Youth World

Chapter 6 – The First Speech

That meal was delicious. But now there were more pressing matters. Such as convincing everybody to journey east across the mountains. Luckily, now I had a speech prepared, and I was going to deliver it to the best of my ability.

I had sent messengers across the camp to summon everybody to the big tree stump, which I used as a podium. Now, thousands of people were gathered around me, eager to hear what I had to say. After listening in to some conversations under the guise of checking up on their wellbeing, any of them considered me the sole reason they survived the first day.

I took a deep breath, and then waved towards the chattering crowd.

"Hello, everybody!" I exclaimed in a booming voice. "Thank you all for attending this meeting!"

"No problem!" One sixth grader screamed.

"Alright, we don't have much time as night is falling, so I'll make this short and simple. This area is very dangerous, has few resources, and is nearly impossible to farm. If we stay here, we'll either die to other people or we'll die due to starvation."

"Seriously?" A tenth grader exclaimed. "Surely you have a way out of this!"

"Yeah! You saved us once, can you save us again?"

The crowd chaotically began chattering in concern.

"Everybody, everybody! Quiet down! I have a way out of this."

"As you all may know, Yakima is known for its peaches. However, it also has the best land in the whole state! If we can somehow make it there, we'll have infinite food, and we'll be able to build a city! We'll live happily ever after! I promise!"

The crowd erupted into cheers.

"Thank you, thank you. As some of you may ask, how will we get there? There's a bunch of mountains in the way."

"That's right!" A girl objected. "How will we get there? There's no roads or cars!"

"You are correct. We will have to cross the Snoqualmie Pass to the eastern part of the state. We will need to prepare extensively, heading to the Puget Sound to gather salt to preserve our meat and building wagons and taming horses and cattle to drag those wagons. I admit, this will be difficult, but it will be worth it. We are risking a lot, but the reward is much greater than the risk."

Grant voiced his thoughts on the matter.

"I agree with Alexander! When I woke up, I immediately headed towards him, and he helped me survive! If it wasn't for him, I'd be toast!"

Darryl also spoke up on my behalf.

"I think that we should do what Alexander suggests. When we were fighting down at the middle school, he's the one who swooped in and calmed everything down. Besides, look what he's done for us so far! We'd all be dead if it wasn't for him!"

"What those two have said is completely true. I know Alexander myself from our time on the football team together, and this guy is the real deal. He gave me homework answers all the time, so that may be a reason, but he's also a great leader. He always did a great job keeping us together, and that's why I think that we should follow him."

One girl decided to voice her concerns.

"I think that we should stay here. Venturing off through the mountains is super dangerous. We might all die due to hypothermia. I think it's safer to set up a permanent base here, and hope for the best."

"Those are all valid concerns. I believe that we should hold a vote. Everyone who thinks that we should go through the mountains and build a settlement in the Yakima River Valley, raise your hands!"

About a thousand hands shot up immediately. The rest of the people, seeing so many hands raised, joined in as well. Only about a few hundred disagreed.

"Those who disagree raise your hands!"

About a hundred or so hands were raised. The ones who had not raised their hands the first time did not raise their hands this time, probably because they were indecisive and just wanted to go with the flow.

"Well, the votes clearly show that we should cross the mountain. Alright, so this is what we should do. We need to gather as much copper and zinc as we can, as well as launch an expedition to the Puget Sound to get a lot of salt. Furthermore, we need to send some people to tame animals, others to hunt, a few people to continue making weapons and finally some people to build wagons. Is everybody in agreement?"

A thundering roar was the crowd's response.

"Thank you all for your efforts and your support. Now, we should complete the shelters, and we will head to sleep. We will need a guard of a hundred to rotate and patrol the camp during the night. I have no further announcements for you all. Good night."

The crowd was conversing with each other, probably discussing what I had said. I headed off to find Lucas, who was busy constructing a Manchu bow partially out of animal bones.

"Hey, Lucas," I greeted, "How's things going?"

"They're going pretty well. Say, Alexander, do you want to hear my story about what went down at my school?"

"Certainly! Sorry for not talking to you earlier, but I really was in a hustle. Now I have all the time in the world, so carry on."

"Where should I begin," Lucas started, "Oh yeah, I was in the middle of science class when suddenly, I fainted. I woke up in the same place buck nȧkėd and decided to linger around for a while to better grasp the situation. Then, this football player Michael declared himself the leader of the whole school, which was met by disagreement by his rivals. There was a massive fight going on, and dozens of dead. Since I didn't want to get caught in the crossfire, I immediately headed south to try to find you. Along the way, I made myself some tools and weapons, and that's when I met your hunters."

