A Fish is a Fish
Amanda
Trent
4/20/14
My brother stood facing away from me,
his back dowsed in shadows as the fire in front of him crackled and sparks
lifted into the night air. I could see him trembling as we heard the screams
coming from our camp site. “Run.” I stared at him dumb founded. Maybe I
misheard him, but I guess not; he repeated himself again, with the same
careless tone. I felt anger bubble and overflow in my chest with painful
pressure, an acidic flavor stained my tongue. Run? After all we’ve been through
together, he expected me to leave him alone here while he was slaughtered. “Run.” He repeated. He was absolutely
unbelievable.
“Are you serious?” I said. “You
expect me to just leave you here, like a…. like a coward?” I spat the last word
with venom in my voice. “After all this time? After everything? What are you
thinking?”
He turned around to face me. The
fire kept his face in shadows, but I could still see his frail frame tremble,
the flames behind him casting a fiery outline. The tears streamed down his bony
cheeks, his face made gaunter by the firelight. But he didn’t look sad, he
looked angry, and for the first time in my life I felt scared of him. “For
God’s sake, Cassandra!” He shouted, his fists clenched by his sides. “Do you
think this is easy for me? To let you go on your own? You’re all I have! I have
nothing left to lose! I’ll go after her, and you run!”
“Jose, I-“
“GO!” he yelled. “I’ll help her, you
just need to leave.” Then I could feel it. He wasn’t going to let me stay, and
he wasn’t going to come with, and no matter what I did I couldn’t make him. I
could hear a shout and heard the footsteps crunching on the rocks, gaining on
us.
He rested his head in his hands.
“Please…Please Cassandra…”
I could feel the tears welling up
inside my eyes. “I don’t know if I can do that…”
“Do it for me. Please, for God’s
sake….One of us has to make it. This can’t all have been for nothing….”
I stood on the spot for a minute,
just watching him, taking in everything about who he was right now. He was the
picture of bravery and at the same time one of despair. I felt my heart sink as
I perused his features. He was so thin; I knew he wasn’t going to last much
longer. My heart thudded dully in my chest and my stomach turned over, but I
managed to tear my gaze away. There was no time for hugs and goodbyes, no time
for dwelling on his loss. I could hear them getting closer. With a final glance
at him and an “I love you.” I sprinted from him. I ran as far as my legs could
carry me before I collapsed. That night as I hid like a vermin in a cave, I
heard the final screams of my only family torn from the living, and knew I was
alone in the world.
2
Days Earlier
I walked leisurely across the plains; best take my time
if I didn’t want to dehydrate myself. I kept my eyes straight ahead, examining
some of the crops I might want to pick later. I guess I should have been paying
attention to my feet, because I crashed to the ground and ended up by a young
boy in the grass. I jumped a bit and started apologizing but then I saw the
flies gathering at the corners of his eyes and lips. I sighed and closed his
searching eyes with my fingers and smoothed the wispy hair back from his bony,
bleeding face. How frail he looked. The outline of his ribs were visible from
outside his tattered t-shirt and he looked like you could snap his waist
between thumb and forefinger. He probably ran away from one of the nearby
campgrounds a while ago by the look of his body. I checked for signs of
dehydration and I found many. I’m guessing no one taught him how to remove the
salt from the water or that he had no way to reach the water that lapped
against the mountains. Well, my staying here wouldn’t help either of us, so I
looked away from him and stood back up.
It was time to move on. I trudged through the dried grass
plains for a few minutes before I noticed the dryness in my throat. I was so
thirsty; I looked over the edge of the cliff to see the ocean lapping its wet
tongue against the mountain. I licked my chapped lips. The water looked so
satisfying, but I knew I couldn’t drink it. Instead I swallowed and looked
around at my surroundings. The plain I was on was more of a large mesa on a
mountain. The ones that survived escaped to places like these before the flood
actually happened. Luckily for me, that included my grandparents.
