The World EndingChapter 1

I look at a tall, black haired girl standing in front of me. She's wearing a gray top, gray pants, and sandals. The clothes of the common people. The clothes of a pauper. She picks up her brown backpack. I turn away from the mirror. I walk through the wooden door, and outside on to the sidewalk. The sky is a blue canvas, the sun is a bright circle, the grass are green blades, and the buildings, are dirty, gray, cubes. Except for one, tall, glass, slightly dirty cube, Supreme Headquarters. I wonder how life was then before, before we were worried about the bodig disease, or was it like this then too. When did society choose people get power or to be poor? The supremes and paupers. Were we always scared?

I walk to school on the shaded side of the street. Past Headquarters. Headquarters looks very fancy though. I walk until I reach a not-as-dirty gray cube. My school, Scanlin Middle school was named after the Head Supreme in San Francisco. Because ever since the walls came up and infected people disposed, they had a group of people be in charge at each city. Since there were too many of us to have one leader. And there was a single person in charge for each city. For us, the Head Supreme is Michael Scanlin.

The bell rings and I push the wooden door in walk in the class. Or building. Or room. Our school is just a bungalow basically.

"Hello Ms. Vebel," I say to her politely."Hello Ms. Mercado," she says back, "So Karina, can you come after school? I need some help

grading papers,""No problem," I answer as I sit down on the wooden chair with my best friend Ashley. Since we

have limited supplies, everyone had to share a desk with someone else. There were seven rectangles lined up in a “table pattern”. Two tables are lined up together with a break at the length side. Three tables are lined up the same way besides the width side of the tables. And then two tables are lined up beside the three tables. Me and Ashley sit at the last desk in the second column.

"So class, we have a special guest, Mr. Scanlin," Ms. Vebel announces. She doesn’t look as happy as her voice.

Everybody claps respectfully. But I think everyone is thinking If you are the Head Supreme, why is nothing better? Good question. Why is nothing better?

Scanlin has a folder with him. And his secretary lady stands behind him, along with his bodyguards. They are all dressed in formal wear.

"Good morning class. As you all know, I am Michael Scanlin, Head Supreme. I have some news for you all, good and bad," he says. But judging by the look on his face, I think it's mostly bad news. It always is bad news anyways.

"The good news, we have done more research on the bodig disease, we think we have found a permanent way to not get infected, but the bad news is, we need to test it out...on people. Any volunteers?," no hands come up, “Okay, how about this. Tomorrow, I will come back to see if anybody will volunteer. You have 1 day to decide if you want to save mankind, or at least make an improvement in our medical knowledge” and Mr. Scanlin leaves the room. His bodyguards quickly follow. The blonde lingers a while and smiles, then leaves.

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The whole class is in shock at how rude he sounded in the end. Mr. Supreme isn’t as nice as we thought.

Mr. Scanlin comes back in and says, “Oh, and did I mention that you get a month supply of water too?” then he leaves again.

Everyone whispers about the water. This could keep us hydrated and everything. But it would seem pointless, if we lived through it all, the walls would open up, and we could get all the water we want without getting the disease.

I walk home after school. You have 1 day to decide if you want to save mankind he said. That sounded very mean. Like he was going to force us. But it does make sense. If they find a cure and it works, no one would be afraid. We can go back to old times when we had clean water, better buildings, and other stuff we don’t have today.

“My gray cube,” I say to myself. I walk around my home to the back of it. I take my little, clear cup that is full of water, and I

carefully water my plants with half of it. The other half is for washing the fruits. Every house has to do this, we are limited on water, but we had a lot of seeds left after the walls, so we always saved the seeds that come in our fruits to grow more food. I pick some grapes off the vines and go inside to wash them. I put the grapes in the cup and spin it around until its like an under-water volcano. Like those ancient machines that washes clothes, and our science project on how we could die besides by the bodig disease. I take 1 wet purple grape out and pop it in my mouth. It taste like nothing. Probably because I eat grapes a lot. Then I stick my head out the door, and spit the seeds out on the soil. I wash my clothes while I do this. And I know, not very sanitary cleaning dirt of clothes while eating clean purple fruits. But you have to do what you have to do.

I make my clothes wet, then squeeze all the water out on my plants. Once, then twice. We don’t have lots of clothes.

I go inside, and I spread the clothes out, under the window to dry. My floor gets wet, and I don’t care. Its the stone hard floor. The rock would just soak all the water up.

I turn on the faucet, and fill my cup. It goes by drip by drip. To save water. I drop a drop on my face. Then everywhere else, this is our version of a bath. And maybe the reason for little water is that the people long time ago used up all of the water taking baths.

I dry myself up with a piece of paper. Then put it on the section of the ground that isn’t wet.I sleep on the floor with nothing beneath me or on top. It was very cold. But you get used to it. And I think Should I volunteer?

I walk to school in my washed clothes. They are a little damp because the my house doesn’t get much sunlight. The bell rings and I go in confidently.

When I walk in, I see someone already there. Mr. Scanlin. I find my seat and sit next to Ashley.“I know he told us that he would be here. But before class! A little creepy,” Ashley says. I shrug.

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“So,” Mr. Scanlin starts, “Anyone?” Again, no hands. But one hand slowly comes up."What a brave little lady. What's your name?" he ask me."Karina. Karina Mercado," I say nervously. My confidence is no longer there. I look around the

room. Everyone is looking at me now, even Ashley. Why didn’t they volunteer? I think water is worth it."Well Karina, we are going to have to get your parent's permission to-""My parents are dead," I say quickly."I'm so sorry to hear that. But I guess you can do whatever you want now. We will need to see

you at Supreme Headquarters after school," he finishes, smiles, waves goodbye to the class, and walks out.

Everybody is staring at me, some shake their head, some whisper to the person near them. But besides that, the whole room is silent. Like the time my parents died, and everyone looked at me. Stared at me. Pitied me.

When Ms. Vebel turns around and starts the lesson on ancient technology and how we have to start all over again because the people who made that technology got infected with bodig, Ashley whispers to me, “Are you crazy Karina! You haven’t even had a full life or a boyfriend to be risking your life,” I ignore her. I don’t want a boyfriend. And if I did, I couldn’t get one because Ashley is the prettiest girl here. She doesn’t say anything else. I look at her for a moment, she looks at Ms. Vebel. Maybe she thinks she hurt my feelings.

“Ashley? Yeah I know I didn’t live a full life. But if this works, you and the entire world might be able to,”

At lunch, everyone walks to the yard. Ashley and I sit down and eat our fruits at the wooden picnic table near the center of the yard like we usually do. We sat down across from each other. Ashley doesn’t say a word. All she does is take out her food.

“Come on Ashley. Talk to me,” I give her that I’m-your-therapist face. Is she mad at me? She looks down. I see a single tear fall from her eye to her cheek and a sniff.

“What happened?” I ask her. I get up from the bench, and I walk to her side of the table. I sit down and hug her.

“What happened?” I say again. I close my eyes. I feel a cold dot sliding down to my chin. And I feel it drop on my shoulder. I feel another one sliding down too. I open my eyes, and its all blurry. I realized that I have been crying and I let Ashley go. Then I take my sleeve and wipe the tears off my face. Ashley must have saw me cry or hear me sniff, because she hugs me back. She puts her head on my shoulder

“Its just-,” she sniffs, “Its just that. Its just that I don’t want to lose you,”“I don’t want to lose you either,” I say, “I’ve lost too many important people in my life,”When all our tears were dry, she let’s me go. When I look around the yard, I see some people

looking at me. I’m gonna miss the place if I don’t make it. But with them staring at me, I think its not

going to be a problem.

Chapter 2

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After I finish one long school day of people looking at me, everyone packs up their things while I pick up my backpack and tell Ms. Vebel that I can't be here to help grade papers because of the research.

"That's very brave of you because as you know, to see if it worked, they will try to infect you," she says. And she’s right. But I can’t back down now. People think that I’m just sad and trying to be brave now. And if I back down, they will think I’m chicken. Funny how the human mind works.

I walk to Headquarters with Ashley. Ashley is like a sister to me. But her last name is Everheart, and mine's is Mercado. Plus, she is that friend who is blonde and popular. I say popular, but, there isn't enough people here to be popular. When my parents died, and everyone pitied me, but Ashley actually comforted me. And she was the only one that treated me the same as everyone else.

As I go to the entrance, a woman's voice stops me."Name," the disembodied voice says."Karina Mercado and Ashley Everheart?," I say, trying to find the camera that she can see me

through. Then I find it, inside the building, but I look away from it quickly."State your business," the woman says."To see Mr. Scanlin about a solution to bodig," a buzz noise fills her 10 second-silence and

Ashley pushes the door in."I can't believe you have to do that," Ashley whispers when we get in, "They should at least get

some kind of code. You know, so that woman doesn’t have to stand there all the time, and it will be much faster,”

I see the blonde women I saw earlier in school during Scanlin's speech, "Hello Ms. Mercado, I am Charissa Ferner, Mr. Scanlin's secretary, I will direct you to Mr. Scanlin's office in a minute, take a seat,"

I sit down on their waiting couch. The couch is stained with dirt. When I look around, I see that there is only one hallway, with many rooms on the sides. One of them could be my death room. I'm nervous, but not. I'm scared, but not. On one hand, I am doing something to help save the world. On the other, I'm doing some unknown procedure that can kill me. But then again, I'm going to die anyway. I put my face in my hands and my elbows on my knees.

"Don't worry Karina," she tries to comfort me. She puts her hand on my back and rubs it, "You might die but at least for humanity,"

Why would you say that? I take my face out and tilt it enough to look at her. "You know that doesn't make me feel any bett-,"

"I know," she looks away. I feel like laughing. Its that funny moment in those old films when something ironic in a bad way happens. She looks like she had just been shunned.

"Ms. Mercado, please go to room 12B," Charissa walks up to tells me.Ashley and I start to walk, but then Charissa stops us by putting her hand out and says, "Only

Karina, please," Ashley and I look at each other with worried faces. Then Ashley slowly sits down and I start walking to a room. 1A. Then I look at the room across it. 1B. So then I walk down the hallway until I see 12B. The glass door has a bronze plaque on it that reads;

12BMichael ScanlinHead Supreme

I hear a voice like Mr. Scanlin, but a little higher.“That’s not fair to them. That’s just evil,” the voice says. I try to look inside but the glass

is too dirty to see. I brush my finger on the glass and look at it. Its so dusty. I wipe it on my gray shirt. No one could see it clearly. They should really clean the place. Or maybe they just can’t afford to do so.

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“If you really feel bad, just do it yourself,” Mr. Scanlin says.I grab the handle, twist it, and open the door. When I walk in, I see a boy about my age

sitting down, and Mr. Scanlin looking at me, and their expression is a lot like Did you hear us? but in the worried way. I wipe my hands behind my back.

“Hello?,” I say. I wave my hand around to see if they are still there, “Hello?,”“Um. Hello Karina,” Mr. Scanlin extends his hand out to give me a handshake. And I take it. He

has a very firm grip.“This is my son Cody. Cody, this-um-is Karina, the girl that volunteered to test out the

serum,” Cody stands up and also extends his hand. I shake his hand, and unlike his father, his hand have calluses. He must have worked hard a lot. Mr. Scanlin probably orders him to do a lot of things, judging by that little conversation I heard outside.

“Well, I will leave you two to discuss matters,” and Cody leaves. He looked really scared. He also looked really, I don’t know, in-between-hot-and-cute-but-not-normal. He has black hair, and he wasn’t mean or rude, he’s making a very good impression on me. When he leaves, he looks back at me, and I catch his eye, I smile a bit. Then he walks out and closes the door. I sit down in the chair he was sitting in.

“Now Karina, we are going to have to discuss a contract with you. It states things like, you get special treatment if you get the disease when working with us, and you can have a month supply of water if this works,” Mr. Scanlin says, “Sign here at the bottom of the page,”

“What do I have to do though?,” I ask him.“Just be our test subject,”That sounds like the deal I agreed to, so I sign the paper.

Karina Mercado Does my signature look okay? Oh well!

“Okay. Tomorrow we will do the actually testing, you can leave,” he tells me. I am about to get up when he says:

“Oh, we also need you to come in all day, its going to take at least three days in all.” he says.“No problem, bye,” Three days! I get up, and open the door. As I start to walk out the hallway to

Ashley, someone grabs me by my shirt and pulls me to the room across Mr. Scanlin’s. I try to scream for help but they put their hand on my mouth. I try to kick them and elbow them hard in the stomach, but they lifted me in the air and my hands are in an awkward position. I give up and think How does no one hear this? I mean I can’t say anything but isn’t this loud enough? And Mr. Scanlin is right across!

When I feel the person’s hand let me go. I run forward only to find myself in a room. Most likely 12A. I fall on the couch.

“You put up a real fight for a girl,” a voice says. A really recognizable voice. A voice slightly higher than Mr. Scanlin’s. Cody Scanlin’s voice.

I look up and find it really is Cody, “What the heck!,” I scream at him, “Why did you do that? We just met only like, 5 minutes ago!,”

“Look, I kidnaped you,” he gasps and takes a seat. He takes a cup full of water on the table and gulps it down, “I mean I dragged you - I mean I - well, you know what I did, but I did it to warn you,” Warn me?

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“Warn me about what?” I ask him. Still yelling. I feel anger coming up. Not because of the kidnapping thing, but because he was so sexist to say that I put up a real fight for a girl. Insulting the whole girl population!

He looks up at me slowly, and looks me in the eye, “My dad. He’s going to kill you,” I look at him like he tried to kill me. And he also did but, you know.

