Yep, another OC! More about her at the end of the chapter :)
8. Rose
Rose and Sonya carried a large basket of berries between them on their way back to camp after a long day of foraging. They both had streaks of mud on their faces and arms, as well as smiles dancing across their lips.
It had been a good day, all in all.
The two teens stopped at the Foragers' Flat and walked into the largest room of the low, wooden building. A round table with several chairs around it stood in the middle. Sonya walked over to the Inventory Board and added a tally mark next to 'Berries.'
The younger girl walked back to the older and helped her with the basket into the smaller room, where they stored all of their foraging. Sonya and Rose placed their basket below a wooden sign that read 'Berries.' This smaller room was connected to the Cooks House by an outdoor hall about ten feet long that extended from the right side of the Foragers' Flat.
Sonya turned to Rose with a satisfied sigh, hands on her hips. "Nothing like a good forage, right, Rose?"
Rose smiled at the blonde girl and nodded. "Yeah. Although, I feel pretty filthy."
"Ooh, let's stop by the Infirmary before we go get water for washing," Sonya suggested as she linked her arm with Rose's. "I don't know about you, but I'm in need of a little, uh, padding."
Rose laughed and said, "Yeah, same here. I guess after all these years we're pretty synchronized."
The two girls walked in a companionable silence on their way to the large building that housed most of the medical and hygienic supplies, until Sonya broke that silence with a question.
"Rose, I hate to ask, but... you've never talked about your memories," she started. "I mean, all of us have at least mentioned our real names, or something, but you haven't said a peep. Of course, you don't have to, but... I'm just curious, is all. How was your life before WICKED?"
"Honestly?" Rose asked. "Not a whole lot better."
She is five years old and the sky is burning.
The Sisters were wrong, she thinks jokingly. There is no heaven up there, just hell.
Her and the rest of the girls in the girls' dormitory at St. Margaret's Orphanage crowd around the window to get a peek of the strange colour of the sun.
Their fascination is short-lived, however, as the urgency and panic etched onto the faces of Sister Nancy and Sister Tina makes the young girls realize that there is something terribly wrong.
The two nuns rush the girls out of the room, pick up the boys from their dormitory, and continue until they are outside of the orphanage without so much as a sideway glance at any of the orphans.
Once outside, the two Sisters finally face the throng of orphans. Sister Nancy says, "Something terrible is going on, and we need to keep you safe. You'll have to come with us and listen to every word we say."
"Sometimes, we tolerate your petty rule-breaking," Sister Tina continues, "but not today. Today, any rule-breaking is a matter of life and death. Is that clear?"
The orphans nod nervously, and the two nuns lead them out into the meadow surrounding the orphanage. Sister Nancy kicks aside some dry grass and throws open a metal trapdoor. She gestures for all of them to go inside, underground, and they abide.
The trapdoor closes as soon as Sister Nancy is inside and darkness fills the room. Soon, a flashlight flickers on and reveals Sister Tina, who is handing out more flashlights. She feels one slapped into her hands and hurriedly turns it on.
She shines the light on the room to examine the contents. There are shelves with cans of foods right next to her. The expiry dates are all in about a month. There are cushioned benches. Sleeping bags in one corner. Gallon jugs of water in another.
"Imani!" Sister Nancy scolds. "Do not waste your battery! We only need Sister Tina's light for now."
She promptly turns her light off and takes a seat on one of the benches and waits. She waits for a very long time, all of the orphans sitting in the dimly lit room in complete silence. Everyone too afraid to say anything and too comfortable in the silence to be bothered to disrupt it.
The underground bunker grows very hot at one point, and the two nuns begin handing out fireproof blankets. She feels fear drape her just as she drapes the blanket over her shoulders. It adds an uncomfortable amount of heat in the already hot room.
One of the younger girls - only three years old - nuzzles against her and sobs lightly.
She, too, hears a sob escape her mouth just as tears start streaming down her cheeks.
"So, there you have it," Rose finally said. "Orphan for life."
"Oh, Rose, I'm sorry for asking," Sonya said quietly.
Rose only shrugged and said, "The only reason I kept it from you guys is because... you all had people to miss. For me, I didn't have many friends, let alone a family, until WICKED found me. I felt like the bad guy, you know? Feeling like WICKED actually did some good in my life."
"You're not the bad guy," Sonya said confidently as they walked into the Infirmary.
"Thank you for that," Rose replied quietly. She turned to greet Dora, who was sitting at the desk by the Infirmary entrance. "We're here for the good stuff."
Dora wordlessly reached under her desk and pulled out two small, pink, flat packages. She threw them at Rose and Sonya with a mischievous smile. Pads and tampons were, thankfully, some of the necessities that were found in the bunker underneath the burnt Flat Trans. It had been a moment of pure joy for the girls.
"What? No checking to make sure that we're not stealing them just for a little spotting?" Sonya teased, referring to Dr. Crane's strict rules on resource overconsumption.
Dora raised an eyebrow and replied, "Please. We're all so synchronized that I know you're not lying." She paused and gestured with her head behind the two girls. "Besides, even Brenda's matched us."
Sonya and Rose turned to see Brenda sitting in a chair behind them drinking some water.
"I'm genuinely surprised she's still getting a period, though," Dora muttered under her breath. "You'd think she'd be knocked up by now."
Sonya and Rose laughed as Brenda's face flushed, but the older brunette quickly turned to Sonya with a pointed look and said, "At least I'm not the one getting noise complaints about me every time I'm at my boyfriend's cabin."
Dora and Rose roared with laughter at that. Brenda walked over to Dora's desk so she could high-five the two girls and give Sonya a knowing wink.
"Oh man," Dora said as her laughter died down. "Whoever said that we lost our good years to WICKED was dead wrong."
Okay! So, Rose is named after Rosa Parks, she was an orphan living in Alabama before the sun flares, and her knowledge is specialized in plant biology and food chemistry. She's also one of the older girls, being nineteen.
Sneak peek of the next chapter (Minho, finally!):
Falling asleep was easy, but lately, Minho had been getting dreams.
When he had told Thomas about them, his friend had looked mortified. Like someone just found a dead body in the Town Hall. Then, the younger boy told him they weren't dreams - they were memories, and Thomas had been having them since the Scorch.
The dreams were bad enough, but now that Minho knew they were memories, they were even worse.