About a century ago, the people on Earth had allowed the
sea levels to rise to dangerous points because of the global warming they had
caused. Eventually, the water rose until it was rushing in through the
continents. North America promised safety, and people of all races and
ethnicities migrated to survive, believing they would be kept alive.
Eventually, the people still alive managed to work together to build an
enormous dam around all borders of the continent. Things were well, but the sea
levels were still rising, people scrambled and scrambled to make a dam until it
must’ve been a mile high. But one day, it was inevitable really, the dam
collapsed.
The water rushed in and devoured everything that had been
loved without an ounce of pity; it had been waiting for half a century. The
wise, or perhaps just paranoid, ones had escaped to the highest peaks they
could find, before it happened, and that’s how some were still alive. That’s
how I ended up here, on the South Mountains, next to a dead body, .37 miles
above water so refreshing looking that I could not drink. I knew a way to
filter it, but that would require lighting a fire, something
that would take too much time; I had to get back to camp with the food.
I had memorized the ins and outs of this mountain since I
was five; which included knowing just the right way to get back home within
half an hour. Our campground was fairly large, on the side of the mountain face
that pointed away from what used to be Phoenix.
We had around one hundred people in this area of the campground, and we
heard there were a few others like this scattered around Arizona (for the most
part it was an unconfirmed rumor except for one group we knew lived on The
Estrellas, whom we simply called “The Estrellas”). Looking out into every
direction from here all that could be seen was the saltwater that splashed all sides
of the craggy mountains.
We
had a fair share of crops near us as well, but there were more crops growing
farther out that I wanted to collect today. I carried the crops in my bag over
to my brother’s and my tent. “I’m back.” I whispered as I approached the tent,
just in case he was asleep. There was no answer and I entered. No one there. I walked back out and realized
that I didn’t hear anyone talking nor see anyone. “Hello?” I said. No response.
I made my way around the grounds, looking in every tent I
passed and every single one was empty. I stood on the spot and jumped when I
realized how stupid I had been this morning. In my rush to leave, I forgot that
we had a meeting with some of the people from the Estrella Mountains today. I
filled my bottle up with the water from the reserve and took a few gulps before
I ran off to find everyone.
There were meeting on the side of the mountains facing
Phoenix, in front of the highest peak. I ran as fast as I could without
tripping, checking my watch as I went. After ten minutes I could see figures in
the distance and began to slow down to check my watch. It was only eleven
forty; barely ten minutes late. I jogged the rest of the way and made it just
as the leader of the Estrella group, Anita Secunda walked to the front of the
crowd to give some more news.
Where we met wasn’t a very officious looking area, but we
did the best we could with a mountain. There was a makeshift podium made out of
large rocks we had tied together with cord and it was surrounded by a series of
large boulders where everyone was now settling down. I speed walked over and
slid into my usual place next to my brother. “You’re late” he whispered through
his teeth, staring straight ahead.
“Sorry, Jose.” I whispered. “What did I miss?”
“Just the usual: we need to preserve water, be careful
when filtering, there’s another run away kid, we can make it through this rah rah
rah.” He wrinkled his nose and smiled. “You stink.”
“You’re one to talk.” He faked a
hurt expression and punched my shoulder.
The Estrella leader at the podium cleared her throat and we quickly fell
silent.
“Thank you for the weekly
announcements.” She said nodding at one of the Estrella men. Of course we’re
going to want to do even more tests, but we believe we’ve made a huge
scientific breakthrough even with our limited resources. Now I’d like to invite Abena Mcunday, Yolatzin
Rodriguez, and Will Schuster up to help display this.” At this point three children
walked “onstage”.
“Go ahead Abena.” Anita smiled reassuringly
at the girl. Abena was a small, trembling girl. Her skin seemed even darker in
the shade of the mountains and small flecks of sweat seemed to pop up on it as
I watched. After a minute or so she
finally managed to speak. “I’m sorry Abena, we didn’t quite catch that.” Anita
said gently.
Abena cleared her throat and managed
to squeak loud enough for us to hear her. “I’m Abena and I’ve been drinking
saltwater for two months.” There was a resounding silence in which the other
children quickly took the opportunity to say their part.
