"Now, when it's cold outside like it is today, I want you to double layer your clothes and wear this jacket. You got me?" I looked her dead in the eyes. My hands shook as I gripped the zipper and slowly pulled it up, trying to avoid catching her soft, blond hair in the track. She looked back at me, just as serious and as scared.
"You don't have to go. You can stay here. You don't know what's out there! What if you don't find food? What if you have to travel to find anything worth while?" She said with a quiver in her voice.
"Then I'll do it, Mandy." I held her to me by the shoulders, pressing her head against my chest, trying to force the nervousness out of me and her.
"It's not safe, Jemma!" She jerked away, roughly wiping at the tears that had began to streak her dirty face. Her bright green eyes made me want to remind her how our mother use to call her Mandy-Cat as a toddler. Those eyes and the fact that she use to meow every time someone went to take her picture was why mom loved her so much. But she wouldn't remember our mother that way and she wouldn't want to be reminded of her at a time like this. Especially since leaving the island is what killed mom in the first place.
They said there are monsters out there, the people left in the Old World. The only people that stayed behind when the sickness came through our area were the sick, the hard-headed, and the poor folk. Of course, we're all poor now. That's why our government (or what's left of it) is asking that at least one parent from each family leave to travel back to the Old World for food and other resources. They say, if we're lucky, we may be able to pick up other non-essential items. For Christmas. Mandy doesn't remember that either. We stopped celebrating it once our former "governor" came into office. He was a cold man and didn't approve of bringing any thing else that would create more trash on the island.
"We have very limited space, as is!" He said, slamming his fist down on the public conference table when a parent tried to counter him. "It is a waste of time, it is a waste of gas, and it is a waste of space. I will discuss this silliness no longer!" And that was that. When we first came here, we had Christmas. We had all of the holidays. New Years, Valentines Day. We had fireworks for the 4th of July, eggs for Easter. We made every thing we needed to celebrate. But I guess because we celebrated so much, we didn't pay attention to our resources and slowly things began to run out. Chocolate, eggs, paper, black powder. The governor put a ban on unnecessarily cutting down trees and that pretty much killed Christmas for everyone. We had no gifts so the Tree Ban ended the holiday season permanently.
Tonight, after our final meal with the town, we hopped on 12 individual motorboats and, using what was left of our gas, we left the island. All or nothing.
God I hope we find something out there...
-Jemma
-Jemma
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