have much experience in catchin' fish, but we gotta try it if we're gonna get ehnywhere. Can't be that hard to catch a fish, right?" the girl replied with enthusiasm. Suddenly, things didn't seem quite so bleak. They had food, they had water, they had medicine, and a supply of fish, not to mention a possible source of freshwater if bottled water became nonexistent. With the group stocked up on supplies, they could focus on rebuilding civilization. That task would have been far easier if they had one thing.

Adults.

Nicole's burst of hope died a bit when she remembered that the group consisted entirely of teenagers and kids. Not a single adult was within the walls of Maplehill. That was going to make things difficult. Very, very difficult. Without any parental figures around, would any of the kids make it? The question popped into her head, and Nicole regretted thinking about it. She swallowed her saliva in hopes to calm herself down, mentally telling herself to keep talking about fishing while she walked.

"We should get some fishin' gear put togethah before we try to catch a fish. Like, a net or somethin'. Can't imagine that catchin' fish with bare hands and bait is very effective."