Chapter 3“Ummmmm,” I say, “Are you sure? I mean, I know you and him are fighting, but…,”“Listen to me,” Cody says as he gets up and grabs my shoulders, “My dad’s going to test the

serum on you, then if it works, he going to use the serum on the Supremes and kill you,”“Unbelievable, you hate your father so much, you want to ruin his project,” I get up from the

couch and walk to the door. I look down at the handle.“Think about it Karina,” and I push open the door.I walk out of the hallway, and walk to Ashley.“Hey,” she says. She gets up from the couch and hugs me. When she lets me go, she says, “What

happened? You took like, forever,”“I went in and I met his son Cody, then he left -,”“Wait, wait, wait,” Ashley interrupts, “Is this Cody cute?”I roll my eyes, “No. The famous Michael Scanlin has the ugliest boy in the universe,” I say with

sarcasm.“Come on, tell me,” she says.“Well, he’s like in-between,” I wave my hand around to emphasize what I said.“Oooooooooo,” she mocks.“Shut up,” I push her gently, “Come on, let’s go,”Ashley and I walk out the door to the Supreme Headquarters entrance. When I turn around, I see

Cody walking towards the doors. Then Charissa stops him. “Is that Cody?” Ashley sees me looking at him, “I can see why you like him,” she laughs. I push

her again. Why did I have to turn around in the first place?“I don’t think he can leave, he must be very important if he can’t leave,” she says. She made a

very good point. Does he actually know?A bodyguard comes in and takes him to 12A. That must be his room.“Let’s go,” I say softly as I look at him. I look away quickly and we keep walking.Cody’s right. Or was he? I don’t know. Maybe I just like him and I’m blinded. Maybe he’s just

got the power to make a persuasive trick.“So anyways, as I was saying, he left then Scanlin said month supply of water, if this works

anyway. And he also said that all I have to do was be a test dummy,” I tell Ashley.“He really said test dummy?”“No but that was basically what he said,”“Huh,” she looks up at the sky.I look up at the sky too. A blue canvas, now gray.“I think it’s going to rain,” I tell Ashley.“Come on, my house is nearby,” Ashley and I run around a corner, and run inside her house.

When we are in the dry room, Ashley’s mom, Amy Everheart, is already there, wet.“Oh hi Karina, bad weather huh?,” Mrs. Everheart asks me.

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“Bad for us, good for the plants though,” I say as I smile. I like Mrs. Everheart, Mr. Everheart is the one I’m scared about.

Mrs. Everheart laughs, “I guess you’re right Karina. Would you like to stay here until it stops raining?”

“Yes, and thank you Mrs. Everheart,” I say.“Your welcome Karina,” she says nicely. Tap Tap TapThere was someone knocking on our door.Tap Tap Tap“I’ll get it,” I tell Mrs. Everheart.When I open the door, a woman was standing outside in a black cloak. I couldn’t see the face,

because the hood was covering it. She looked very creepy, but she also just looks normal.“Uhhhhh, can I help you?”“Karina?” the woman said.“Do I know you? You sound familiar,” I asked her.The woman took off her hood.

“She’s waking up,” someone says.I sit up and put my hand on my head. I feel like I have the biggest headache ever. Someone helps

me up, and when I open my eyes, I see Ashley, Mrs. Everheart, Mr. Everheart, and my mom.“Are you okay sweetie?” and my mom puts my head on her chest. And I take it off.“You fainted,” Mr. Everheart tells me. While he’s drinking water with a pinky up, like those

fancy people in documentaries.“I thought you were dead,” I tell my mom.“I wish I could tell you, but I can’t,” she says, “ I’m just here to see you. He said that since you

are all grown up, I can see you for just today, only for a few minutes though,”“Who’s he?” I asked. I never thought I would get to see my mom again. But now there’s this “he”

that could be torturing her.My mom doesn’t answer. “Who’s he?” my voice, slightly getting louder.“I should probably get going,” and my mom gets up and walks out the door. I try to get up but

Mrs. Everheart holds me down.“No Karina,” she says. But I get up anyways and run up to catch up to my mom.“Is it dad?,” I yell to her. But she already ran away to far for me to see her. And I just stand in the

rain for several minutes before Mr. Everheart drags me in. I don’t resist. He’s too strict.After all this time, my mom is alive. And my dad might be. The Everhearts don’t look surprised

about this. They might know something. Maybe that’s why Ashley didn’t pity me when my parents “died”

Chapter 4

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I eat some of the Everheart’s grapes. Mr. and Mrs. Scanlin are outside harvesting more fruits. Ashley comes closer. I spit out the seeds on the ground, and place them in a pile for Mrs. Everheart.

“Soooo,” Ashley says, “Weird yesterday wasn’t it?”I look down. I play with the straps of my backpack.“No, no, no, I mean that ummm...uhhhh,”“Its okay Ashley,” I sniff a little and look up, “ Its okay,”“Awwww,” Ashley hugs me. Sometimes, I think our relationship is based on hugs. Its always one

of us gets emotionally hurt, and the other hugs them. “Umm… Ashley, you go to school. Mr. Scanlin told me to come in all day for the serum,” Why

didn’t I tell her yesterday? Ugh.“Oh… okay,” she walks out the door of her house.“Here Karina, have more grapes,” Mrs. Everheart says.“No,” I say, “I really need to get going,” I grab my backpack, “Thank you for everything, bye,”As I go, I hear Mrs. Everheart tell Mr. Everheart, “Oh look honey, that poor sweet girl,” Why do

adults think that we can’t hear them, I mean, its pretty obvious that I’m only 3ft away from them.When I’m out the door, I go straight to that large glass building. I see the sky is still a little gray. I

see everybody elses gardens. They are all harvested. When I reach Supreme Headquarters, a voice says:“Name,” Here we go again.“Karina Mercado,” I say with a bored voice.“State your business,” “To see Mr. Scanlin about the bodig serum,” The buzz. I push the door in. I think about going to

Cody’s room first. He might be busy, he might be doing something about his dad.“Charissa, can I go in?,” I ask her. “Not now, Mr. Scanlin is in a meeting right now. But it will end shortly so please wait,”“Can I go to Cody Scanlin’s room?” Mr. Scanlin is busy, so maybe I can go talk to him.“Let me check,” she dials something on her machine and she picks up a banana shaped piece of

plastic and puts it on her ear, “Mr. Scanlin, you have a visitor. Its Karina,” Then I hear a muffled, digital sound from her machine. Charissa says afterwards, “Okay, I’ll let her in,” she puts the piece of plastic back on the machine, “You may go in,”

When I walk into the hallway, I first check Mr. Scanlin’s office to see if he’s there. No one. He must have a different room for meetings. I push open the door that reads 12A.

“Hey Karina,” he just took a bath. A pretty big one too because his hair is completely wet. He looks cute like that though. His black t-shirt is also a little wet because of his hair.

“Hey,” I say back. I look at his table, and his wall. They are beautifully decorated.“Sooooo,” he says. I turn my head back to his, “Anything? Aren’t you going to tell me

anything?”“Oh!,” I get back my focus, “Oh, umm, yeah. I was going to ask you…,”He turns his hand around and around, “Ask me… Well, finish it,”I stare at him, he smiles, “Hey, still in there?,”“Oh yeah, I’m sorry,” I apologize. It was my first time alone in a room with a boy. Well, Mr.

Scanlin doesn’t count because he’s a grown up.“Don’t worry about it,” he says.I hear a door opening behind me.

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“You know what, your dad’s back from his meeting. I should go,” I open the door behind me, and carefully close it. Cody is quietly laughing as I leave. That was short. I turn around, and I open the door.

“Hi Mr. Scanlin,” I say quietly.“Hello Karina. Ready to start?” he asks me. I came in right after he came in because he’s standing

up. He didn’t even had time to sit down.“Sure,” I say.“Come on, lets go now. Its in room 5A, come on,”I open the door and wait there so Mr. Scanlin can go first.“Thank you,” he says as he walks through the doorway. I close the door behind me. He walks

towards 5A and I follow him.When we reach the door. I read the plaque on that:

5AMedical Room

Mr. Scanlin opens the door for me, and when I walk in, I see this large chair in the center. It is long enough to fit a human body on it. Around the sides of the room, there is a long counter. It holds needles, bags, and other devices I don’t even know about.

Mr. Scanlin goes to the machine Charissa was using, and presses a button, he then says, “Send up Katrice,”

We wait a few minutes before a woman opens the door. She wears black clothes too, except she has a badge with a red cross on it.

“This is Katrice Bowery, she is our doctor here,” Katrice looks about 3 years older than me. We shake hands, then she tells me:

“You are very brave Karina. I heard you volunteered,”“Yeah,” I say longer than I thought I said.“Now Karina, Ms. Bowery is going to do a quick check up on you to make sure you’re healthy,”

Mr. Scanlin says.“Okay,” I say.“Can you just lie back on this chair?” Katrice asks me.“Okay,” I answer. I lie back on the soft chair. I feel a little scared because when I lie back, My

head is lower than my legs. Katrice does something to the chair, and I sit on the chair like a regular chair.“Is that better?” she asks me. She must have seen me feel uncomfortable then.“Yeah,” I answer.She takes out a small device that has a square, flat face on one side, and on the opposite side,

funnel-like thing.“I’m going to use this to look inside your ears, to see any infection,” she says.“Okay,” I say back.The side with the funnel goes inside my ear, it tickles a bit. She does it to the other side of my ear

too. “Okay, done,” that was quick.Then she take the funnel thing off and replaces it with another funnel thing.“This is to look at your eyes,” she explains to me, “Try not to blink,”“Okay,” I say.She turns on a flashlight on the device, and turns it to my eye. She then turns it to my other eye.

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“Okay, you’re good,” she says. She turns off the flashlight. Then she took out the funnel, and replaced it.

“Now I’m going to look inside your nose,” Ms. Bowery says. Weird. Why are you going to look inside my nose? She makes a “tilt-up”motion with her hand. I tilt my head up, and she sticks that funnel up my nose.

“Okay,” she says as she takes it out. She puts that on the table, and gets a stick. It was a long, flat, skinny stick, that had rounded corners.

“I’m going to use this to look inside your mouth,” I open my mouth as big as I can so she can see. She presses the stick on my tongue and looks

inside it.“Okay, you’re done,” she says as she takes the stick out of my tongue. I close my mouth.“So now, its time for the bodig disease serum,” she says. It looks like its going to be painful.

Really, really painful.“But, it looks like its almost lunch so-,” Mr. Scanlin almost completely says. The machine is

ringing.“Mr. Scanlin, your son would like to have Karina Mercado for lunch,” Charissa says.“Okay then, come back here after you are done,” Mr. Scanlin says.Katrice looks at me like I’m going on a date, like Ashley.

Chapter 5“Hey,” Cody says, “You wanted to ask me something?,”I look at the cup full of pure, clean water.“I wanted to ask, how do you know?,” I ask, “How do you know your dad’s plans?”“I go to some of his meetings. Almost everyone here knows,” he informs me, “You know

Charissa, and probably Katrice, they know,”I gasp, “What! They were so nice to me,” I felt really hurt. Like someone just punched me in the

stomach.“Yeah… I tried to talk my dad out of it, but you know… not that nice,” I stood there, listening.“So come on, eat,” Cody points to the food. Its fruit salad. All the fruits you know, in one bowl.

Its better than you think.I sit down on the chair across from him. We only got one bowl, not one for each.“What’s this?” I point to the weird dotted piece of whatever. Its just white ,fruit meat with black

tiny seeds.“Its dragon fruit,” he answers, “It wasn’t really popular back then, so there is only a small amount

of this. Try this, its not bad,”I pick it up with my fingers. I put it in my mouth and chew. It taste like kiwi, but not as sour. Its

more like a sweeter, white kiwi.“Not bad, not good either,” I tell him.He shrugs, “Do you want to drink this smoothie though?” “What is it?” I ask him.“Its a combination of strawberry and banana. Its was the most normal type of smoothie there

was,” “Huh. But I meant what is a “smoothie”?”

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“Its basically strawberry and banana blended together,”“Okay,” I drink the smoothie up. It was delicious. The Supremes have the most luxurious life. “It’s delicious,” I tell him.“I know it is,” he says back to me.We both reach for an orange slice when our hands touch. We both pull away quickly. “Sorry,” I mumble to him. He snickers. I could feel all the warmth come up in my cheeks. Cody

notices and asks, “Why are you blushing Karina?” kind of in an Ashley tone when talking about boys.I slap him on the arm a little too whiney.“Also, do you know a Emma Mercado?” I ask him. He might be the “he” or his dad. My mom at the time, was always beaten to death by my dad. And when one day she literally

“beaten to death”. Then my dad felt sorry and everything, he killed himself. He asked the Supremes for medicine, he was secretly drugging himself. Every time I asked him what he was doing with the medicine, he would answer, “I’m sick,”. It only took him a day to overdrugg himself and die. Then the word got out.

“No. Who was she?”“Nevermind,” He doesn’t know who she is.“Oh! and did you hear? My dad’s making me date this chick from New Haven. Her dad and my

dad are going to be collaborating serum,”“Huh…” I have to tell him that I like him. Or do I? I’m scared. So many things can go wrong. He

doesn’t like me back. His dad might kill me for missing the chance with the serum. My worrying starts to show because Cody asks me:

“Are you okay?”“Yeah,” I answer. Oh no. Now he probably knows that I like him because my worrying showed

after the dating thing. I reach for the watermelon. It took me forever to grow it, but they seem to have it everyday.

When I eat the watermelon, I notice how sweet it tasted.“How did you grow these?” I ask him. Who am I kidding? He’s the Head Supreme’s son. He

wouldn’t know how to do it.“We actually put sugar in it, we make it by growing sugar canes. It makes almost everything

sweet,” he says. I guess he did know.“Would sugar make lemons sweet?” I ask. Lemons are so sour!“Not much, but it taste good,”“Ms. Mercado, please report back to 5A,” the digital voice says.“Bye,” I say, “And thank you for the information,”I walk near the outside of the hall to room 5A, when I hear Mr. Scanlin’s voice saying, “JUST

DO IT!!!,”I stop in my tracks. This is why everyone is so scared aren’t they. I bet he’s forcing someone to

do something they don’t want to do.I carefully open the door. I look inside to see Katrice frightened. And Mr. Scanlin, he looks

frighten as well when he saw me. He quickly smiles when he sees me.“Ah, you’re here. We can get started,” he says, “Katrice, come here and give her the anesthesia,”Katrice doesn’t do anything for a moment, and then scrambles to her feet.“Karina, lie down on the chair,” he says.The chair is in its normal position, flat. I lie down nervously.

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“Get the syringe now Katrice!,” Mr. Scanlin says.I think about asking Mr. Scanlin what anesthesia is, but I’m too scared he’ll do something to me.“Now Karina, we are going to inject you with something that will probably hurt you,” Mr.

