Leaving Home

It's a goddamned nightmare. Things have taken a sharp turn for the worse in less than six months. Peggy and Ben are dead, Captain Catherine is nowhere to be found, Mayor Sidney is getting ready to leave us. The town is empty. We're down to only a handful of adults and a bunch of kids. James said it's time to give up on this place, but how can I... This is our home! James was right though. The fields were no longer fit for farming. Everything we did to try and stop the pollution, it was all useless. The crops' stems, leaves and roots have all been contaminated. Those blue stripes mean that the poison had infiltrated the entire land. The land we live on! And those weird Marauders have made things even worse—they won't stop dragging the loot they steal from us up to the #[k=b25]rooftops at Bloodbeak camp#[k]. We just can't keep them out. How can you fight against people as crazy as that? Should we head south? I know there are some survivors at the other side of the river. Maybe they'd take us in. I will be sad to leave...