p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"I always thought my dad was crazy when he talked about life before the crisis. So many things about life back then just seemed too unrealistic. No curfews, plenty of food, no armed guards watching you every move...were things really ever like that? It had to be fake. He was lying. I knew he older brother on the other hand...Ashton ate up every word of it. He was so fascinated by our dad's stories of a time just a few years before he was born. What's worse, he firmly believed that one day things would be like that again. What a joke, right? If things were going to change, they would have changed by now. But no, there he was, after spending the whole 15 years of his life having never seen anything outside of this tiny little town (if it could even be called that), still thinking one day things would be different. What a fool. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"What's worse is that my parents agreed with him and encouraged him. All three of them always talked about what they were going to do when this all ended as if it ever would. My parents would go back to their jobs, Ashton and I would go to school, we'd live together in the countryside. I never got involved in their conversations. I felt like the only person in the family who was actually realistic./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Over optimistic or not, I loved just about everything else about my family. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"My dad was an artist, and believed I could be one too. He gave me an old sketchbook and some art supplies when I was just 4 years old. "You have the eyes of an artist, Carter," he would tell me. "An artist's eyes sees everything, things that no one normal eyes can see. Draw those things. Draw what you see in the world." He was right there. I touched the pencil to the paper and didn't stop drawing since. My dad was always managing to find new sketchbooks and pencils and other things for me to draw on and with. Despite everything, I was happy when I was drawing. I'm glad he at least gave me that./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"My mom was a model. People took her picture and drew her all the time. I can see why people would want to, she was so pretty. Her and my dad met because she modeled for him sometimes. They fell in love and got married young, just a few months before the infection happened. My mom had just gotten pregnant when it first started, and, while in quarantine, gave birth to her son that she named Ashton. When Ashton was 5, he was given a little sister named Carter. It wasn't easy raising two kids in the quarantine zone, but they did it. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Ashton wanted to be an engineer like our family friend. He spent a lot of time talking to Nick about his job, and even took lessons with him. He tried to teach me too, but I never understood any of it. Even if I did, I knew it wouldn't matter. If it did somehow matter, I wouldn't want to be an engineer. I'd probably want to be an artist like my dad. Maybe I would meet a pretty model and marry them. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Life in the quarantine zone was a challenge sometimes. They didn't always have rations, the soldiers patrolling the area were scary. I'd seen them kill people several times by the time I was 10. Sometimes it was because they were infected, sometimes it was because they were sneaking where they weren't supposed to be. Sometimes it had something to do with these people called the Fireflies. I didn't know anything about them, I just knew you didn't want people to so much as think you were one of them. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Life wasn't easy there, but it was all I knew. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Until I was 10 years old./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Dad woke me up in the middle of the night, gave me a bag, and told me we had to go. I asked why. He told me that we just had to go. I was tired and confused but I took the bag and listened to him and followed him, my mom, and Ashton out. br /br /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"It was past curfew and I didn't see anyone else leaving. I don't think we were supposed to be leaving because my dad made us be really quiet and we were taking hidden paths to get out. It was scary and I felt like if I so much as breathed wrong something bad would happen. After sneaking around for a long time, we made it out. I'd never been outside the quarantine zone before. The plants were much bigger out there and the air smelled different. The night sky went on endlessly above us, speckled with bright stars. The air was cool, but the slight breeze made it a bit more chilly. br /br /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Dad told us to keep walking, stay quiet, and be careful. We walked for awhile longer until we found a tiny building that looked kind of like a house from one of the books Mom used to read me. Dad checked the building to make sure it was safe before telling us all to come in. We had to sleep on the floor, but we at least had blankets in our bags. I still couldn't sleep very well. Not really because I was uncomfortable, but because I was scared. What was going to happen to us now? Were we safe? What if someone finds us?/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"I never did find out why we had to leave, but something tells me we would've been in a lot of trouble if we stayed. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"What's worse is that my parents agreed with him and encouraged him. All three of them always talked about what they were going to do when this all ended as if it ever would. My parents would go back to their jobs, Ashton and I would go to school, we'd live together in the countryside. I never got involved in their conversations. I felt like the only person in the family who was actually realistic./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Over optimistic or not, I loved just about everything else about my family. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"My dad was an artist, and believed I could be one too. He gave me an old sketchbook and some art supplies when I was just 4 years old. "You have the eyes of an artist, Carter," he would tell me. "An artist's eyes sees everything, things that no one normal eyes can see. Draw those things. Draw what you see in the world." He was right there. I touched the pencil to the paper and didn't stop drawing since. My dad was always managing to find new sketchbooks and pencils and other things for me to draw on and with. Despite everything, I was happy when I was drawing. I'm glad he at least gave me that./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"My mom was a model. People took her picture and drew her all the time. I can see why people would want to, she was so pretty. Her and my dad met because she modeled for him sometimes. They fell in love and got married young, just a few months before the infection happened. My mom had just gotten pregnant when it first started, and, while in quarantine, gave birth to her son that she named Ashton. When Ashton was 5, he was given a little sister named Carter. It wasn't easy raising two kids in the quarantine zone, but they did it. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Ashton wanted to be an engineer like our family friend. He spent a lot of time talking to Nick about his job, and even took lessons with him. He tried to teach me too, but I never understood any of it. Even if I did, I knew it wouldn't matter. If it did somehow matter, I wouldn't want to be an engineer. I'd probably want to be an artist like my dad. Maybe I would meet a pretty model and marry them. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Life in the quarantine zone was a challenge sometimes. They didn't always have rations, the soldiers patrolling the area were scary. I'd seen them kill people several times by the time I was 10. Sometimes it was because they were infected, sometimes it was because they were sneaking where they weren't supposed to be. Sometimes it had something to do with these people called the Fireflies. I didn't know anything about them, I just knew you didn't want people to so much as think you were one of them. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Life wasn't easy there, but it was all I knew. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Until I was 10 years old./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Dad woke me up in the middle of the night, gave me a bag, and told me we had to go. I asked why. He told me that we just had to go. I was tired and confused but I took the bag and listened to him and followed him, my mom, and Ashton out. br /br /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"It was past curfew and I didn't see anyone else leaving. I don't think we were supposed to be leaving because my dad made us be really quiet and we were taking hidden paths to get out. It was scary and I felt like if I so much as breathed wrong something bad would happen. After sneaking around for a long time, we made it out. I'd never been outside the quarantine zone before. The plants were much bigger out there and the air smelled different. The night sky went on endlessly above us, speckled with bright stars. The air was cool, but the slight breeze made it a bit more chilly. br /br /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Dad told us to keep walking, stay quiet, and be careful. We walked for awhile longer until we found a tiny building that looked kind of like a house from one of the books Mom used to read me. Dad checked the building to make sure it was safe before telling us all to come in. We had to sleep on the floor, but we at least had blankets in our bags. I still couldn't sleep very well. Not really because I was uncomfortable, but because I was scared. What was going to happen to us now? Were we safe? What if someone finds us?/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;" /p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"I never did find out why we had to leave, but something tells me we would've been in a lot of trouble if we stayed. /span/p