“I’m Yolatzin and I’ve been drinking
saltwater for three months.”
“I’m Will and I’ve been drinking
saltwater for one month.”
The mountains were more silent than
ever. All that could be heard was the crashing of the waves against the
mountains and the wind. Anita’s beaming
smile at the audience began to fade. “Don’t you understand? They’ve been
drinking nothing but saltwater for months, and they’re all fine!”
There was another pause before the
leader of our group spoke. “How?”
“Finally, a good question.” Her
smile returned. “For that I’d like to invite up our leading researcher on the
project: Kate Weston.” She gestured for the woman to walk up to the podium and
speak.
“Yes, thank you for that, Anita. My
group and I have made a major discovery the last few months. As we know as it’s been such a struggle for
us, we can’t drink the water surrounding us because it’s filled with salt. But why is that? If you didn’t know, it’s
because of the concentration gradient at work within our own cells. When we
drink saltwater, what we are drinking had a higher concentration of solute than
our cells do. Because of this, our cells release water in order to create
equilibrium.
This causes us to become thirstier
and dehydrated when we drink the water, but what if we didn’t have to? Albatross have glands near their eyes that
pump out the excess water and other fish that live in saltwater have their
kidneys pump out the excess salt into their urine. We simply transferred the
few genes that make up this trait into the fish.”
There was another round of silence
until the leader of our group spoke. “You did what?”
“Oh, sorry, let me repeat myself. I
said that we made it so they could drink salt-“
“I heard what you said.”
“Oh, good. So anyways, as you can
see if you observe near Yolatzin’s eyes-“
“I-I can’t believe this. You… you
made these children into experiments….” He said slowly.
“Come now, Jonathan, they’re still
children Why does everyone seem so horrified? Don’t you realize how great this
is?” This seemed to hit a nerve.
“Great? GREAT?! You’ve turned these
children into one of your little science experiments!” At this point Anita stepped
in front of Kate to argue.
“They’re helping us!”
“At what cost? You’ve changed them
into... into…. Animals!” The air seemed
to turn cold and the children shrank back at Jonathan’s words. Animals? I looked over at the kids. They
seemed just like any other children; I doubted they were wild beasts. Honestly,
it seemed like he was over-reacting. This seemed like a great idea. The
possibilities! To finally drink the saltwater that tempted us for so many years
was almost a dream. But I understood his anger. Anita should’ve consulted with
everyone first before pulling this. But really, she had no malicious intent. There
was murmuring amongst the groups and I looked over at Anita. She seemed to choose her next words carefully
by the slow pace at which she began speaking.
“Look, they’re still children.” She
began, glancing over to see if Jonathan had his temper under control. His face
showed no expression, but I could see his hands shaking. “The only thing that’s
changed is that now they can drink salt water. Nothing else has been damaged
within them, and they’re perfectly fine. We’ve had them keep a log every single
day since the procedure to document if they’ve observed anything strange in
themselves. And guess what? Everything’s fine.”
“I don’t think you understand what
you’ve done…..”
Anita sighed and pushed her glasses
farther up her nose. “I really don’t Jonathan, please explain to me. I really
want to understand where you’re coming from on this.”
“You’ve changed how they evolved. It
isn’t natural.”
“You know what? It isn’t. But
neither is the material your tents are made from, or the clothes on your back.
We’ve altered things. We’ve even altered the water we drink water so it no
longer has salt in it. We have to alter a lot of things to survive.”
“But we’re not things! This is
against nature’s design!” Anita seemed to almost laugh at this.
‘Nature’s design? Nature’s design?! For
God’s sake, Jonathan. The water that flooded years ago was the design of
nature, but that doesn’t mean we have to suffer from it because it happened
naturally.”
“I think we have to deal with it in
ways other than changing ourselves!”
“But we-“
“You know what?!” Jonathan snapped.
Anita recoiled as did a majority of the crowd. “You and your people need to
leave!”
