District Zero 1
I am sent rolling down the hill by the bomb.
A flash of colors rise from the smoky ashes, and I scoot against the wall of what was my school. We all knew it wasn't safe the moment we came here, but it was safer than the places we once called home. The smoke fills my lungs, and I heave, trying to find what little clear air might remain. Someone hooks their arm around my thin waist, and I feel myself flung across the shoulders of a man with a scowl on his face.
A little girl is at his side. She must have been at school like I was, since she is in a sailor suit. But her school coat is seemingly long gone, and fat tears rolled down her pudgy face, her cheeks still plump from baby fat. I resist reaching down to pat the loose bun on her head, to tell her it would all be okay now. But I know as well as she does it's not, and our entire country is as good as gone.
Broken.
That's the best word to describe what used to be Earth.
Broken glass is implanted in one leg, and the other one I can barely feel. It was crushed moments ago by a falling piece of one of the crumbling buildings before the bomb hit, possibly landing directly on my school. There is no doubt many of my classmates are now dead, and I can't find enough energy to sob.
Yuki. Junya. They most likely didn't survive…they both sat near the large windows in her classroom while I sat near the door. The glass probably pelted them to death, or they might have gotten trapped, being the furthest ones from the door.
What about Mom and Dad? Well…who knew? They could've been in the park near the school and been blown to bits, or maybe they'd been at home and were now waiting for me in the docks. Maybe they'd sent this man to come and get me…but then why would he have his daughter with him? She couldn't have been more than five, and my heart went out to her as I slipped closer and closer to the blackness that seemed like subspace: Empty and uncaring, away from a broken world and seeming a lot better than the fading reality.
There is not much chaos until we near the docks. Most of us died when the bomb struck the school, since it was right in the center of town. I know that because I've gotten somewhat used to the reality of everyone's lives, and now it's finally happened to me.
Where they nerves aren't dead on my leg, they are screaming at the top of their nerve lungs. I gasp in sharply once and let go of reality, floating in subspace for what seemed like forever.
And there I was happy.
XXXXXXX
I am on the ground when my eyes reopen, and it seems like I am in a tent. I cough violently as soon as I wake up, and I feel somewhat small hands on my chest, stopping any thoughts of me sitting up. That's when I realize it's the girl from the last time I was in the real world, and I squint my eyes, making sure I'm seeing right and am not in another dream conquered within the blackness I'd been for who knows how long.
"Daddy is okay now. You and I are okay now, too," she tells me softly, brushing a loose bang out of my eyes, "we are all going to be okay."
Her words are somewhat comforting, since I am very unamused at not waking up at Heaven's gates. I don't want to be alive after what happened…who knows how long it really was? It seemed like only seconds ago, but if that was true, I'd still be trying to breathe through the smoke, still clinging to life for all my worth.
The man from before is beside me now, and I realize I am not totally on the ground. I am on a hard little mat, and there are many others around me of all genders and ages. Most of them are sleeping, or at least look like, others are crying, and many are many for home/food/water/anything else they could possibly moan about. Some of them I don't understand…their languages aren't Japanese or American, so they mean nothing to me.
"Where are we?" I use Japanese, my native language, first with the man, but it's obvious he's American by his response.
"Can you understand me?"
"Yes, I do," I reply in the English language, "where are we?"
"Who knows?" he has something cool pressed to my obviously fever inflamed forehead, "pretty much everything is gone by now. We're camped out on a small island…that's all we know right now."
I don't want to know what Earth looks like outside of the tent flaps, so I just close my eyes, "'Kay."
A rescue team? I think to myself as I begin to drift off to a land of nightmares, dreams, and restless sleep in between.
XXXXXXX
I have decided they are a rescue team long before I am being loaded onto another boat.
Slowly I became more human, eating, talking more, fighting illnesses with the aid of what herbs they'd managed to find, and bathing alone. The man from the day of the bombing was Mr. Whaker, and I came to know him and his daughter, Henoria, pretty well. They'd been living in Japan for about a year, fleeing of the remains of what was North America.
They told of a land called Panem, and it sounded like heaven compared to what the rest of the world as all humans knew had become. No powerful government had risen from our Dark Days, and I kind of had a feeling nobody would. We were all too scared, wounded, or emotionally scared to do so…if it ever happened, it would take quite some time.
But we had a start. The boats were gathering those of us who were well enough that we were certainly not to die from the damage done to us all, and we were to come to another piece of what I think was once the bottom of Asia. Rumors had it we had a small government starting up for us, and most people were keen to the idea of having someone in control. It's human nature to have someone ranked above and have a feeling of wanting of it to be that way for reasons I can't explain, unless you're like me and only going because your new father figure is making you.
Father figure.
I am convinced my family is dead by now. I haven't seen any of them since that fateful day in Japan, and I've pretty much forgotten them, even though I haven't. I am now more concerned with getting away from the Land of the Sick and Dying into the new government world we all knew of.
"It will be fine, I'm sure," Henoria is how I keep track of how much time has passed: She was five when I met her, and now she was twelve.
I have grown too, it seems. I was seven when I met her, so now I must be fourteen. I notice my body has changed, but I don't really care about that. I have become depressed, Mr. Whaker claims, and I don't blame him. It's either depressed or insane, so I classify myself as on the scale, constantly tipping on either one.
The air is cool, and I figure that it must be yet another fall. Time keeps marching on around me, endlessly, as my life keeps changing, morphing, destroying, and jerking me around until some days I am nothing more than a shell.
I remember being a happy little girl with my parents and my twin sister, Sabasa. I remember playing in the yard, being carefree and rolling the grass. And now that was only a memory in my darkened mind, me remembering it every day and hoping one day I will be like that again.
The rails are wet on the boat rim as we sail off, and I sigh, letting my breathe fog up as Henoria presses herself tightly to me for warmth. I wonder if the new government will be anything like Panem as I let go of the rail, sinking to deck and into a somewhat contenting sleep.
XXXXXXX
"Kyari," Henoria's voice whispers in my ear, and I roll my head to the side, letting my cheek press to her warm one, trying to pull myself back into sleep and failing, much to my dismay, "we're here."
My eyes are still glazy as I peer out across the foggy ocean. It seems warmer here, and according to Mr. Whaker, we're close to equator. I pretend like I know what that is as a lady in a strained, reeking apron hands me a soup can and spoon to share with my 'sister' and 'our' father. We take turns in the cold liquid with the one spoon as the island becomes more than a fogged-over dot, and when us and a few other families step out, I realize our boat is the second one to arrive.
A large man is standing before us all. He has tan hair that rakes down his neck and to his shoulders, and his skin is deeply tan. He has large bones and toned up chest, and his eyes are dark brown, sharp and orderly. He spits out something that I can only guess is German, and a couple of ladies from the boat pull me off into the forest island, not even bothering with my bag.
The sign outside the little hut home is written in pretty much every language but English, and I read the Japanese print as my little family as pulled after me by other ladies and men who are all looking exhausted and somewhat abused:
Welcome to District Zero
