The day after Alex had gotten her new name had been a busy one. They had gone out and searched for any items that they could use. Though there were barely any, they found some knives, some canned foods, some eating utensils, and other things that would definitely come in handy later.

Alex walked up a cresting hill, standing at the highest point and looking around. She could get a better view from here, though not much. Her gaze swept over the ruined landscape, and she wondered about the other people, she wondered if other countries were affected as well. ~Probably…~ Alex thought, then added, ~Though it wasn't the biggest piece of comet…~

She looked over as another boy that she had learned that they called Justin walked over from the skeleton of metal beams and poles that had probably been a large building carrying several large hand-sized pieces of metal. Seeing Alex's questioning glance, he said, "We can use these to make things, quite possibly."

Alex nodded. It made sense, though she didn't know how they would get the metal heated up enough to change it's shape.

She had the eerie feeling of being watched, though she didn't recognize it immediately at first and dismissed it as fear of being alone out here.

She stopped for a moment when she realized that the sun had begun to set. She had only been walking along this seemingly endless ridge for maybe 20 minutes, but she had been walking overall for hours, and with her already existing wounds, she was at her limit.

She turned, but stopped, looking down into the huge dip in the ground that she had thought to be a lake, and realized that it was actually probably where a shard of the meteor hit. Amazing.

Some sort of weird animal's tracks led out from the crater, there were a lot of them and Alex hesitated, her gaze flickering back and forth, searching for the beasts. ~They're probably wolves or deer or something looking for food. ~ She decided. She couldn't see the tracks clearly and assumed it was a slimmer large animal. Deer or a pack of wolves seemed about right.

Alex didn't want to walk back right away, and sat, watching the sunset…

Though she soon realized that it might be a fatal mistake. ~I can't be walking out here alone in the dark…~ was one of the panicked thoughts that rushed into her mind. With her wounds still bleeding, it was extremely dangerous. She took a deep breath to calm down and started to slowly pick her way back towards where she remembered the camp to be.

The sun cast its dying rays at her back as she wandered back along the ridge. She climbed down, and came to where there was a forest of charred sticks sticking up out of the ground for as far as you could see.

She didn't want to go in, but saw no choice, and entered the eerie place. The sun was soon mostly blocked out by the trees. She kept calm, walking at her normal pace.

Then the sun went down, and the pitch black of the night without the moon was disorienting. She kept moving though, surprising herself, but she figured that she would be safer moving and trying to get back to camp then staying where she was.

~There's no reason to be scared. ~ She thought, trying to dismiss her mounting feeling of unease, ~There's nothing out there…~

And that's when the howling began…