I knew Jonathan had a temper, but I
didn’t think he’d go this far; maybe he’d finally snapped. Apparently no one
else expected it or thought it was fair either because one of the members of
the Estrella group protested. “Look, I’m sure we can-“
“NOW!” Jonathan yelled.
Everyone fell silent and Anita
sighed and nodded at the Estrella group to do as he said. The group stood up and began their walk to
the end of the mountain, but Anita stayed to give one last thought. “Look, if
you ever change your mind, you know how to contact us. If you don’t change your mind-“, at this
point she turned to our group.” - any of you are welcome to come to join us!”
she nodded at us and walked back to the front of her group, leading them back
home.
That was the last meeting we had
with The Estrellas.
“Well, I think Jonathan
overreacted.” Jose said as he sat on his side of the tent and pulled off his
socks. We had just returned after eating dinner and I was feeling a little tired
of all the talk about what went on with The Estrellas.
“Yeah, but I see where he’s coming
from. She probably should’ve told us what she was doing.” I said. It was my
usual response to when people at dinner had asked me what I thought of what
happened.
“Well… think of it as a sort of…
birthday surprise for Jonathan.”
I made a face at that. “Happy birthday,
my eye glands secrete salt?”
“ Eh….Something like that. I mean it
really is his birthday today.” He said pulling himself under the covers of his
cot.
“Maybe he’s so mad because they
didn’t announce it in the weekly news.”
“They did actually, which you would’ve known if you had bothered to
show up on time….” He said pointedly.
I raised my hands in front of myself
in defense. “Hey, hey, hey I was doing my chores. Unlike someone.“
“Well someone already had their chores done.
“Oh, sorry, oh diligent worker. I
obviously should’ve known that.” He just shrugged at me and nodded. “You’re
dumb and I’m going to sleep.” I replied, bundling myself in my blankets.
“Oh I’m dumb? Hmmm….I forget.....Who was it that didn’t know that there
are eight planets in the solar system. Was it? It couldn’t be….You?” I threw my
socks at him and he ducked. “OH, for the sake of fresh air, spare everyone’s
lives and keep your socks on!”
“You asked for it.”
“You’ve gone too far this time.
Neither I nor my nose can forgive you.”
“Just blow out the candle and go to
sleep.” I sighed. With an exaggerated breath he blew out the candle and was
knocked out within minutes. It really was remarkable how fast that kid could
fall asleep, no matter the circumstances or noise, his sleep waited for no one.
I, myself, tossed and turned but the
land of sleep evaded me. Eventually I resigned
to roll onto my back and watch the stars through the mesh ceiling of our tent. It
was weird; how the sky used to look. I pulled a photograph I had been gazing at
the other day from under my pillow. It was from my grandmother’s album my dad
had given me some years back, the picture was captioned “Night Sky, 2020”. She
wrote a little note on the back on how nice it looked and how big the universe
was, but you could literally only see one constellation.
But
this sky, now this was a full sky. The stars glowed white and blue, smattered
in tons of clusters across a black void. Everything was quiet and I felt I
could gaze at the whole universe as I listened to the water crash against my
home. The ocean seemed to crash angrily at the mountain, like it hadn’t had its
fill, it wanted this as well. I wanted to look at the stars, but I didn’t want
to hear the water so I put a pillow over me face and attempted to block the
roar of water from my ears.
I was
drifting through the ocean, letting the push and pull of the tides move me as
it pleased. My throat felt dry and I gulped in some of the salty water until I
felt bloated. I looked around at the ocean and saw what I had only seen in
drawings: the city of Phoenix lay below me, submerged in water with buildings
sunken and worn away. I swam towards one of the buildings and saw my reflection
off the glass, a solitary albatross. I was going to swim through one of the
open windows, but in my reflection I saw something glowing behind me.
I swam back towards what I had seen,
and saw upon closer examination that the strange object floating before me
wasn’t glowing, but just shining. It was shaped like an incomplete “U” and had
a worm floating on the end of it and I felt like I had seen it before, but I
couldn’t quite place it. All I know is that even though it had food on the end,
it made me feel nervous, so I gulped some more water and once more watched the salt
leave the glands at the corners of my eyes.