Scanlin says. The look of evil on his face. Katrice ties me to the chair, and I can’t move. The ropes are tight against my wrist and ankles.

“Do it Katrice, do it,” he says.Katrice nervously takes out the syringe with a long needle sticking out, and mouths “I’m sorry” to

me. But I feel that this is hurting her more than me. I could see tears starting in her eyes.She sticks the needle in my arm, and she injects me with something clear. I feel it going through

my skin, muscle, and maybe my veins. The pain causes me to scream really loud, so loud I cracked the glass door. I see Katrice, she’s crying, so sorry of her act.

Chapter 6I wake up in a place. In a place that is all white. Like heaven. Did I die? Did he actually kill me?

It would make no sense since he didn’t get anything out of me. Nothing.“Hello?” I talk into the nothing.I run into the nothing. Even more nothing. Its like an infinite box. I wonder if this is a lucid

dream. I imagine the dragon fruit Cody showed me earlier today. I open my eyes. And right in front of them were a bowl of diced dragon fruit. I try to touch it, and it disappears. I imagine a giant bridge, when I touch it, it disappears as well. I realize that this is like a life lesson. Was Mr. Scanlin trying to teach me a lesson?

I try to think of an object that might define the power of touching-and-disappearing. I try to imagine a sun, I won’t touch it. An when I open my eyes again, I see the sun up in the infinite sky. I imagine a wizard, he has to at least do some trick to not disappear. I open my eyes, and I see a person. I touch him, and he goes poof! I turn around, I see him on the other side. I imagine the sky, clouds, and a doctor. The sky and clouds are up, my canvases. And my doctor appears.

“Someone injected me with something and I came here, a place where everything I touch will disappear. What is this?” I ask him.

“You are probably in a coma or something like that,” he tells me.I’m scared and more tired. If I was in a coma, it would mean I would have to stay here for several

hours. I lay down on the ground and try to sleep. I can’t. I imagine the night sky, in hopes that that will make me sleep better. Then I realize, I’m trying to sleep, inside a sleep. That’s like, waking up inside of a dream. Which I want to do. It would be so much easier for me, and Katrice. Though it would be worse for Mr. Scanlin, and me and Katrice.

“Well thank you,” I tell him. At least I know what’s happening. I think about imagining Ashley, but we would probably end up hugging each other. And I can’t touch anything in here without it disappearing. What if I imagine my dad? Would he even appear? He’s dead. I close my eyes and I imagine him as best I can, but I can only remember brief things like clothes, nose, and his mouth.

When I open my eyes, I can only see my doctor, magician, and the night sky. I guess you need to remember people from a picture. That’s how I remember the doctor and magician, through pictures we saw in class. I think through the list of things I need, but won’t touch. Maybe those ancient machines used to watch things, a television. That might be interesting. I close my eyes and imagine the black, slim machine. Then I open them quick enough to realize, I can’t watch it. You need electricity to power it, I can’t get electricity in here, its nothing.

12

Maybe I can just lay down and sleep, no matter how stupid it may sound. I close my mind, and try to get myself to sleep. Its just hard for me. I roll over, and just close my eyes and do nothing.

I wake up, not in the infinite box of nothing, but back in the medical room. But now I hear a beeping sound. And the room looks more advanced. I hear sobbing in the background of the beeping.

“Katrice?” I call out, “Is that you?”The sobbing didn’t stop, and I’m scared. I breath in and out quickly. I pant like a dog. I feel sweat

begin to drip onto my face. I feel tears begin to drip on my face.I look at the door. It was open, that means, either someone came in, or out. I try to look below

me, but all I see is the chair and my hand. I calm down, and think for a moment.“Maybe this is like the box,” I whisper to myself, “Maybe I can think up something,”I close my eyes, I imagine a box to test it. I open my eyes to find nothing in front of me. I start to

panic even more. I try to wiggle my hand out free, but it doesn’t work. I feel the damp hair sticking to my face.

I was about to give up when I hear something saying:“Good job Karina. Katrice, untie her,” I stop breathing for a minute when I hear the sobbing getting louder as it comes to me. Katrice

looks at me, and under the crying, I hear her mumble to me “I’m sorry”. I look up, and I see a small little device stuck on it. I squint enough to see the device was a “camera”. The security cameras they used back then. I mouth the unspeakable word while I look directly at the camera.

Katrice loosens the ropes. When I look at my wrists again, I see red rope marks on them. Katrice must have put too much pressure on them when she was tying them.

Mr. Scanlin walks in, and before he says anything, I scream at him.“I QUIT! I quit! Quit!,” I yell at the top of my lungs. I dissolve into tears before I say anything

else. “You can’t quit,” he says calmly, “It’s in our contract. You quit, and you go, forever,”I stare at the floor. Why didn’t I read the contract first! “You didn’t tell me,” I whisper. I stare at him, “But it doesn’t matter anyways does it? You’re

gonna kill me even if I survive. That wasn’t in our contract either,”I lunge at him. He goes off balance, and I fall with him. I put my hands on top of his neck,

squeezing all the life I could out of him. Then the two bodyguards come in and try to pry me off Scanlin. I stay there, my legs locked around his. Mr. Scanlin screams for help. I elbow all the bodyguards off me.

I become tired after 30 seconds of intense fighting. The bodyguards lift me off Scanlin, each of them holding on to one of my arms. Scanlin brushing his black, fancy, suit.

“You can be in our rooms for a while,” he says, “Maybe, perhaps, the one with high tech security,” he makes a waving motion to the guards. They drag me down the hallway. When we past 12A, I scream for help, but nothing happens. They take me deeper into the hallway.

When the guards stop, we are at the end of the hallway. The door of the room has no room number. It only has a long, rectangular opening on top. The guards move out of the way for Scanlin to unlock the room.

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“Good luck in here,” Scanlin smerks as he puts his finger on a pad. The door automatically opens itself. The guards then throw me in there. Literally. I feel the impact of the floor with my skull.

“Now you can spend your time with your daughter,” he wasn’t looking at me. But past me. I look behind my back, my mom stands there. She looks at me. I get up. I look around the room, no windows. All stone. I see a bucket in a discreet corner of the room. I’m guessing that’s where we do our business.

The guards close the door. And I ask my mom:“You didn’t tell. Why didn’t you tell me?”“I had to protect you,” she answered.I am about to say something. When my instincts tell me no. My dad always told me to never

argue with him. To always listen. Every time I talked back, he would tell me not to argue with him. Even if I was correct.

“I know, I should have told you earlier,” she says. I was feeling really hot.“Who else knew? The Everhearts?” “I just told Amy and John because they needed to know,”“What about Ashley? Huh?” I notice that I was screaming at her.“Sorry,” I mumble.“Its dinner,” someone says. I notice that someone is talking to us through the hole in the door.“Someone gonna catch it?” They say.“I will,” my mother says. A tray slides through the hole. My mom holds the tray in her hands.“Mashed potatoes,” she says sadly, “Every single time,”“I think they taste fine,” I tell her.“You eat something so much, you get bored of it,”My mom puts the tray on the ground. I take one of the spoons, and get some mashed potatoes. I

put the spoon in my mouth. It was perfect. It wasn’t too dry or soggy. It was the right amount of water.“I still think this is delicious,” I say.When we were done, we push the tray to the side. I ask my mom:“How did you end up here?”“I was a test subject too. I ended up here how you ended up here. But they will give you another

chance, they asked me ten times. And I said, “I would rather stay here,”” she tells me.We both laughed. “So we’re going to stay here forever?” I say. It was a rhetorical question. The answer is obviously

yes.“Yeah…” she answers.“Are you done?” the person comes back to pick up the tray.When my mom starts to stand up to get the tray, I stop her, and say, “I’ll get it,”I stand up, get the tray, and put it in the long, tray-sized, slot.“Thank you,” they say.“Its time to sleep,” my mom says, “Lie on the floor, and, well, do nothing,”Exactly how I sleep. I crowl on the floor to find the most comfortable piece of ground. There was

no comfortable place to sleep here. I lie on the ground. It was so cold and hard. All my ideas and guilt pours out of me. I think of all the major lies I told in the past. I slowly cry on the ground. I fall asleep in my session of crying.

Chapter 7

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I wake up. “Here’s breakfast,” the voice says.I grab the tray. Mashed potatoes again. She was right, things get boring.“Here’s the breakfast,” I tell my mom.I take a bite. I feel something in my mouth. When I take it out, I see a wet piece of paper, covered

in my saliva. I unfold the piece of paper.

Do you want to save mankind?“Nooooo!” I yell. That person is probably waiting outside for an answer.“What?” my mom asks me.“This note,” I tell her. I pass her the note.“Ohhh,” she says, “Yeah, this is one of the ways they will ask you,”“What are other ways they will ask me?” I ask her.“They vary,” she says, “Sometimes they will do this,” she points to the note, “Sometimes they

will just ask you in person. Sometimes they might just replace the food with words. Its actually entertaining to watch them,” she concludes.

“Huh, interesting,” I say.I smooth the mash potatoes over. Then I scoop a part, and lick it so it turns into a ball. Then I just

eat it. I miss Ashley. She was always fun. But sometimes, when she has a boyfriend, I feel like a third-

wheel. Which shouldn’t happen because we were childhood friends. She was almost always happy. Her face was so bright with her straight blonde hair. When she tied it, she would accidentally whack me in the face with it. She also liked to be the know-it-all. She felt like, to be taken seriously, she needed to be smarter than anyone else. So no one would judge her because she was blonde. She started doing this when we had the lesson on judgement. There were judgment about blondes, african americans, asians, nerds, and other kinds of people. It made Ashley feel awful.

When my mom and I are done with the potatoes, we play games. We took pieces of rock, and carved in the 3-by-3f grid on the floor. Instead of carving in the Xs and Os, we used our fingers. We used our fingers because we can reuse the grid again for another game. So we don’t have to use one hour on each game.

“I win again!” I say when we play our tenth game, “3 times in a row!” My mom laughs, and shakes her head, “I am telling you, that was luck,”“You want to see?” I ask my mom playfully.“Yeah, I do. Best 2 out of 3,” she says.“You’re on!” I tell her.Our game goes like this:Me: Center square.Mom: Top, left cornerMe: Middle, left sideMom: Middle, right sideMe: Bottom, middle slotMom: Top, middle slotMe: Top, right corner Mom: Bottom, left corner

15

Me: Bottom, right corner“Tie!” I yell.“That doesn’t mean you won though,” I mom rejects.I shrug. It was fun to play with my mom again. She was the fun parent, not like Ashley’s dad. My

mom, Ashley’s mom, Ashley, and I were playing a little game of catch one day, and he didn’t join in. Mrs. Everheart tried to convince her husband to come and play, but he wouldn’t. He just kept on harvesting watermelons. He was so boring.

My mom gets tired about 17 games in tic-tac-toe. We both decide to take a little morning nap. I lay down on my mom’s lap. She sits criss-cross.

“Are we gonna die in here?” I ask her.“Maybe,” she says, “Unless you escape,”I get up from her lap.“What?” I say.“I have a plan,” she whispers to me.My mom tells me what to do, if Mr. Scanlin comes in the room.“You have to go for the neck, with what? The bodyguards are just going to pull me away,” My mom shows me a very sharp piece of rock, hidden near the bucket.“I was sharpening the rock for several years. I think you can use it to kill him,” she says.I never thought that I would live to see the day my mom turn violent, “And then?”“I’ll use this other sharp rock I also carved, to kill his 2 bodyguards. Then we run to 5A, get the

serum, and run away,”“Okay. When will that be?” I ask.“Usually a couple of days,” she says.“Lunch people,” the person comes back. We hide our rocks behind our backs just in case he can

see it through the hole.“I’ll get it,” my mom says.“Mashed potatoes,” I say, bored out of my mind.“Mash potatoes,” my mom repeats.“Lets make something from our potatoes this time, rather than just eating it,” I suggest.“That would be fun, lets do it!”I make a snowman out of mines. Those lucky people who live in places that snows, they get to

build a snowman with “real” snow.My mom made house, the ones back then. It was beautiful, she was always the artist in family. I

smooth over the mash potatoes eat them, I have to eat something. My mom tells me she’s too tired of mash potatoes to eat them. I eat the house, and snowman.

“Here to pick up the tray and bucket, coming in,” they say.I look at my mom. She shakes her head. Not now. When the person comes in, I now know that

they are a “he”. It was a “he” we were talking to the whole time. He picks up the bucket in one hand, and the tray in the other. He walks out quickly hold the stinky bucket.

“Bye,” he says.I don’t do anything now. I lie down, and sleep.

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I see Ashley with me.I see my mom and dad.My dad beats up my mom. Then when she dies, he chases Ashley and I around the room. We run

to the school, and hide behind the desk. He leaves when he couldn’t find me. Ashley and I go out behind the desk.

“That was close,” I tell her.“Yeah, we could have died,” she says.“Let’s carefully walk out to the Supreme Headquarters,” I say.She nods.We carefully sneak out, and we run to Supreme Headquarters.Cody says to hide in the escape pod. “Come on,” I whisper.We walk to the escape pod, and launch off.

