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“Hey, mum. Please let Ms. Marcia get something to eat. I’ll go find her granddaughter.” He said and jogged off. Marcia called out after him;
“She headed into town.”
Chapter Two
“Fear is an illusion …"
17thNovember, 2021
7:15am
Belfast, Maine. USA
Aaliyah trudged quickly through the snow, grateful for the alone time. She desperately needed to clear her head and fix her emotions. She remembered the words of, Ando Lee, her karate master.
Don’t let your emotions rule you… fear is an illusion holding you back from what you must do… don’t be a sympathetic fool; even hard decisions must be taken.
A tear rolled down her cheeks.
This wasn’t how I planned to spend thanksgiving. The last thing my family remembers of me is my rejecting them. They never knew why. I had never told them.
She pulled her lock picks from her jacket pockets and slipped them into the keyhole of the door to the house closest to the travel route. Clearly, the army had emptied that place before they had reached her neighborhood. She hoped she could quickly find some supplies and head back to camp.
Now I’m left with grandma and she’s sick. Only God knows if she’ll survive the journey. I’ll be left all alone with no family.
She had to stop and suck in her breath to stop herself from crying. Her grip around the doorknob tightened. Managing to pull herself together, she walked into the house and went straight to the kitchen. She checked out the fridge. There was a carton half-filled with milk… most likely spoilt. She put it into her backpack. Apart from that, there was nothing of much value. She checked the cabinets. There were two loaves of untouched bread as well as a jar of mayonnaise. She slipped those in too. She found some empty plastic bottles in the trash can and she filled them with water. The water was very cold - just the way she liked it. She decided that was enough house-shopping. As she was about to leave the house, she noticed a book on the ground close to the chair. She picked it up and looked at it. It was a novel. She smiled. Finally; something to keep her mind busy.
As she stepped on the snowy streets again, she noticed a sandy-haired guy running towards her. She dismissed him for one of the other people who were ‘hunting for supplies’ and continued to head towards camp. It was almost time for their journey to continue. When the guy shouted her name, she stopped in surprise. She hadn’t been expecting that. She waited for him to get close enough so she could get a good look at him.
“Whew! I’ve been looking all over for you,” he said, stopping just in front of her. She looked carefully at him. She knew she had seen him somewhere before but she wasn’t sure where from.
“Do I know you?” she asked bluntly. She watched the smile on his face get exchanged with formality.
“Oh, you probably might not remember me. I go to the church your grandma used to attend.”
She didn’t look like she was catching on. He tried again.
“I play the lead guitar there.”
Her face lit up.
“Oh, I remember you. You’re the weird guy that never finds the right key for any song,” she said as she continued to the camp.
His face saddened a bit.
“Well, that’s not exactly accurate,” he said before following her.
“What do you want?” she asked, sounding weary of him.
“Your granny asked me to get you. She’s having breakfast with my family. She wanted you to join her.”
Aaliyah stopped, turned, and shot Ted a death-glare.
“What’s my grandmother doing with your family?”
“Well, we’re friends of hers. We invited her over.”
Aaliyah let out a breath in anger.