Instinct told me I should just swim
away, but I could feel that my stomach was empty and I couldn’t remember the
last time I ate. I placed my mouth on the object to remove the worm and felt
pain shoot through my mouth as whatever the object was tore through the roof of
my mouth. I tried to extricate myself from whatever it was, but before I could,
I felt the water rush by my sides as I rose higher and higher from the ocean
floor. I was stuck, and the object tore its way further and further into the
roof of my mouth as I was lifted from the water.
I thrashed and thrashed, but soon I
could feel I was not home anymore. I couldn’t figure out where I was, but I
couldn’t breathe. I gasped and gasped for water but there was none where I was
and I was terrified. I continued moving until I was wriggling in front of two
men, one holding the device that had caught me. A fishing pole and a hook, I
remembered now, but it was a little too late.
“Oh, I like the size of this one.”
One of them said.
“I don’t know Jonathan, it’s a
little small, maybe we should just release it and try again?”
“Oh, no. A fish is a fish.” He
smiled and pulled a knife from his pocket and inserted it as far as he could
into the area below my neck. I could feel my body split in two as he dragged
the object through my body to the tip of my tail.
I woke up with a start and clutched
at my neck. Still intact, I was fine. I lay in my bed and sighed as I wiped at
the sweat that formed beads on my forehead. It was just a weird dream I didn’t
need to make a big deal of, and by the look of the dim sky through the mesh
ceiling, I might as well get up.
I could hear Jose snore quietly as I
got up and walked quietly over to the mirror and washbasin that stood at the
end of the tent. My face was noticeably flushed, so I wet a washcloth with
saltwater and wiped my face. My hair was knotted so I brushed it as well, but
by the feel of it I needed to clean it. I walked out of my tent and onto the
grass outside.
Everyone seemed to be asleep, so now
was as good a time as ever to go for a swim. I went back inside the tent and
grabbed some soap, and on an impulse I grabbed a pair of goggles as well, and
within ten minutes or so I was in the ocean. The water was cold, but I couldn’t
really do anything about it except submerge myself and wait to get used to it.
I looked at the rock where I had
placed my stuff and wondered why I had brought goggles. I hadn’t had a desire
to look at what was in the ocean before, and besides I doubt I could actually
see anything, the ocean was black right now in the gray light of dawn. Still I
felt curiosity get the better of me and I grabbed the goggles and placed them
on my head. Might as well.
I held a breath of air and began my
decent into the inky depths of the water, swimming away from the water. Right
away I could see this was going to be a lost cause. The water was too dark for
my gaze to penetrate, but I still swam on until I was as low and far as I could
go with my small supply of air.
I rose back to the surface with a
gasp and lay back on the water as I caught my breath. I wasn’t sure what I
expected to find, but whatever it was wasn’t there for me to see today. I
resigned to return to shore and actually clean myself. Maybe I’d try again
tomorrow.
______________________________________________________________________________
I finished pulling on my shoes and
walked back to the campsite. By now most people were awake and were walking around
to do their daily chores or walking over to the bulletin to check what they had
to do today. I walked over and checked what I had to do for today and ran my
finger down the list of assignments today.
Cassandra
Chavez-Water Filtration
It wasn’t the most preferable job,
but it was better than getting stuck having to get rid of the waste. I walked over to my tent and grabbed a bucket
for water while Jose sat on his cot, pulling on his shoes.
“What are you doing with a bucket?”
he asked.
“I have water filtration duty
today.”
“We have a meeting in twenty minutes.
Let’s go” he said standing up.
“That’s surprising, I didn’t think
we’d have another meeting with The Estrellas so soon after Jonathan lost his
temper. “ I said as we began to walk towards the meeting.
“Yeah, maybe he’s cooled down.”