I wake up.“Dinner,” he says. I pick up the mashed potatoes. I put them in my mouth, and it taste like the grapes. So normal. “I know how you feel now,” I tell my mom. “Mmm-hmm,” she says.Tap Tap Tap“Mr. Scanlin here,”My mom nods. We each take our rocks.“So Karina, I am he-,”I lunge at him again. I take the rock, and stab it in his neck. It starts to bleeds. My hands come

bloody. I see the light leave his brown eyes.“You deserved it,” I tell him.My mom is already on her second guard. And once he dies, we move on to the other step of our

plan. 5A.“Good job there girl,” she says.“Thanks,” I say.We both keep on to our rocks. Then when we reach room 5A, we go in, and get the serum

labeled, “BODIG PREVENTION”“Run!” my mom yells.We dodge, between people. When we past Charissa, I cover my face. I don’t want her to see me

this way. When other bodyguards come to catch us, we outrun them, and get outside.“Come on!” my mom shouts, “RUN!!!”We run to the wall. Guards from both side corner us. Then I realized, the wall isn’t that tall.“Mom, jump on the wall on the count of 3,” I whisper to her, “1-2-3!” My mom and I climb the

wall, and jump. We land on the water.“Oh great,” I yell, “What are we going to do now? At least we can swim”

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“Raft,” my mom says.“What?” I say. I look at her, then to whatever direction she was looking at.“Raft,” I repeat. I see a yellow raft only a few feet away. Then I see a person on it. Cody.“Oh my god!,” I say, “Cody!” I wave my hands around, “Cody!” my mom joins me.Cody starts to steer his raft here. He helps us get on the boat.“How did you escape?” I ask him.“I have connections,” he says.“Nice,” I say.“So you are Cody Scanlin,” my mom says.“Yup madam,” he says, “And you must be Karina’s mom. Emma Mercado?” “Why yes,” she says.“So where do we go now?” I ask him.“We are going to Asia,”“Why?” I ask.“Because we aren’t welcome in America,” he says.“Good point,” I say.“Anyways, we should have shifts,” he says.“I’ll take the first one,” I volunteer.“Okay,” he and my mother both say.I take the two oars, and move them both in a circular motion. Around and around. My mother

sleeps on the raft covered by Cody’s jacket.“That was very nice of you to let my mom sleep in your jacket,” I tell him while I am rowing the

raft.“No problem,” he says, “Soooo, my dad has to call off the project with New Haven,”“Let me guess, I escaped,” I say.“Two things actually, we both escaped. Remember, I had to date the New Haven’s Head

Supreme’s daughter,”“Oh,” I lean back too far, and almost fall into the ocean. Cody uses his arm to catch me.When he

drags me back up, my mom awakens.“What happened?” she says hoarsely.“Nothing,” Cody and I both say simultaneously. “Okay then…” and she goes back to sleep.“Listen Cody, I have to tell you something,” I tell him, “I… I...like...I like you,”Cody stares at me.“You know what, forget about it,” I say after 20 seconds.“No!” he grabs my hand, “No, I mean, I like you too,”“Really?” I eagerly say.“Well, yeah,” he says.“Well then…” I say. I lean towards him. He leans toward me. Then he kisses me on the mouth.

And when he pulls away, I feel myself leaning forwards a bit.“Okay then,” I say, and I go back to rowing the raft.“I should take this shift,” he says quickly.“Okay,” I say.

18

We carefully switch so we don’t rock the raft or wake up my mom. He sits there, looking for land.

I get tired of watching him for a few minutes, and I go under his jacket with my mom. I hug her while I fall asleep. Making sure I don’t lose her again. My eyes wanting me to sleep. It feels like smoke just when in my eyes. And I need to close my eyes for a long period to get the discomfort away. My mom lets me sleep on her arm. Then I try to slowly drift away in my sleep.

Chapter 8I wake up in the morning to find, not Cody rowing the raft, but my mom. Then I look

behind me, and I find Cody, sleeping, and his arm on my stomach. I slowly push the arm away, and sit at the far end of the raft, away from Cody.

“Hey,” my moms says. Again with the Ashley smile.“No,” I tell her.“Cute boy,” she says.“He’s not cute,” He’s not hot, and not normal I think. I look at him, his untidy hair does make

him look cute though.“Oh really,” my mom laughs, “Okay…”I give a scowl.“So when did you 2 change shifts?” I ask.“I woke up at around midnight, and I find Cody all tired. So I did the rowing while he got some

energy,”I don’t do anything. Makes sense.“So how did you sleep?” she asks.“Fine,” I say, “Better than all those other times,”“Its because we are on the run. These things change you. You know?”They sure do. I look around me. All I see, is water. The dark deep ocean, and the orange, red sky. “Do you need me to row?” I ask.“Thank you,” she says. And she hands me the ores. Then Cody wakes up.“Hey,” he says, “Good morning everybody,”“Good morning,” I say.“Good morning,” my mom repeats. She smiles.“Can you plug your ears or something?” I ask my mom.“Sure,” she says.“So I… woke up with you hugging me?” I say awkwardly.“Oh…” he says.We both sit there, silently. My mom is facing the water, probably singing a funny tune in her

head.“Are you done,” my mom yells. I tap her on the shoulder.“We’re done,” I say. I look at Cody. He nods, yep.She smiles.“So how long until we get to China?” she asks Cody.“About one more day. Maybe,” he answers.“What do we eat?” I ask.

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“Try not to get hungry,” he says.Instead of talking to mom or Cody, I just think. What if we die in China? China is big, where do we go? What if we catch the disease? The

disease.“Mom, do we still have the serum?” I ask urgently.She checks her pockets and looks around the boat.“Oh no,” she says, “I think it fell when we jumped into the water,”We both slap our palms on our face.“Ughhhhh. Now how are we going to prevent ourselves. Its highly contagious,” I tell them.“Calm down, we were going to die back there anyways,” Cody says.“So. Then there’s no point is there?” I scream, “What if we just die instantly?”“At least we have a chance,” he screams back.The boat goes still. We don’t go in any direction.“Just at least be grateful that I saved you,” he yells.I cry. I put my knees in my face, and cry. All I see, is pitch-black. All I feel, is wetness. All I

hear, is the calm waves of water. And all I taste, is the salty water that came from my eyes.“I’ll row the raft, this way right,” I hear my mom say.“Yeah,” Cody mumbles.I hear us sailing across the oceans. I just sniff the whole time. I think, Does Cody like me or not?

He told me he liked me, but then he yelled at me like I was just another person. I dry up my tears. I feel woozy after I cry. I lay down in the silence, and fall asleep. Not caring about who watches. Even though its only Cody and my mom.

“Wake up!” I hear. I was being shakened.“What?” I murmur.“There’s a shark!” I hear.“What!” I sit up. And they weren’t kidding. I see the dark blue fin just on top of the water.“What do we do?” I shiver.“I know what to do!” Cody says.“Do it!” I point out.“You are supposed to hit the shark right above the nose,” he tells us.“And where is that?” I ask him. I panic, and huddle against my mom.“I don’t know, I’ll guess,” he says.“And if you die, I am not avenging your death!”He takes one of the oars, and he hits the shark about a foot away from the fin. The fin then sinks.I sigh in relief. “You’re welcome,” he says sarcastically.“Thank you,” I tell him, “How do you know where to hit the shark?” “I was in Supreme Headquarters, they have all kinds of information there,”I volunteer, “I’ll row. You guys must be tired,”

20

Then I take the oars, and row, around and around. Good thing the shark didn’t poke a hole in the raft.

“Where are we going to be in China?” I ask him.“Probably in Shanghai or Hong Kong,” he says.“I wonder if everyone there is dead,” I say.“Come on,” he says, “They can’t all be dead,”“I know but, its likely. To me,” I add the last part because Cody looks at me funny.“So you’re saying that you think the entire human population is down, except for the US,” he

says.“Yes, that’s exactly what I think,”“Wow. Use your common sense. Just because we shut our borders, doesn’t mean they didn’t shut

theirs,”“Well if they did, how are we going to get in, they might think we are intruders or infected,” I

look like I’m serious. But inside, I think, I won, how’s your common sense now? Victory! It was perfect. And I also made a very good point.

“Okay… well maybe they have technology that can test us. The Chinese did many things along time ago,”

“True,” I say, “But why didn’t they share their technology with ours?” I ask.“Maybe because if we have worse technology than theirs, what do we have to offer? We got to

have at least something they don’t,”I look at the sky, “Maybe we can finish this conversation later, its getting a little late. Can you

row?”“Sure,” he smiles.“Thank you,”“Come on sweetie,” my mom lays down, and I lay on her arm. And she takes Cody’s jacket, and

pulls it over us.“Things have changed haven’t they,” I say out loud. No one says anything. They must be thinking

of an answer. For Cody, this might not seem that new, probably surprising but not new. And mom is probably thinking, “Yeah,” a simple answer.

I look at the stars in the sky. I count them. 23…45…67…

Chapter 9“Hey. Hey! Hey Mrs. Mercado, Karina, look!” My mom and I both wake up to Cody yelling. He

points to a distance, and when I really squint hard, I see that he was pointing at land. China.“If we go fast, we can probably make it there today,” he says.“Oh look, they have no walls,” I point out to Cody. He rolls his eyes.“That’s a good thing then, we can just, go in,” he makes a movement with his hand. Like a

pushing motion but underside.“That’s great,” my mom says, “We can live,”No one says anything after that, but a while later, Cody asks me to take his shift.“No, I’ll do it,” says my mom, “I haven’t done that much and you kids are doing all the work,”

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“We’re happy to do it,” I tell my mom. But that was a lie. I hate rowing, it hurts my hand so bad. I have to stretch it in other directions so it would feel like normal.

“Awwwww, that’s sweet. But if you keep on doing this, your hand is going to fall off,” and I don’t doubt that.

Cody gives my mom the oars.“So Karina, have you had a boyfriend yet? Because I have seen your friend Ashley, and I think

she took all the boys,” he smirks.I feel my cheeks going red. I’m not sure to feel embarrassed, or suprised. He kissed me once,

does that mean he wants to actually date me?My mom coughs, and we turn around. My mom smiles. I mouth to my mom, “Go away,”

obviously I just meant “Don’t listen to us” because if I meant go away, my mom would fall into the water.

She mouths to me, “Sorry,”“Do you love my talent for reading lips?,” Cody says out loud.I look away, knowing my face is hot with anger.“So no?” Cody says.“To be honest, no. And you’re right, Ashley gets all the guys,” I says.“Not this one,” he says.“Oooooooo,” my mom says.I look at her.“Sorry,” she whispers.“I can still hear you people,”“Sorry,” I say.He grabs my hands. And he cups then in between his.“Awwwwwww,” my mom interupts the moment.“Just shut up mom,” I whisper.Cody gives out a big sigh, “You guys never learn do you,” he mumbles.I giggle. I lean on his chest, and point to the clouds. I feel like those old films where the girl and

the boy go on a boat in Italy, and someone rows the boat. I have the exact same moment, but the person rowing the boat is my mom, the boat is a raft, and we are in a bunch of “Nowhere Seas”.

My mom sighs.“You know what, I should put my hand over your mouth mom,”“I know but, you guys make such a cute couple,”“Yes, but it doesn’t mean you have to sigh and ‘aw’ everytime he does something romantic,” I

say.“I’m a mom, its what I do,”I roll my eyes, and go back to closing my eyes on Cody’s chest. I only I could tell Ashley about

this, she would feel so proud of me.“So why do you hate your dad so much, are you guys even related?” I ask him.“Unfortunately, we are related. And I hate him because he hurts people, its just all sad. And I get

my kindness from my mom, she was very pretty. But she was forced to marry my dad, sad isn’t it,” he tells me.

“Where’s your mom?” I ask.“She ran away like I did,” he sighs.

22

“You think we might see her?” I ask him.“I don’t know. I don’t know,”“Don’t think like that, be positive,” my mom jumps in the conversation.“Yeah, but, she left me,”“Well I’m a mom too, no mother would leave her child without finding a way to get back to them

first. We raised you, we know how you think, we can predict your actions. Maybe your mom knew you would run away too,”

“How did you know that I would end up in prison?” I sit up straighter.“Because we just know,”“But that’s like really impossible. Did you think that I was going to break the rules? Did I do that

growing up?” I ask her, my voice rising gradually.“Look, you’re not a mother yet, you’ll understand later in life,” she says calmly.“Can a father know?” Cody asks.“If you care enough. Most men don’t care that much of what their child does,” she says.“I know my father didn’t care much but isn’t that a little sexist?” he asks.“I backed up that statement with evidence from my own life. My father didn’t care what I did,

and yours didn’t either,” she points to the both of us.We both look down. We aren’t moving now either. This trip has made me realize, your true

feelings are revealed in danger.My mom’s face is all red. Cody slowly takes the oars from her.“I’ll do this,” he says, looking at my mom and me.None of us talk for a while. I stare out into China. My mom just sits there, and Cody’s just slowly

rowing the raft to China. I then look at the islands that are closer to us. Still in a great distance though.“Why can’t we go there?” I ask.“That’s the Japanese Island Okinawa. We can but like I said, the Chinese achieved many things,”

he says.I don’t reply. I think, what are going to do when we get there?“How many miles are we away?” I ask.“About 1000 miles, maybe more,” he informs.I bite on my lip. This must take another week or so.“Do you want to play chopsticks, anyone?” Chopsticks was a finger game they played back then.

To past time.No one answers me. Mom is probably too mad, and Cody is busy. I sigh.I play chopsticks with myself. I use my toes as the other person’s side. I can’t curl my toes to

show the numbers, So I remember them in my head. I stick out my pointing finger on each hand, then I touch my left foot with my left hand. 2, I remember. Then I “combine” my toes together for 3 on the right foot. I let everything go and relax. When you try to play chopsticks with yourself, you use too much energy remembering, and putting your feet where its easy to play.

I stop Cody from rowing, and take the oars.“I’ll do it,” I tell him.He smiles a little, then he just hugs me.“Everything’s okay,” he tells me. Because when you are on the run, and there’s probably a deadly

disease on wherever you’re going, everything is okay.He lets me go. I sigh. Life is always full of surprises. Maybe they are mostly disappointments.

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I remember growing up. I would always like to harvest plants. They were fun, just picking fruits. I just pull them out of the dirt. Sometimes I would fall down, other times, I get distracted by the pattern of the roots. Dad would just eat and visits friends all day, not like there is any place for him to be at. The only things you should do are:

1. Harvest/grow food2. Eat3. Go to birthday parties4. Go to funerals5. Go to weddings

He would do nothing and eat. Mom and I do a little of everything, but mostly growing crops and eating them. When I was 7, I once asked my mom:

“Why doesn’t dad harvest plants with us?”“Because he’s busy,” she said.Then I grew up and realized, he was just a lazy guy. He harvested 0% of the food we ate. And

sometimes, when he slept on the floor, he would spread his body out. So when we wanted to move around or sleep too, he would be in the way.

