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My skin is prickly with dried salt water.
I need a shower.
Something to eat.
My backpack that is gone.
I stand on a random beach wearing someone else’s clothes at the mercy of the fate that brought me here. And I want to drop to my knees and weep. I wish I’d die right here and now so I could remember this world as beautiful as the sight before me.
A gull cries out over my head, then lands not far from me and cocks its head as if I am an intruder.
“Hey,” I say softly.
My chest shakes as I try to suppress a sob. I don’t have a single friend in this world, except Abby on the other side. And I do feel like an intruder on this island. But there is nowhere else to go.
“Hey,” I hear behind me and turn to see Maddy walking up to me.
Her smile is endearing, but it fades as she notices my tears and nods, looking away.
She comes to stand next to me and studies the horizon as if she doesn’t see this beauty every day of her life.
“Welcome to Zion.”
7
MADDY
I like this girl.Blonde. Pretty. Sad blue eyes full of tears.
Is she crying?
Jeez.
I sigh as I stand next to her.
The view gets old, no matter what they say.
Not a single day after the Change feels like luck.
Sure, we haven’t seen the destruction with our own eyes. But many of us lost it all just like everyone else. We didn’t have to hide in bomb shelters, join search parties through rubbles, or live through looting, riots, and martial law. We didn’t get tagged like cattle by the level of radiation exposure.
But the pretty island turned vicious over the span of several weeks.
First, it was mourning. Our cell phones stopped working. The only way to connect was through the data center on the island. It was our tie to the world, controlled by Archer Crone. And even when we learned the news and had the confirmed deaths, we didn’t believe it.
How could you?
The world went into lockdown almost instantly. Borders closed. International air and ground traffic stopped. Only several months later, when Archer resumed the full connection with the mainland and, despite data centers destroyed all over the world, the internet was restored, we all tried to get in contact with the survivors. Most of the survivors had a clear message, “Please, don’t come. It’s hell.”
Those who wanted to leave were allowed to. Never to come back.
But what would you do in a country that has martial law? Where the coastlines are completely destroyed and contaminated? Where only thirty-fifty percent of the land is livable?
Some of us weren’t given a choice. That was part of the fight that broke out on the Westside.
Back then, we didn’t know that the island would turn into hell, and the one in charge would be Archer, the Chancellor, as he declared himself.
Because he could.