“Maybe.” I said, but it just didn’t
feel right. Jonathan had been absolutely furious about what Anita and The
Estrellas had done. His temper’s bad, but his stubbornness in his ideals is ten
times worse. His parents were extremely conservative in their beliefs, and they
had taught him to believe the same. To him, this whole affair would’ve gone
against everything he had been brought up to believe in. He wouldn’t forgive
Anita that easily for what had happened.
We arrived at the meeting spot and
sat down with the other people in our groups. “Where are all The Estrellas?” I whispered.
Looking around, all that could be seen was our group; the usual space The
Estrellas occupied during our meetings was vacant.
“Maybe he hasn’t forgiven them…” he
replied. Everyone was quiet for a few more minutes before we saw Jonathan
approach the microphone.
“Good morning, everyone.” He said,
nodding at the crowd. “I know my response yesterday may have come as a shock to
all of you, but after reflecting I still truly believe it was the best course
of action. The Estrellas have done something unforgivable, and for that I have
decided that we are no longer to associate with any of them until they
apologize and sign a contract saying they will never do anything of the sort
they pulled ever again.”
There was murmuring amongst the
crowd and I felt a surge of anger that twisted my stomach into knots. This man
wasn’t our dictator, this was supposed to be a democracy and I didn’t see any
voting or discussion going on. He was unstable, and he wasn’t allowed to make
these decisions for us, he obviously hadn’t thought this through and didn’t
realize how much we relied on the Estrellas. Before I could even think about
it, I spoke up, “But we get half our water from the Estrellas.” I interrupted,
“They have a far more advanced filtration system.”
“Cassandra!” Jose hissed through his
teeth. There were whispers in the crowd and Jonathan stared at me, as if he
couldn’t believe someone would question such a stupid idea.
“That is not your decision to make,
Cassandra. And you would do well to stay silent when your leader is speaking.”
“Exactly, you’re our leader, not our
dictator. Since when did we decide as a group to no longer associate with The
Estrellas?”
“We didn’t, but this is what’s best
for you.”
“Who are you to decide that?!”
“You’re leader! Now shut your
mouth!” His face was red and he was breathing heavily. I stared him down for a
few more seconds before I stiffly took my seat.
“Now as I was saying before that
interruption, “ he said, finally tearing his gaze away, “We are to cut off all
contact with The Estrellas. What they have done to innocent children is an
abomination, and the idea that the parents consented and even embraced that is,
frankly, disgusting. It’s vile and beyond nature’s laws. I do hope you all
understand, any disagreements are to be brought to me. All of you are under no
circumstances to fraternize with those animals, and if you do, there will be
severe consequences.” He said, his gaze fixing on me as he spoke.
0
I quickly and untidily shoved clothes
and my few other belongings in my bag, Jose
walked into the tent and looked at me dumbfounded. “What are you doing?” he
said, stepping out of my way as I walked over to grab my canteen.
“I’ve decided it’s time for a change
in scenery.”
“…..What do you mean..?” he said,
his eyebrows furrowed.
“So long South Mountains, hello
Estrellas.”
“You’re leaving?! How far do you
think you’ll get? Jonathan’s suspicious of you now after that whole argument at
today’s meeting; he’ll be on the lookout for you.”
“Which is why I’m leaving at night.
You have until midnight to decide if you’ll come with me. I’ll be waiting on
the side facing the Estrellas.”
“I’ll come with you, obviously.” He
said sincerely. “But we need to very careful.” He checked his watch, “It’s
11:44, we might as well leave now, Jonathan goes to sleep around nine anyways.”
We spent the next ten minutes or so
packing our belongings in silence. We exit the tent and I began to take the
stakes out that kept it on the ground.
“Wait. Won’t the tent being gone
make it obvious right when Jonathan looks around that we’re gone?”
“The tent being there would only buy
us half an hour at best.” I said. “Besides, we don’t know if they have extra
tents over at the Estrellas.”
“Fine, I’ll help you.” We packed the
tent in silence, and within half an hour we were at the mountain edge. But
something was wrong.
“Really?! Jonathan took the ladder
leading down the mountain edge. We can’t reach the boats at the bottom.”