“Why did you marry him mom?” I ask her.I don’t get a reply for one minute. But then she says, “Because I didn’t think he would be the man

he was,” I look at Cody, and he just looks down. I take a deep breath, and think to myself, How did all this happen, because of one day? I can’t

think of an answer. Or maybe I’m just stupid. Just, didn’t think this through. I didn’t even read the contract, what if that piece of paper had all the information. I look into the water. And instead of seeing the blacked haired girl in gray, I see a black haired girl in gray, that got wounded while fighting for freedom. Freedom of not being sentenced to death. Freedom of starting over and being a new type of person. Freedom, of spending more time with your mom that supposedly died.

I must have stopped rowing, because Cody asks me:“What happened?”“Nothing,” I say. And I go back to rowing, “Just thinking about some things,”“Everything’s okay,” he tells me again.Then I just explain all my feelings to him at one time, “Everything’s not okay! The Supreme’s are

probably looking for us! The bodig disease can kill us once we get to China! And we might starve to death before any of that happens!” I put down the oars, and cry.

The whole thing was just too much to take in. You find out your mom isn’t dead. You find out the Head Supreme is evil. You find out that a boy actually likes you. You find out that you are now a stowaway. You find out that everyone knew you were going to die, and they didn’t say anything. Even the tiny details of the story or too hard for me to take in. My heart could have just exploded because it is beating really hard and fast. My crying turns into hiccups. And all I see is blurriness.

When a disease broke out in the US. They then put up walls and disposed anything associated with the bodig disease. Then they had Supremes and Head Supremes. Then one day a girl volunteered to test out a serum to keep everyone safe. Then she finds out that the Head Supreme is evil, and wants to kill her afterwards. Even though if the serum didn’t work, she would die instantly because it invades the body area. And now she’s on a boat sailing to a may be toxic place. Everything happened because of nature.

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I blame nature for having to do this. I blame God for not helping me. Let alone the millions of people who died of the disease. I respect the people who believe in God and mother-nature. But it doesn’t look like your leader is doing any good, are they? Who am I kidding? You people are probably dead. Why? Because your leader didn’t help you. And for all those people who think this is going to help us not overpopulate, we are doing the opposite, we are un-populating.

I calm myself down before I yell these words to the earth. I carefully pick up the oars, and row. Trying to get my vision back. I blink a few times to see if that would help. And when I finally get my vision back, I was surprised to see no one looking at me. They all seem to be looking at the sky, now a beautiful combination of blue and orange.

“I’m sorry,” I say. I continue rowing.They still look at the sky, maybe wondering why they got here too.“I was just, very angry and hurt,” I keep rowing. My arms feel a little sore, and so do my hands

from holding the oars. I don’t want to make Cody or Mom feel tired, so I just keep rowing. Its just like me, doing things to help others, make them feel better, no matter the price.

My hands start to drop, and I start to make a very tired face.“Are you okay sweetie?” my mom asks me, “You look really tired,”“I’m okay,” I lie. This is not fun, this is really tiring. But I will not be the first person to be rude

in this situation, even though I’m probably the first in this situation.“I am going to do this, you are going to sore out your muscles,” and she take the oars from my

hands.“Thank you,” I murmur.She smiles.“So what are we going to do in China?” I ask, time passes, I don’t know if I ask this before but I

need to remember it at all times.“It depends if we see people there,” Cody answers.“What if we don’t?” I ask.“We will, try and think of a more efficient plan to not die,”“And if we see people?” I ask.“Ask a load of questions,” he says.“What if we can’t understand them?” I ask.He shrugs, “Just, try…,”“So mom, what do you mean Grandpa doesn’t care about us?”“He doesn’t even know I got married,” she answers.“What!” I say alarmed, “How could he not know that?”“He also doesn’t know that I have a kid,”I say nothing, but I silently think, “Jerk, you probably don’t even know your daughter's birthday,” Grandpa died before I was born. All the information I had was because I asked why I don’t have a

Grandpa. I remember going to Ashley’s grandfather’s funeral. It was sad. I was really hard for Mrs. Everheart. She cried the whole entire time. Even the parts that aren’t about him.

“Sorry to hear that,” Cody says.“No, its not a problem or sad. He was just like my husband. Lazy,” she says. She was a strong

women leader. And she was proud.“I am… happy to hear that,” Cody says uncertainly, “How exactly am I supposed to feel?”“I don’t know,” she answers.

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“I think, that I should sleep. my eyes are smoky, and there isn’t any smoke around. I must be sleepy,” I close my eyes. And when that didn’t work, I laid down, and closed my eyes.

“Goodnight darling,” my mom whispers.I feel her pet my head to soothe me. Cody must be rowing then.

Chapter 10“Good morning,” the first thing I hear when I wake up.“Good morning,” I say to my mom and Cody, “You have been doing this the whole time, I’ll

row,” I tell Cody. “Thank you but I’m good,” he says.I feel very confused. I must have been sleeping for 8 hours, how is he not tired.“Your mom and I switched shifts a few times,” so that would explain why he isn’t tired.“Yep, none of us are tired. Well, at least not a lot,” my mom says.“Good,” I say, "But do you guys need me to row though?""Nope," they both answer."Okay," I say, "Are we there yet?""No, at least not until 3 or more days," Cody answers.Ugh, I think. Just three more days of crying, yelling, and sleeping. And sometimes, hugging."What if we caught a fish?" I ask."Do you want to eat a fish? I know they used to do it but, do you really?" Cody asks me."They did it, why can't we?" I say."Maybe because they had fire," he says.Good point, I think."So we are just going to be there with absolutely no energy?" I say. I could actually win this

argument."If you want to eat a raw fish, go ahead," he says.I look into the water again. I can't see anything."Never mind, I can't catch it anyways," I say.He smirks. Then I scowl. I lost the argument.“We can survive for at least seven days anyways. When we get to Shanghai, we can find water

and food,”“But even if we do find water and food, how do you know its not infected, or contaminated,” I

ask.“Take your chance?” he says.“Well, it might not make a difference if we die eating and die not eating,” I say.“So take a chance,” he says.I shrug. I look at mom.“Makes sense,” she says to me.“You’re my mom,” I want to say, “You are suppose to side with me,”But instead I mumble, “Sure,”I lay back, and just sit there. Doing just, nothing. I look at the sky, water, mom, then Cody. Then

I just stare at the bottom of the raft. I look at it and think, This is so boring. I look at my hair. I wrap my hair around my finger. I tie my hair in a knot. Then when I let it go, it unties itself. Then I do it again.

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Then I braid my hair. I was one of the few that knew how in school. The instructions were not well explained, but I just tried to do it, and it worked. I had to teach the whole class.

When I finish braiding all my hair, and I get to the tips, I let it go, and it becomes loose. But its still there. I put my hands on my lap, and look out into the line that’s in between the water, and sky. It looks just like a line. The water is reflecting the blue sky, so it just looks like a line in the middle of a blue background.

“I’ll row, you have been doing it long enough,” I tell Cody. He gives me the oars.I row towards the land. I hold the oars tight, careful not to rotate them and let them slip into the

water. We move forward about a feet every circle. But we still have to wait because China is about, a million feet. That is about a million circles.

“Can we just talk? I’m bored and there’s nothing to do,” I say out loud.“You want to listen to a story?” my mom asks.“What is it about?” I ask.“About my great-grandmother’s life. She told my grandmother, my grandmother told it to my

mother, and she told me this story, I’m telling it to you now,” she replies calmly.“Sure,” I said. A family loom, they called it. Something that has been past down through

generations.“So great-grandma was watching television. Then it started going to breaking news. Like news

that is very important that is happening right now,” she explains, “So then the reporter said that there was a new disease break in. And that more than hundred people died by it. Right when they discovered it. ‘The disease takes down your nervous system, and destroys your heart, it attacks your body,” the reporter said, “The president is going to put up walls to keep the infection out, he is going to made a speech live at 10 o’clock am,’ then grandma started to get scared. Then she stayed home, to hear the speech. Her whole family was watching it too,”

“Did she have a daughter at the time?” Cody asks.“Yeah she did, but her daughter was too little to understand anything,” she says, “So the president

says things about groups of people in charge, the Supremes, but they were just called Government People at the time. Then we would have to cut back everything, and everything would be just poor. Then she saw them take down her house, and take out people who were exposed to the disease. And at that time, my grandma was old enough to talk and remember, and she saw her mom kill herself. Because the change was too much,” my mom ended.

“I thought this story would have a happy ending,” I say sadly.“Sorry, but that was the most interesting story there,” she tells me.I look at the land I’m rowing towards.“Do you think that will happen to us?” I ask.“Maybe, I might not even live to see the day,” my mom says.“Can we just talk about something? Good?” I say.“Do you want to hear an old story?” Cody asks me, “Its a long time ago, and its not real,”“Sure, whatever,” I reply.“Once upon a time, in a magical kingdom, was a king, his queen, and their daughter. One day, the

queen died, and the king decided to remarry. The new queen had two selfish daughters of her own. The king’s daughter’s name was Cinderella. Because of cinders near the fireplace. The two daughter made Cinderella do all the hard work. And there mother hated Cinderella.

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“One day, a prince from another land had a ball. He wanted to find a wife and get happily married. Cinderella wanted to go, but she had to clean up ‘somebody’s’ mess. She stayed behind while the mother and daughters go to the ball. Cinderella cried and cried, but then a fairy came to her and said, ‘I am your fairy god-mother. Why are you so sad?’ she said. ‘Because I couldn’t go to the ball,’ Cinderella replied. ‘Bring me a pumpkin, six rats, and two horses,’ the fairy said. Cinderella went to get these things, when she got back, the fairy turned all her things into a carriage, horses, and those people who steer the horses. ‘What about my clothes?’ Cinderella asked. The fairy turned her clothes into a beautiful dress, and Cinderella went away.

“‘Now remember, this will all go away at midnight,’ the fairy said. And When Cinderella went to the ball, she met the prince and they danced the whole time. Then the bells rang midnight, and Cinderella just went off. The prince didn’t even know her name. Then in the hurry, Cinderella dropped her slipper. She didn’t want to waste her time getting it, so she left it there. The prince picked up the slipper, and he promised to find her. Then she got home before her sisters, and nobody knew a thing. Then they heard about a search for the girl. And the slipper didn’t fit any of the girls. He came to their house, and Cinderella put on the slipper, and it fit perfectly. Then she got married to the prince, and they lived happily ever after,” Cody finished.

“I liked that story,” I say, “It had a good ending,” hoping my mom could hear me.“Well, Karina you didn’t tell us a story,” Cody says.“But I have no stories,” I say.“Tell us a story about you,” he says.“I have no stories,” I repeat.“Then tell us a made up story. Just make it up as you go,” he says.“Umm, okay. Once there was a girl. She loved to always be right. One day, she said something

that wasn’t right. But she didn’t know that. Then someone proved her wrong, and she felt ashamed. She spent the whole time crying,” I say.

“This story doesn’t have a happy ending either,” my mom says.“It was more like a life lesson story. Never brag, or one day, someone will give you nothing to

brag about, and you will be shunned,” I say. “And how did you come up with this?” Cody asks me.“I don’t know,” I reply.“Well, I’m going to take a nap. If you get too tired, just wake me up,” mom says.And now that she mentioned it, I was getting tired, but I can’t wake her up now. Right in the

beginning of her nap. I decide to just keep rowing. Who knows, this might actually help my strength. I row, row, row. I look at my mom. Her face just blank. She just lies back a little on the raft, and she just sleeps. Its amazing how people can do that. Just poof sleep. While I have to do pppoooooooooooofff for an hour, and then go to sleep.

“Are you tired?” Cody asks me, “Because I can row,”“No, its okay,” I say. My arms are in so much pain, but I’ve learned to hide that. He looks at me, “Okay,” he says.“Do you go to school?” I ask Cody.“No,” he says.“Why?” I ask.“Because I know too much. I might blow my dad’s operation,” he answers.

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“Oh yeah,” I say. That makes sense. He learns from books in Headquarters, instead of going to school.

“Why?” he asks, “Why ask me that question?”“Just to know more about you. If I am going to live with you for a month or more, I need to at

least know your background information,” I say.“Well what about you?” he says.“You know almost everything about me already,” I answer.He doesn’t say anything.“Almost,” he says.“Do you want to know the whole thing?” I ask him.“Why yes, I would,” he says.“My dad killed himself. Want to know more?” I say. Not too loud, but loud enough. I drop the

oars on the raft.More silence.Then more silence. All you can hear is water.My mom wakes up, “What happened?” “Nothing,” I mumble.“Are you sure? I heard something. And why aren’t you rowing?” she babbled.“Its nothing,” I say again.Cody looks at my mom. I don’t think they know I notice, so I don’t say anything.“Well, okay then,” she says. And she lays back down, and sleeps. I think.I pick up the oars again, and continue rowing. Cody and I don’t exchange any words, and we sit

in silence.

Mom takes the oars now. My arms have been killing me for about 8 hours. I shake them, hoping to shake the pain of too.

“So we are pretty close,” she says.“Yeah, we might even make it today,” Cody says.I worry about what happens when we get there. Anything can happen. But we have a better

chance of dying, than living.“Cody?,” I say, “Can you tell me another story? Its still boring, nothing happening,”“Maybe. Like the one I told earlier?” he asks me.“Yeah,” I say.“Okay… Once upon a time, there was an old man. He was a shoemaker. He lived with his wife

on top of his workshop. He was a hard working man, but he was very poor. One day he only had enough leather for one pair. He cut it out the leather, and he promised to finish the shoes, once he had slept. Then he and his wife went up stairs, and slept. The next morning, they woke up, and there were a pair of shoes on the table! The shoes were amazing! He left them in the window so someone would see it, and buy them. Then someone did, he paid them a high price for it. And then the shoemaker bought leather, to make 2 pairs of shoes. And again, he cut out the leather, and promised to do them the next day, in the

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morning. In the morning, they had 2 amazing pairs of shoes, on the table. And both shoes were bought for a good price. He bought leather for 4 pairs of shoes,”

“Let me guess,” I say, “4 pairs of amazing shoes!”“Let me finish,” he says, “So then it kept happening for weeks. But then the wife suggested they

find out who, or what, has been doing it. He cut out the leather like usual, but instead of going up stairs, they hid behind the curtains. At midnight, the door opened, then these tiny elves-,”

“What’s an elf?” I ask him. It sounds funny when I said it.“Its like a fairy but on the ground,” my mom explains.“So then the elves started to make the shoes, and when they were done, they went out. Then when

they left, they talked about how nice they were, and how thin their clothes were, and also how they didn’t have shoes. So instead of making shoes the next day, they made jackets, scarves, pants, and shoes. They left them on the table, and hid behind the curtain. When the elves came back, they saw the gifts. And they knew that meant thank you, so they wore the clothes and danced. After that, the elves didn’t come back, but the old man and the wife weren’t poor anymore,” he finished.

