They moved out of the hills, like rats, scrambling through the shadows.  From boulder to boulder, they crawled and ducked, avoiding the pinpricks of red from atop the Wall.  Cuauhtémoc kept his eye on the boy and his mother as they stumbled through the grit, dodging scorpions and prickling cacti.  He watched them carefully as they rolled beneath a crumbling hill to avoid the peering red light from above.  Without warning, the earth beneath them emitted a loud SNAP as rocks and sand and bitter earth flew upwards, obscuring them from view. 

Realizing the severity of the situation, Cuauhtémoc leapt forward and threw himself into the torrent of earth, managing to clutch the boy's hand as he tumbled through.  As the earth settled they saw nothing left of his mother but a patch of blood-soaked earth. 

Cuauhtémoc placed his hand tightly over the boy's mouth, and he bit down, trying to scream.  The system didn't know what it had caught- it might have been a coyote or a roadrunner.  The alarms hadn't gone off- yet.

At least it wasn't a Spider, he thought pathetically as the boy drew blood on his fingers.  Clutching him to his chest, Cuauhtémoc ran towards the specified section of wall.  All sorts of rubble was piled up against it, and Cuauhtémoc identified the spray-painted cross over it. He ran, hard, feeling sweat and blood mingling and mixing until he couldn't run, because he was falling...

RATE THIS BRANCH!