We made it this far, I wasn’t going
to let Jonathan stop us at the last minute. We couldn’t risk turning around,
but I really didn’t want to have to do this. “We need to jump.”
“It’s over 2500 feet!”
“Look we don’t really have much of a
choice; we’re going to fall anyways if we try to climb.”
Jose sighed and looked over the
edge. “I really hate heights.”
“Just keep your legs straight and
you’ll be fine.” I said.
“No, I’m going back to Jonathan’s
tent to get the ladder.” He turned around and began to walk away.
“We don’t have time!”
“I’d rather not die.”
He left and half an hour later he returned
with the ladder and hung it over the cliff edge. “It doesn’t cover the whole
drop, but it makes it considerable less dangerous.”
“Good enough for me.” I said and
began my descent, Jose following above me. We reached the end of the ladder and
dropped our bags into the closest boat. Then we dropped ourselves into the freezing
water while yanking down the ladder so we couldn’t be followed. Within minutes
we were off and heading to the Estrellas.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It was five by the time we made it,
and the sun was leaving streaks of pink and orange on the wispy clouds. We approached
the side of the mountain and docked our boat with the others, making sure it
wouldn’t float away in case we needed it again. We clambered up the ladder and on
to the mountains. From here we could see the first strands of smoke rising into
the sky from the campsite and began stumbling over the new terrain we had not
yet adjusted to.
By the time we made it to the
campsite, a bead of sweat was trickling down my forehead and I was exhausted. It
seemed that everyone in the campsite was gathered around the fire, eating what
looked like fish and eggs. My stomach grumbled as we approached and everyone
looked up.
I few people jumped up from their
places and I heard a woman mutter, “Looks like Jonathan’s sent a couple of
Southies.”
I really hated that nickname. “Oh,
sorry, we should probably introduce ourselves.” I said. “I’m Cassandra and this
is my brother Jose.”
The same woman spoke “So what’d you
come here for? You here as missionaries to preach us on Nature’s Design?
Because we’re not interested.”
I felt me face burn, but I went on,
“Oh, no. Jonathan’s said a lot of things we disagree with. We came here to….
Live with you guys…”
I heard a familiar voice speak and
saw Anita round the corner of one of the tents, “Oh, of course. You’re more
than welcome to stay with us. But what was so disagreeable in the South
Mountains?”
“Jonathan.” Jose said simply. “We
disagree what he’s said about you guys and he said we’re cutting off all trade
with you. We also know that we rely on you a lot for water and feel that we’d
be happier living in The Estrellas.”
“The more the merrier.” She beamed.
“And you’re just in time for breakfast.” We weren’t expecting such a warm
welcome and so we sat down somewhat awkwardly within the circle as two plates
of food were handed to us. We ate and spent the day in comfort within the
company of a group of people I seemed to like more as the day progressed. So by
the end of it I was content with our choice as we set up our tent and wrapped
ourselves in the blankets we had brought.
I had just gotten comfortable when
there was a soft rap on one of our tent poles. I sighed and sat back up; it was
probably that crazy lady from breakfast earlier coming here to tell me off. I
fumbled for a match and lit the candle by my bedside; Jose grumbled and covered
his eyes with his arm. “I’ll just be a minute.” I said, and made my way to the
tent opening
“Oh, Anita. What are you doing?” I
said as I stepped outside.
“Sorry, it’s so late.” She said. “I
just need to talk to you about some things.
“What things?”
“Well, Jonathan, specifically.” She
sighed. “I’m worried that he’s going to come after you two. Now of course we’d
help protect you guys, but you’ve seen how he gets. He’s very stubborn, and I
don’t think he’ll like it once he knows you’re here.”
“He probably already does, seeing as
we left last night.”
“Well, anyways. I just wanted to let
you know to be on the lookout for him, just in case.”
“Yeah, of course.” I said. “I
understand your concern, but I think we’ll be fine.”