“I like these stories,” I tell him, “They make me feel, happy,”“Yeah… they had a whole bunch of these stories in Headquarters,” he says.“What do you think they’re doing right now?” I ask.“They are most likely trying to not let the other paupers know,” my mom says.“How do you think Ashley is going to take this?” I wonder out loud.“She will probably figure out something is up. She’s your best friend,” my mom says.I shrug. Sometimes, Ashley is not logical. She just assumes without looking at the facts. She of

course is smart, but she believes almost everything she’s told. Unless her brain has the facts to reject the statement.

“You guys want to play a game to pass time?” Cody asks us, “Its a game where everybody says a word, but you say it so it makes a story,”

“Sure,” I say.“Sure,” mom says.“I’ll go first?” he says. Mom and I nod, “Okay. There,”“Once,” I say.“Was,” my mom says.“A,” Cody says.“Girl,” I say.“That,” my mom says.“Ate,” Cody says.“A,” And when we were done, our story goes like this:There once was a girl that ate a pill. She went into deep sleep. Someone did something to her, and

when she woke up, she was all smart. Then it wore off. The end.It was really short because we got bored fast. Cody ended it because he didn’t know how to

continued it. We tell him, “That was the most boring game ever!”“I don’t know. I thought it would be fun because we are in a situation with a lot of ideas for a

story,” he says.“But being stranded in the middle of an ocean is not fun!” I shout.“How about you take a nap Karina. Its almost night,”

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Cody laughs.“You too,” my mom says.Then I laugh. Its one of those moments when its good to have a mom that does her thing.“Fine,” I tell her.I sit as far away from Cody as possible. But its not that easy when you are on a raft.I close my eyes. Then I just try to sleep. I try to sleep in a fetus position, but I just couldn’t. I

open my eyes, and look over at Cody, he seems to be sleeping. “Go to sleep,” my mom says.“I can’t,” I tell her.“Just close your eyes,” she says.“I did that,” I say.“Do it again,” she says.I don’t argue, and just pretend to sleep.

Chapter 11I wake up not on the raft, but on land.

“What? Are we there already?” I ask. But I don’t know to who. I look around, and no one is there.I hear leaves ruffling. I turn around.“Oh good, you’re awake,” my mom says. I see Cody following behind her.“We did actually see people, they have a tiny civilization here. But they live in tribes,”“Why did no one wake me up?” I say.“Because we didn’t want to,” Cody says.“Come on, there are a couple of people you should meet,” my moms says. I get up from the raft,

and I follow her through the trees and bushes.On the other side, I see 5 people. 2 men, 2 women, and 1 baby boy.“Hi,” a woman says, “I’m Hui Lin,”“Hi,” I say to her, “I’m Karina Mercado,”She smiles, “this is Grace Ying, her husband, Tom, my brother Randy, and my son, Chao,” she

says.“Nice to meet you,” I say. I look around, and I see Chao, he smiles brightly at me. I smile back.“So Karina, we understand that you ran away from San Francisco,” Randy says.“Umm…” I look at my mom to see if I should tell the truth. She nods, “Yes. I did,”I look around more. I see a house, made completely of wood. They must have knew how to build

good houses. Cody was right, they are our best chance. Hui Lin, and Grace Ying’s families must live together. “So would you like to eat?” Grace asks everyone.“We don’t have really good food, but we have fire, and it cooked the fish,” she explains.“Sure,” I say, “Thank you for letting us stay here by the way,”“My pleasure,” she says.We all go inside the wooden house. Then I see that they even have a low table. They must all eat

while sitting on the floor. She brings out a knife, and a fish on a stick.Mom, Cody, and I don’t want to be rude, so instead of asking them how they eat it, we say, “You

first,”“No, we insist,” Tom says, “We have this all the time, you eat it,”

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“No, um, you go first, we don’t want to be rude,” my mom says.“Well, if you insist that we go first, then we shall,” and Grace cuts out part of the fish, and she

just takes that part, and eat it.“Now you have some,” she says.Each of us take as much as Grace, not wanting to be rude and take the entire thing.When we finish the fish, we all just sit there, while Hui goes to put the knife away. So Chao can’t

get it, and cut himself.“What do you guys do for fun? When you’re bored?” Cody asks them.“We play mancala,” Randy says.“How?” Cody asks.I don’t even know what mancala is.“There are a lot of rocks. We also carved the board on the floor,” Randy says, “Would you like to

play?”“Sure,” he says.I watch them. The board is like a table, 6 by 2. They have a 2 long rectangle at the end of each

row of 6. They start with 4 rocks in each square, then Randy takes all the rocks in one square, and ‘distributes’ them out to other squares. I was confused after the first few seconds of the game. But by the looks of their faces, it looks like a hard puzzle.

At the end, they count the rocks in the long rectangles. Then Randy says, “26,” Cody says, “22,”“I won!,” Randy says, “You are really good. You almost got me,”I look at Cody in disbelief. When the family is out hunting, except for Hui and Chao, I talk to

Cody. “How did you know how to play ‘mancala’?” I ask him.“Books. You just have to really read,” he answers.“Well, I don’t want to feel left out. Teach me how to play,” I tell him.“You want to learn how to play?” he asks me.“Yeah,” I say uncertainly.He laughs, “Right,” he laughs as if its a joke.“What’s so funny about me playing mancala?” I ask him.“Well, you don’t seem like the kind of person to be playing mancala,” he tells me.“You don’t seem to be the kind of person to be playing mancala either,” I say back.He looks at me with the ‘really’ face. When one eyebrow is higher than the other.“Just teach me,” I say.“Fine,” he says finally.We walk to the board. I sit across from him.“So theses two rectangles are like your ‘bank’,” he says, “And this one,” he points to the

rectangle on my right, “is yours,”“Then the other one is yours,” I say.“Yep. And the bottom row of your point of view, is your side,” he says, “And then you put 4

rocks in each of these squares,” he gestures to the 6 by 2 table. Then he fills the squares up with rocks, “So now here’s the hardest part. Take all the rocks in one square, and drop one in each square after that one,”

I pick up four rocks in the square that is the farthest right. I am about to drop the rock in a square, when Cody stops me:

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“Also, go anti-clockwise,” he spins his finger around to show me what that is, “And when you pass by your rectangle, drop a rock in that one too,”

“Okay?” I say. I drop a rock in my rectangle, then I put one in the square above the one I picked in the beginning.

“Yeah, go around in a circle kind of,” he says.I drop one into the next 2 squares, then Cody says, “Now pick up all of the rocks from the last

square you dropped,”I pick up the 5 rocks.“Now drop them in each square, after that, going anti-clockwise,” he says.I do exactly what he told me to do.“Now pick them up again,” he says.I pick up the new set of 5 rocks, and drop them in one by one. The last rock lands in my

rectangle. I don’t do anything.“So if it lands in your rectangle, you go again. If it lands in an empty square, its the other person’s

turn. And if it lands in a square that has rocks in it, you drop them in the other squares again. Get it?” he says.

“I think so,” I tell him. I pick up another square. The same square in the beginning. It only has one rock, so I get to go again. Next, I pick up the square second closest to my rectangle.

It lands in an empty square. Then its Cody’s turn. He picks the one farthest away from his ‘bank’, and when the last rock hits the ground, he goes again. He picks the closest one next. And that ends in an empty square. I think hard at my next move, because his turn ended too quickly for someone who taught me how to play this.

Again, I pick the square with one rock, that lands in my rectangle. I pick the farthest one like Cody, and I go again. Then there is that ‘one-rock square’ again.

When we were done, I won, by one. Turns out, I was a natural. Even though I didn’t know how to play the game. There was a point in the game, when Cody has no more rocks on his side, and he was suppose to play again. He said, “When you or the other person has no more rocks, they can take their turn on the other side,”. So then he did. But that was all behind me now because I beat him. But just to make sure that wasn’t a fluke, we played again.

This time he started. And at the end of the game, I saw that the previous game was a fluke. He won by nine. And worst, Hui was watching. She didn’t say anything, but I was sure was thinking, This girl is terrible. And I agree. But at the very least, I knew how to play, it was actually fun. Was. Now I need to beat Cody. Its like war.

“Don’t worry honey,” my mom says to me after the game, “I will beat him for you,” she smiles.“You know how to play?” I ask her.“Sure I do,” she says. Then she walks up to Cody.“Do you want to play?” she asks Cody.“Sure,” he says. “And don’t go easy on me,” she adds.As I watch Cody and my mom play, I notice that she and Cody have the same level of skill. Its

weird too, to see your mom try to avenge your defeat. I look at their rectangles, about the same amount. Near the end, when they only have one rock left, they alternate between turns. Cody, Mom, Cody, Mom… In the end, after 2 minute of that, my mom got it. And when they counted it, they have a tie.

“Go again?” Cody asks my mom.

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“Sure,” she says.And again it was a tie. The only thing different was the fact that they both rubbed their chin and

kept on saying, “Hmmmmmm….,” it was, though, actually intense. Which is weird because you don’t get excited about these kinds of things. Most people get excited on fighting, or sports. But that was our class when we got a lesson on games. I have no idea what they liked back then.

They kept on playing for 3 more games until I just shouted, “Enough! Just stop. Both of you are good, but let me remind you something, Randy beat Cody. The only way you would find out who is better, is if you beat Randy,”

They both looked at each other. “When he Randy coming home?” they ask Hui.“Should be about 5 more minutes,” she says.And the waiting begins.

Chapter 12“Why?” Randy asks again for the fifth time.“Because we want to see who is better at mancala,” mom says.“But why,” he asks again.“Just, you know, to see,” Cody says.“Come on, just do it,” Tom says.“Fine, who first?” Randy says.“Me,” Cody says“Okay,” Randy says.While they play, I go outside. I told them I was going to explore the place. I walk all the way

back to where the raft was. It still there. Since it was light, I drag it back to the house. Though it was hard since there were several branches that hit me in the face on the way.

“Maybe we can use this to sleep on,” I tell them. But nobody heard me because it was now my mom’s turn to play Randy.

I tap Hui’s shoulder. When she looks at me, I point to the raft.“Maybe we can sleep on this,” I whisper to her.She nods. Then she feels the strong, plastic material. She nods again.“Good,” she whispers back.Then she walks to a corner in the house. Chao was sleeping there, and Hui just carefully picks

him up. She motions me to come there, and put the raft down. I set it down so that its like a small bed. Hui puts him down in the raft.

“Thank you,” she says. And we return back to the game.“Yes! I beat you, which also means I beat you,” Mom points to Cody. So that must have meant

that Cody lost to Randy again.And now, since the game is over, everyone starts to notice the raft in the corner. “How did that get in here?” Grace says.“I brought it in, I thought we could sleep on it. Chao’s sleeping on it now,” I tell everyone.“Smart,” Cody says.“Thank you,” I say.“So we got a lot of fish back. Do any of you guys want to eat now?” Tom asks.“Sure,” mom says.

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“Yeah,” I say.“We’ll prepare it,” Grace says.I follow her to another corner in the house. “So how do you cook it?” I ask her.“We make a fire with these two branches. Then we stick a stick in the fish, and we put it in the

fire,” she explains.“Cool,” I say. I watch her rub 2 branches against each other. Then after a few seconds, a fire

forms. She puts the sticks in a circle created by stones. When the fire grows a small size, she sticks a stick into the fishes mouth, and it pokes out at the other side. The fire starts to grow even bigger, and that is when Grace puts the fish above the fire, and starts rotating it.

“How do you know when to stop?” I ask her.“You look at the color,” she replies.She keeps on rotating and rotating, until the fish is a brownish color. The cooked scent of fish

fills the room quickly, and Grace puts out the fire by pouring water on it. She takes the fish, and brings it over to the table. Hui holds it while Grace gets a knife.

“I’m going to wake up Chao,” Grace says. She drops the knife carefully on the table, and shakes Chao awake.

“Its dinner time,” she tells him. And she carries him to the table.“Who wants to go first?” Tom says.“Emma should go first, the best mancala player,” Randy says. “I would be honored,” she says. She takes a Grace-sized piece from the fish and eats it. “Delicious,” she says.Everyone after that just eats. Like we were rehearsed for it. One after the other, and no fighting.“Does anyone want seconds?” Grace asks us. Grace takes the skeleton, and she throws it outside.“No thank you,” I say. I stop eating right there. Even though fish is new to me, I could get bored

of it too. And I have. This is just like the mashed potatoes again.“Yeah, we shouldn’t eat anymore. We don’t want to waste your resources,” mom says.“Nonsense, we have the entire forest to find wood,” Tom says.“No, we really shouldn’t,” I say.“No, we will make more, we need more meat on our bones,” Randy says.Grace gets up, and she takes a fish from the net on the ground. I watch her from the table. She

squats down to make the fire. She throws it in the stone pit, and she takes the fish, and punctures it.When the fire is the right size, she starts to rotate the fish. You can hear the cracking of the fire,

as some of the water comes off the fish. The fish starts to turn brown. It looks really crisp. Then Grace stops rotating, and she takes the fish off the fire. She then pours water on the fire to extinguish it.

“Okay. Second fish,” she says.“Grace, you should go first, for cooking the fish,” Cody says.“Why thank you Cody,” she says. She takes the knife, and she takes a piece near the tail. I hear

the crunch of the skin while its being cut. When she eats it, we all hear another crunch. “Mmmm,” she hums.“I want to eat!” Chao shouts. He reaches for the knife, then Hui takes the knife, and cuts a tiny

piece out for Chao. He eats it quickly.“Mmmmm,” he says.

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I smile. What do young children know about good food? Maybe a lot, but its most likely nothing. Though I’m still going to eat. If Grace and the crisp skin made me hungry, I am eating.