"That certainly sucks," I consoled, "Say, what happened to the middle school next to your high school?"

"Yeah, I met them. Those guys didn't fight as much as my school, but they were still quite a mess. Much of the school had disbanded at that point, with many of the kids forming small tribes and scavenging throughout the land. I found one kid horribly mauled by an animal."

"That's horrible!"

"That's good to hear. Did you happen to run into Aidan on the way here?"

"No. Why?"

"Aidan was supposed to be at school today. However, nobody's found him so far. That's weird."

"I have no clue where he could be."

"I figured. Well, Lucas, good night. I'll tend to some other things around the camp, and then I'll head to bed."

"Likewise. Good night, Alexander!"

Turns out, we weren't the only ones who were infighting for a while. Guess that's only human nature, for order to break down as soon as an apocalypse occurs.

Well, there's nothing else to do but check up on the rest of the camp. Let's see how they're doing.

After doing a loop around the camp, everything was going according to plan. A bunch of people were stripping bark off the cedar trees, fashioning clothing for the whole camp. All of the elementary schoolers were building shelters, and there were nearly enough to accommodate everybody. The rest of the people were doing something or another. That's good to see.

Thus, I decided to go check up on the archery club members. These guys were elemental for my plan to succeed.

"Hello? Is anybody there?"

The archery club captain tiredly replied, his eyes bȧrėly staying open.

"I'm about to head to bed. What do you need?"

"Ah, sorry, Robin. I just needed to ask you something."

"Oh, it's Alexander? What do you need me for?"

"I need you and your club members to become professional soldiers for us. We'll talk about this tomorrow morning, but would that be fine?"

"Sure, that works. I ȧssume you need some archers, huh?"

"I sure do. If we ever fight other kids, we'll need ranged units to secure victory. Besides, you guys would be super useful in hunting. Oh, also one other thing."

"Which is?"

"Do you guys know how to ride horses?"

"Most of us do. However, about a third of us do not have that ability."

"I see. Thank you for talking to me. I'll catch up with you later."

"Good night. See you tomorrow morning."

That went quite well. Now, I had to check on the carpentry club. I know, we have a carpentry club. Our school certainly wasn't normal.

"Adam! Where are you?"

The carpentry club captain, ironically named Adam Carpenter, stuck his head out of his shelter.

"I'm here, Alexander. What do you need?"

"I'll get straight to the point, because we're both obviously very sleepy. Remember how I talked about building wagons?"

"Got it. You need us to build wagons? Sure, we can do that!"

"Not just that. I need you to build two carriages for two cannons."

"Wow, wow, wow. Wait a minute. You want to build cannons?"

"Yep, you heard me correctly. I'm gonna have the metallurgy club make us cannons. Just imagine! If some kids with spears try to attack us, we can blast them to smithereens!"

"You're as ambitious as ever, Alexander. I'll try my best to get you some carriages made. Anyways, how should they look?"

I picked up a stick and began drawing a design on the muddy ground. It looked exactly like a Canon Obusier de 12 used in the American Civil War. It wasn't a mountain gun like I had previously planned, but it was quite a versatile cannon, being able to fire all kinds of projectiles, and it was easier to make as well.

"This is what I need you to make."

"I ȧssume you don't want us to make the barrel, right?"

"Correct. Just the carriage."

"If you give us three weeks, we can get it done. Sounds good?"

"Sounds good. I'm going to collapse any moment now if I don't immediately head to bed, so good night to you."

"Good night. Sleep tight. Don't let the bedbugs bite."

"Bro, that's so cringy!"

Adam's maturity was lacking, but he was good at his job. That's all that mattered.

So, everything was sorted out. Of course, I'd have a nightmarishly number of things to deal with as soon as I woke up the following morning, but now wasn't the time to deal with those things. Now it was time to sleep.

The elementary school kids were nice enough to build me my own personal shelter, twice as big as the other ones. This made me look like a king in comparison with the others, but, oh well. This wasn't that big of an issue, since we'd abandon these shelters in a month.

Now, it was time to hit the hay. And I had the best sleep of my life.

Luckily, I did not hear all the… er… things that went on that night in the various shelters.. You know what? Forget it.