She nodded and was about to walk
away, but she stopped, facing away from me. “Do you think I did the right
thing?” she said quietly.
“What?”
“For the children. I just don’t want
them to die of something that we know how to prevent. But things like this
always happen; people are discriminated against for things that make them
different. My grandparents were killed
here because they were black. That’s not really a problem anymore, but now we
have a new era of prejudice, all because we’re trying to survive. Things don’t
need to be this way.”
I said nothing, I couldn’t really
think of anything to say, but I didn’t have to because she went on. “I know,
it’s in human nature, but I think we can change things. People need to accept
that these children are still people, that this trait changes nothing else
about us.” At this point she turns around to face me. “But you and your brother, you came here even
though you grew up under such a conservative leader. You are a symbol that
things can change. We’re going to have a meeting tomorrow about this. No one
should be discriminated against because they’re trying to survive and hurting
no one… And no one should have to die from something so preventable.” She
smiled. “We’ll make things right with The Southies.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I dreamed of a screaming boy that
night. It was a quick and sharp dream, but I still felt a chill run down my
spine as I woke up. I really had to get over these nightmares; I had no idea
why they kept happening but I really was not enjoying the experience. I cracked
open an eye and saw it was still pitch black outside and decided to go back to
sleep. I closed my eyes again, and there again was another blood curdling
scream, this time it was a girl.
I jolted up in my bed. It wasn’t a
dream. I jumped out of bed and shook Jose hard on the shoulder. I hadn’t really
noticed how thin he was before now, maybe it was the moon shining from the
tent, but his face seemed gaunter than usual and the bones of his shoulder
seemed to delve into my hands. He really needed to eat more, but we were
getting plenty fed here, the only problem now was waking him up. I continued
shaking him but he continued to breathe deeply and sleep on. I could hear the
screaming continue and gave up on Jose; I sprinted from the tent to where the
cries were coming from.
I burst into the tent the cries were
coming from and stood panting as the moonlight shone on the scene presented
before me. I almost vomited on the spot.
There lay three children on the floor, or what looked like what used to be
children. Their bodies were split in half from their necks down, gutted like
fish with blood forming a crimson pool at their sides as their blood drained. I
looked closer at the faces and felt another surge of vomit. It was the kids
from the meeting, the ones who had been modified to drink saltwater. The glands
near their eyes had an “X” mark through them and they all lay staring blankly
at the ceiling of their tent, their mouths lay open like trout.
I ran out of the tent and to the
center of the campsite. At this point everyone was awake and running from the campsite
in all directions; I was immediately wondering why but then I smelled the
smoke. I turned back to where I left and saw that now a majority of the tents
were on fire, including the children’s tent.
Then I saw Jonathan. I couldn’t
believe it. He must have done this to the children; and he had said that they were animals! Whatever fog there
was left lifted and I saw him for what he truly was: a beast, a beast that was
hunting someone down in the distance, and when I squinted my eyes I saw the
prey was Anita. I began to run after her when someone grabbed my shoulder. I elbowed
them in the gut, freeing myself enough to turn around; ready to defend myself
butI saw it was Jose. I sighed in relief and hugged him.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Besides the elbow in the gut? Yeah,
I’m good.”
“Sorry about that.” I said. “Did you
see what happened?”
“Yeah, all the tents are on fire; we
need to go.”
I
shook my head and pulled away, looking over into the distance where I had seen
Anita. “We have to go after Anita, I saw Jonathan chasing after her”
“What? What happened? Did he do
this?”
“Yes, and he murdered those three
kids from the meeting!”
“Not Jonathan! I mean I know that
man has a bad temper, but murder! I think that’s a little beyond him.”
“He’s not a man, he’s an animal.” I
said. “He murdered them and now he’s gone to murder Anita.”
“Well she’s on her own; I’m sorry.”
“She took us in! We need to return
the favor.”
“Not with our lives!” He turned away
from me and faced the crackling fire. I stayed quiet for a minute and let him
contemplate whatever it was he was thinking about. After a minute he finally
spoke with a grave tone, “Run.”