Since we sit around the table, we take turns eating by going around in a circle.When its my turn, I look around the fish to find the most delicious looking spot. When I find it, I

take that entire spot. Its small, which is good. People would think I’m greedy if I take a giant spot. I put the piece in my mouth, and I chew slowly, to savor it.

The whole room is filled with an amazing fish sense, and a chorus of ‘Mmmm’s. I look outside, it was dark.

“We should be going to sleep now,” I call out, food, still in my mouth.“Oh yeah. I’ll throw this away,” Hui says. She takes the bones, and throws it out the door.“So Chao sleeps on the raft with Hui?” I ask.“Yeah,” Hui answers.“We all just sleep together but, now we have new guest, you guys can sleep in the different corner

of the room?” Randy says, “Unless you guys want to sleep together with us,”“We’ll sleep in a different corner,” mom says.“Okay, so its settled,” Tom says.I walk to a corner that is not occupied. I sleep in between Mom and Cody. Mom on my left, Cody

on my right. I lay down on my right side, facing Cody. When he sees me looking at him, he smiles.I hear Hui, trying to get Chao to sleep. He talks on and on about things.“Do you ever wonder about starships? Like, are they real?” he wonders.“Shhh. Go to sleep,” Hui says.I hear nothing after. The whole house is dark, but there is some light going through the door. But

once its midnight, it will be pitch black.I close my eyes. Just wondering about what will happen next. We fought through the Supremes.

We escaped San Francisco. We argued several times. And we landed here.I find Cody’s hand in the dark, and I hold it. Still closing my eyes. But when I open them a little,

I see Cody. Eyes closed, and smiling. I close my eyes, and smile too. Unable to hold it back.

Chapter 13“Breakfast!” Grace says.“I was out on a midnight hunt, when I found this knife on the ground,” Tom says, “Now 2 people

can eat at the same time!”“But if there was a knife on the ground, isn’t there someone out there?” I ask. Scared.“It might just be from the other tribes,” he shrugs, “But I washed it, and we can use it now,”“Okay. Grace and Emma, Hui and I, Randy and Cody, and Karina and Chao,” Tom says

randomly, “Karina, Hui will cut the meat for Chao,” he adds.Mom and Grace take out the two knives, and cuts out a piece for themselves, careful not to cut

each other. The fish is not as amazing as yesterday's, but it wasn’t bad. Tom and Hui take a piece. Then Randy and Cody. Then Hui and I. We take almost the same-sized piece of fish. I was getting bored of it already, and Hui was just cutting out for Chao.

“Why are you eating so little?” Hui says when she notices my piece is small.“I don’t want to be too greedy,” I reply.We go in pairs to finish the rest. When we were done, I feel tired. Not dizzy, but just tired. I lay

down to where I was sleeping last night. It feels better. I look at my nails, they are dirty under the nail. I

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clean it by using my thumb to take it out. Then I bite them. They were getting to be pretty long, so I bit them to keep it short. I look up at the wooden ceiling. Staring at it. And letting all my thoughts go.

Why am I here?Does Cody still like me?How does Chao think?What happens if I go back in time?Does Tom like Hui?What happened to Chao’s dad?Why don’t I hunt?Is this how we’ll live the rest of our lives?We need a plan.We can’t stay here forever.What happened to Ashley?Why can’t I figure when I breath and how much?The list of thoughts go on. But it would take too long to think over. Cody walks over. And he’s standing, so he blocks my view of the ceiling.“Are you okay?” he asks me.“I’m fine. Just tired,” I look at him. I could see something in him, “Are you okay?” I ask him

back.“Yeah,” he answers. He joins me on the ground. Laying down and looking at the ceiling.“No,” he says, “I’m just, in a lot of stress,”“How?” I ask.“Planning out our next thing. What are we going to do? We can’t stay here forever. We can’t be

always hiding from the Supremes. How are we going to fight them?” he tells me.“So the stress is planning the big thing out,” I say.“Yeah. And I want to get this over with. I don’t want to hunt too,” he says, “Even more stress,”“I don’t know how you’re feeling, but pretty bad,” I pull myself forward. And I see mom, playing with Chao. She’s trying to teach him some other

words, like our names.“Karina,” she says slowly.“Car-ren-ah,” Chao recites.Mom shakes her head, “Karina,” she says again.“Car-in-ah,” Chao says.Mom laughs, “Close. Karina,”“Karina,” he says.Mom smiles, “Yay,” she says. Holding her fist in the air.Chao celebrates too, he screams out ‘Yay!’ while holding up two fist.I turn, Cody’s beside me. I look at him, and he looks fine. He doesn’t look like he’s gone out of

his mind. But he does look like he’s not taking a shower for three days now.He turns too, and he notices I’m looking at him.“So...what do you think?” he asks, “About our next move,”“I don’t know,” I tell him. I don’t know. So many things can happen in one move. Like me

signing a contract. Now look at us. “Mom!” I shout, “What do you think about our next thing? Our plan for the future,”

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“I don’t know, but we can stay here. Its fun to play with a little kid again,” she says. She’s smiling and playing with Chao. Its probably a long time since Mom played with me. And she loves children. There cute and don’t know any better.

“Maybe we should get a disguise, and go back to San Francisco,” Cody suggest.“But they aren’t going to let us in. They might think we’re infected,” I remind him.“Sneak in,” he says.“But how are we going to get to the US again. Its a long journey from here to there. And I don’t

know where our oars went,” I say.“Come on. We have to think of something,” he says, “Any plan that might have a shot at

succeeding,”“Then we have to make it together. Or maybe we can ask Hui’s family to join us. They will be a

lot of help,” I say.“Depends on the plan,” Cody says.“Well… why don’t we make the plan with them?” I say.“You know what? Lets just take a rest. We’ll figure this all out tomorrow,” he says.“But I thought you needed to get over this?” I ask. How does he stress over something that

doesn’t even have a time limit?“I do, but I also need to rest. I have been at this since I got on the raft,” he tells me.“Okay,” I say.“Good,” I hear my mom saying as she plays with Chao.He laughs. I look at them. Mom is making a silly face. She also makes a weird sound to go with

it.The other adults in the house are playing mancala. Trying to feed their boredom.“Yes!” I hear Grace say.Everyone here is doing something. Except Cody and I. Or maybe we are doing something,

nothing.

“We are going to go to our afternoon hunt,” Randy says. And he waves goodbye, along with Grace, and Tom.

Chao is already sleeping, or else he would have wanted to come with. And that would be dangerous for him. Hui is watching him. And Mom, Cody, and I, are playing mancala. Me against Mom. Which I am certain I will loose.

“Are you sure about this?” Mom asks me.“I can do this,” I tell her.“Can you handle being beat by your own mother?” my mom says.“Can you handle being beat by your own daughter?” I say back to her.Cody sits there. Open mouthed. He can’t believe that we would talk to each other like this. But

then he shrugs, ‘Its them’.We set up the board and rocks. I carefully put the rocks in the center of the square, so they won’t

get pushed when we drop the rocks. “Do you want to go first?” Mom asks me.

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“Sure,” I say. We play. Her first turn, turned into more turns. I didn’t even play yet, and she already has about 10 rocks.

I look at the board, and I calculate all the possibilities in my head. Then I pick one, and it raised my score to one. But it didn’t stop, when I got to a big bunch of rocks in a square. It gives me two more. Then I couldn’t play, because the rock ended in an empty square.

“Karina, your mom’s going to beat you,” Cody tells me.Mom stares at the board for a long time. She puts her chin on her hands, and thinks. I also look at

the board, trying to see if I can plan my next move.She picks one square that doesn’t get her far, and it stops only 2 squares after. I look at it now, chin in hand, and hand on arm. I pick the one that has the most rocks. And just

my luck, I got to go again. Then since there was one rock in the square closest to my rectangle, I go again. And now I have almost the same number of rocks as she has.

In the end, I lost, and mom tells me, “You can’t beat the master,”. I look down. I hold my head with my hand, and shake my head.

“I should have never done it in the first place,” I think to myself. I don’t take things that easy. If I get embarrassed, I will get my revenge. No matter who it is.

“I’m gonna go explore the place more,” I tell them. I slowly walk out the door.I look at the trees. Then I look at the sky. I walk through the trees and bushes, and more trees and

bushes. The branches scratch my skin when I walk past them. I hear the bushes moving, and I stay still.“But they’re nice,” I hear someone say. It sounds like Randy.“Yeah but, we just can’t. They have ruined our family,” and that sounds like Tom.“How?” I hear Grace say. It sounds like they are having a conversation about us.“They could use up all our food because we need to feed 8 now. And they are using too much

space when we are sleeping,” Tom says.“Sure but, they are nice people,” Grace says.I move in closer to hear it. Then I hear a breaking sound. I look down, to see a twig underneath

my feet. I don’t move a muscle and I think I stopped breathing too.“What was that?” Randy says, “Who’s there?”I don’t move or talk. Instead, I, as slowly as I can, step off the little branch, and slowly move my

way to the hut. I carefully move the trees out of my way, and put them back slowly too. I feel myself taking in quiet and deep breaths.

“It was probably nothing,” Tom says.But still, I move slowly. Careful not to step on any twigs. And when I think I am out of their

range, I run as fast as I can to the house. I burst out of the trees, and catch my breath.Cody comes out, and he helps me in, seeing that I am really tired.“What happened? Are you okay?” he asks me.I look around to see if Hui is anywhere close to us. She’s sleeping with Chao. Taking an

afternoon break.“Well,” I gasp, “I was wandering in the forest when I heard Tom, Randy, and Grace talking about

us,”“And?” Cody asks me.“What happened?” my mom says when she notices me.“She was in the forest when she hear Tom, Grace, and Randy,” Cody explains.

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“Yeah and,” I take a deep breath, “Tom doesn’t like us. I think he was planning something for us,”

“Why?” Mom asks me.“Because I heard one of them saying, ‘But they’re nice,’ which means he could have told them to

do something bad to us,”“Makes sense,” Cody says, “Lets leave,” he suggest.“We can’t,” I say, “If we leave, they might know that we heard them. And they might just find us

and do whatever,” “But if we hide well enough, they can’t find us,” Cody says.“Where are we going to go anyways?” Mom says.“I don’t know,” he says to her.“Wait,” I say. Thinking of all the factors in the problem.“Let’s get a knife. If they try to attack us, we’ll kill them,” I say.“Where are we going to get a knife?” Cody says. I look at him. I think back.“Rocks,” I whisper.“Rocks?” he says.“Yeah, that’s how we escaped. I carved the rocks so they were very small, but they were really

sharp,” Mom explains.“We have a lot of rocks but how are we going to carve it in time?” I ask.“In time for what?” Cody asks.“We have to be ready at all times,” I reply.“We have to start now, Karina, get us three rocks,” my mom orders.I run outside. I look down at the dirt, and I see some rocks in it. I pick the biggest ones up, and I

run back inside.“How about these?” I ask my mom.“Good,” she says, “Can you get us a stone?” “Why?” I ask.“To carve it,” she replies calmly.“Fine,” I say. I go outside, and look around the forest for a stone. I picked a random one, and

carried it to the house.“Okay, now rub the rock on the stone at a slanted angle,” she orders.I rub the rock really fast, so I can get my weapon fast. All you can hear was a scratching sound

made by the rocks. It was so loud that Hui almost woke up from it. We stopped doing anything immediately.

I grip the rock tight in my hands, and I move it up and down as fast as I can. I look at the rock every couple seconds. And you can see it getting flat a little every time. I look at it, and it was flat. I turned the rock at another angle, and I rubbed that too. Doing it really fast, and checking each time.

Hui turns on to her other side. But she wasn’t awake.“Let’s do this another time,” Mom suggests, “Hui might wake up, and the hunt should be over

soon,”Cody and I nod.“Where are we going to put this all?” I whisper.

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“Put it near the side of the house. It won’t look like anything is going on with a bunch of rocks,” Cody says.

I nod. I pick up the rocks in my right hand, and I pick up the stone with both. I curl my fingers in a way that makes a tiny pocket for the rocks. I walk out the door carefully and slowly because the stone is heavy, and I do not want to drop it. I look around the house, and I put the stone against the side, and the rocks,under the stone.

I walk back inside. And just as I do, I hear the bushes move again, and outcome Tom, Randy, and Grace, with 3 fishes.

“Hi,” Grace says, “Look, we got 3 good fishes to eat for today,”“Good,” I say.“Someone should wake up Hui,” Tom says.“Oh yeah,” Cody says. He walks toward the raft, and he lightly shake Hui.“Wake up,” he whispers. Chao was still in the raft, and he didn’t want to wake him up.Cody shakes Hui a little harder this time. And she slowly opens her eyes.“The others are back from the hunt,” he whispers.Hui looks over at them, and then she slowly gets up while Cody stands up, and gives her space.“You guys are back,” she says.“Yep,” Randy says, “And we got 3 fishes today,”“Good,” Hui says.I lie down on my back. In the corner where I slept. My hands on my head. And my eyes closed.

Then I open them wide open. They could attack us whenever. Maybe even when we sleep.I get up, and walk to Cody.“They could attack us whenever. Try to keep your guard up,” I whisper to him.“Yeah, I know. How about you sleep at a certain point, then your mom, and then me. There will

always be at least one of us watching to see if someone attacks,” he says.“Good plan,” I whisper, “Tell my mom that,”He nods. He walks over to my mom casually. She’s with Grace, talking about fish. Then Grace

leaves for a reason, and Cody turns to my mom to tell her the plan. After 2 minutes, I see my mom nod. She got it.

Cody walks to me, and he nods. I nod back.“Time to eat!” Grace says.Suddenly, I become really self-conscious. What if they poisoned our food? Then I think of a plan.“Tom, why don’t you go first,” I say. If its poisoned, he would die. Unless he turns it around to

me, then I would insist he eat it. But if he does eat it, and he doesn’t die, I’ll eat from that same spot.“No, no, no, you go first. You are our guest,” he says politely.“No, no, no I insist,” I say. Smiling brightly.He grins, “Okay,” and he cuts off a piece in the middle.“Your turn,” he tells me.I cut off a piece near the gap that was his.“Let me go get the other knife,” Randy says.“That would be convenient,” Grace says.Randy and Grace eat. Watching where the knives point. Then they pass their knives down to

Cody and Hui. Cody is cutting a piece near mine’s, careful to not get a big piece. Then he passes his knife down to Mom, and she also gets one close to mines. Hui gets a tiny one for Chao.

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Hui grabs the fishes skeleton by the tail, and she swings the fish, and lets go. The skeleton falls on the ground, and it breaks apart.

Hui, Grace, Tom, and Randy have a private conversation while Chao goes to sleep. Cody, Mom, and I also have a private conversation of our own.

“What are we going to do? For all we know, they could be planning to kill us now,” Cody whispers.

“Stay calm,” mom whispers to him, “I got a plan. I will sleep now, then when I wake up, you can sleep, and we will watch you, then Cody. We’ll do this until we get the rocks ready,”

“Okay, goodnight,” Cody and I whisper to her.She walk to the corner, and close her eyes.I watch the group from the corner of my eye. But they don’t seem to be doing anything

suspicious. They are just talking, like regular people. Cody watches my mom. Seeing if anything is out of the ordinary.“Hey,” I whisper to Cody, “Do you think, they might just leave us?”“No,” he says, still watching my mom, “Why would they leave this house that probably took

several days to make?”“I don’t know, but they can do that,” I tells him. Eyes fixed on Tom, trying to read his lips from

the side.“Just stick to the plan for now,” he tells me.I look at them for a while. Then they just stop talking, and go.“Hey Karina,” Graces says to me, “Do you want to play mancala?”“No,” I say quietly.“Why not?” she asks me.“I don’t know. Bored,” I answer.“Well okay,” she says. She walks away.I have to keep my eye on four people at once, without looking suspicious. I turn my head around

from time to time, to see if anything is going on. Grace and Tom are talking about us maybe, because Tom keeps making a violent motion. Randy and Hui are talking, but I think they are talking about Chao since they are close to him. And I don’t think they would talk about violence with a little kid around, kids can trick you into thinking they are asleep, but their not. Something tricky about kids.

“Okay, you can sleep Karina,” my mom says to me at night. Now I sleep, and Cody and my mom watch me. And I drift away.

Chapter 14“Okay,” Cody says in a sleepy voice, “I’ll sleep,”“I hate to tell you this Cody, but you have to at least make it through breakfast. They might start

wondering why you didn’t get enough sleep last night,” my mom informs him.“Fine,” he says grouchy.“Breakfast is here!” Grace says.“Lets give a big thanks to Grace,” my mom says.

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“Thank you,” Grace says. She takes the knife, and cuts out a piece in the middle. Another fish that she cooked well done.

“I think my husband Tom should join me in this,” she says. She gives Tom the other knife, and when he gets his piece, he and Grace both eat it at the same time.

Everyone smiles.“Cody, you eat it,” I tell Cody, “I’ll eat with you,”“Sure,” he says, with the most awake voice he can muster.I make an insert at the white circle, and expand it. The piece is perfect, and it holds all the great

qualities of Graces cooking. Cody waits for me, and he does the same thing, though a little sloppy. But at least his hand is fine.

Mom, Chao, Hui, and Randy all eat after. And when the bones are thrown out, Cody goes straight to sleep.

“He’s so tired,” Randy says, “What happened?”I start to panic a little. I don’t want anyone to know our plan. So I say, “He heard a noise last

night, and it was keeping him awake the whole time,”“Oh. Then we might just be in a deep sleep,” he says.“Yeah,” I say. Randy leaves, and I turn my attention to Tom. He still looks as innocent as

anybody else in this world. I look at Grace, Hui, and Randy, but they seem to be doing nothing out of the ordinary. Grace is just playing mancala with Randy, Hui is playing with her baby boy Chao, and Tom is just, thinking.

Then he looks at the sky outside.“We should go hunting,” he then says.Grace and Randy stop playing, and they get their supplies, and wave goodbye to us. They do it so

quickly and smoothly, Chao notices nothing.“You should take a break,” Mom tells Hui, “Stop playing with Chao, and just relax and sleep,”“But how would I get Chao to sleep?” she asks.“What did you do last time?” Mom asks.“He just tired himself out,” Hui replies.“Then I’ll get him tired. You go to sleep, and I’ll take care of Chao,”“Thank you,” Hui says, and she walks toward the raft, and sleeps.Mom looks back at her, to make sure she’s sleeping. Then she whispers, “Come on. Help me get

Chao to sleep,”“How?” I ask. “Make him run a lot,” my mom suggest.“Okay,” I say. Then I go towards Chao, and say in the most momiest voice, “You want to race?”He smiles and nods.“Okay, let’s go!” I say. He runs, but since he was still very little, I was ahead of him. I jog and

make it look like I’m losing. Then when he stops, I tell him, “You won. Want to go again?”He giggles, but still nods. We do this for 5 times, and Chao is already sleepy. I stop, and I put him in my arms, rocking him.

His eyes close slowly.I set him in the raft, just in mommy’s arms. Then I turn to my mom, and say, “Okay, lets go carve

the rocks.” I go outside to the side of the house. And exactly where I put it, the rocks and stone are still

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there. I carry the heavy stone in the house, carefully. Mom points to a spot in the corner of the house, and I set the stone there.

I look at the rocks. Finding the one that is mine. The one with 2 flat sides. I give the other rocks to my mom.

I set the rock on the stone where when I carve it, it will give me a nice triangular point. When I find the point, I go scratching like crazy. Some of the rock turns into dust, and its everywhere. I shift my hand a little so my mom can carve too. At this angle, I can’t carve as fast as I did, so the process goes slower. Every now and then, I turn my head to Hui and Chao, to make sure none of them are spying on us.

Cody wakes up a while later. And he sees what we are doing. He starts to reach for his rock, but I just grab it, and give it to him.

“Thanks,” he murmurs.“So is this a good plan,” Mom asks us.“Depends really. Cody’s schedule makes him really sleepy,” I answer.“If we can finish the rocks fast, he won’t have to worry. But if it takes a long time, he’ll get used

to it,” she says.“Come one, its your turn anyways,” Cody tells my mom.“I want to finish this fast, I’ll help,” Mom replies to him.The room on the rock becomes less. But at least we made some progress. The stone has scratch

marks all over it. Some areas even have deep lines in them.“Do you think this is good enough?” I ask. The point on my rock is not that sharp, but it could do

the trick. Its not long and point, its close to flat.“Try and make it more pointy. And you have a lot of time, me and Cody don’t even have a point

on ours. Try to perfect yours,” she tells me.“Okay,” I say while I get ready to carve the angle. I have to make another flat part so that when it

grows, it will have a sharp angle with the point. I look at my mom’s and Cody’s rock. Mom’s has only a flat area. I guess she was trying to make

it so that it would already be sharp. Cody’s looks like it has more progress on it, but it is still not done. I look at the sky like Tom did.

“Let’s do this another time, they’ll be coming home soon,” I warn Mom and Cody.“Yeah,” they both say.I carry the rocks and stones like I did last time. Only this time, I positioned my rock so that it

wouldn’t poke me. I carry them to the side of the house like last time. Then I jogged back. “Done,” I say.“Mancala. We have to look like we did something,” Cody says.We all walk to the carved board, and start to play. Doing it randomly so it looked like we did this

the whole time. Since they weren’t home yet, we talked more.“Maybe we should just go to another tribe,” Cody suggest, “Start over,”“Yeah, good,” I say.“We’ll do that once we figured all this out,” Mom says.“Too bad about Chao,” I say, “He doesn’t have a clue. And he was so fond about Mom,”“Yeah. I’ll miss him,” she says. But I’m not sure if she means we’re leaving. People don’t say

‘I’ll miss him’ unless they were going to go.“Poor kid,” Cody says.

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“Yeah,” I say. Then a moment of silence. Chao was such an adorable kid, but he has to live with these kinds of people.

“Everyone seemed so nice,” Mom says. “But now only we live or them,” Cody says, “They might kill us, or we might defend ourselves,

and kill him in the process,”“Okay,” I say, “So now we just let time do its thing,”“Yep,” Cody says.The leaves start to shake. Randy, Tom, and Grace are back. We all hurry to make a move. Cody,

and I have a silent, quick fight about who will play mancala. Then I just let Cody go.“Hi guys,” I hear Randy say.“Oh hi,” I say to him, “Me and Cody are just playing mancala,”“Cool,” Grace says. She walks towards us, and watches us play.“So how many fish today? We still have one more you know?” Mom points to the fish near the

‘kitchen’ corner.“I know, and we only got one fish today,” Grace says sadly.“Oh, better luck next time,” Cody says. He stops his turn, then I play.“I’m gonna take a nap,” my mom says.Cody and I look at each other, then we nod a little. Evcn though we are watching Grace, we need

to look at the others too.Grace turns her head to look at something, then she turns away quickly.“You guys need to get out,” she says urgently.“Why?” I ask. Though I am sure of what is so urgent.“Tom wants to hurt you, he’s going to drop you guys in the ocean,” she whispers quickly.“But we can swim,” Cody says.“It doesn’t matter if you can or not, he’ll find a way to kill you guys somehow,” she says. She

turns her head again, to look at Tom, then she turns back.“You guys need to go now,” Grace says.“Where?” Cody and I both ask quietly.“You guys can go to the tribe near here. Keep walking left of the house. Just tell Brett that you

guys know me, he’ll help you guys,”“How much time do we have?” Cody asks.“Tomorrow night. Leave tonight,” she says.“Okay. Cody, wake up my mom. We have a new plan,” I tell Cody.He nods, then stands up to walk to my mom.“Thank you,” I tell Grace. I hug her.“No problem. Get ready,” she tells me. Then she turns again, frightened that Tom might have

heard her.“It okay. And thank you very much,” I put my hands on top of hers. Thanking her was the very

least I can do.“I’ll make lunch,” she says later.“Okay,” I say.Mom walks up to me.“So its settled,” she says.“Yeah,” I say.

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“Lunch!” I hear Grace say.Everyone goes to the low-rise table. Cody, Mom, and I stay as far away from Tom as possible.“So… Who first?” Randy asks.“I’ll go. Anyone else?” I say.“I’ll do it,” my mom says. Since we know that Tom won’t make his first move yet, we aren’t

afraid to eat the food.We both eat large (but not selfish) pieces. We pass our knives to the person next to us.“Grace,” mom says.“Randy,” I say.They both take a piece. The fish today is a little undercooked. But it won’t matter once we leave

this place.“The fish is a little under done. I’m sorry guys,” Grace says.I know how she feels. Or at least I think I know how she feels. She feels like she did something

wrong. But it was the only way for her to do something right. That was how I felt when Ashley cried, that I felt like I did something bad to her.

“That’s okay. We still got to eat a cooked piece of fish,” Randy says.Once Randy and Grace were done, Randy gave his knife to Cody, and Grace gave her knife to

Tom. Cody looks a little nervous, but it doesn’t show much. Cody waits for Tom to pick a spot first. When Tom does pick a spot near the top, Cody goes right

in for the bottom. Tom gives his knife to Hui. Cody cuts out a small piece for Chao.“Thank you,” Hui says when she’s done eating her piece. She takes the piece Cody cut out, and

gives it to him. And Chao takes it, and eats it with his tiny little teeth.“Okay,” Randy says. He takes the fish’s thin bones, and throws it.“I’m bored. What should we do now?” I ask Cody.“I don’t know,” he shrugs, “Chopsticks?”I look at him, then I shrug and say, “Okay,”I stick out both of my pointing fingers. And he does the same.“You go first,” Cody says.“Okay,” I say. I ‘combine’ my fingers, so that there’s only 2 finger on my right hand. He does the

same. Then I make it so that I have my pointing fingers out again.“Oh come on! Do something!,” he says. And that was my strategy, forcing people to make a

move first, without actually forcing them.“You do something,” I reply.He gives up, and he uses his 2 fingers to hit my left hand. It now has 3 fingers. I hit Cody’s hand,

and I instantly win.“I win!” I say.“No, that was no fair. Rematch,” he says. I get into the starting position. He hits my left hand. Then I transfer one finger to the other hand.

Then he hits that hand. I have 2 fingers on each hand, and he only has one. I hit one of his hands, and he has three now on that hand. He hits one of my hands, then I hit his. So now, I have 2 fingers, and he has one finger. I go back to starting position, because I can. Since he has no choice, he hits one of my fingers, and I transfer them again. Then he hits the other one, and I have 2-2. He makes the same mistake he does after. And I win again.

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“You know what, I’m not even gonna play,” Cody finishes.I smile. He walks away, and I turn to my mom and say, “Mom. Do you want to play?”“No,” she says. I knew she was watching Cody and I play. She didn’t like Chopsticks when I was

little. She would always get stress because I would always beat her.“Really?” I ask her.“Yes,” she says.“Wait. Do you mean ‘yes’ as in-,” I start to get confused.“I mean I’m not going to play,” Mom says, and she walks away.“Hey Grace,” I call out to her. She’s just sitting alone, “Do you want to play Chopsticks?”“Sure,” she says gloomily.“Are you okay?” I say.“Its just, you guys leaving,” she mumbles the last part.“I know. But thank you for warning us,” I say, “and for giving us food,” I add.She sighs, “You're welcome,”I look around. Maybe I just don’t understand how she feels. I mean, she has all of this, and she’s

still sad. “Well, I’ll talk to you later. I need to talk to my mom,” I tell her. She nods, then looks down.I walk up to mom, who is playing with Chao again.“Mom, do you know how Grace feels?” I ask her. The question is complicated, but you can

understand it.Mom looks at Grace.“No,” she answers, “Why?”“I just want to comfort her, and tell her everything’s okay, but I don’t know how,” I say.“So you need to know how she feels first,” Mom says.“Yeah,” I say.“Just, try to ‘be’ her,” my mom advises me.“Um, okay,” I say. I close my eyes, and imagine that I just told someone, that my husband told

me that he was going to kill them. I open my eyes back. This is impossible. I think. I have never done things, that Grace has done, I don’t know how to be her.

“I can’t,” I tell my mom.“Just don’t worry about her. Worry about yourself,” my mom says.I nod. I walk towards Cody, who is laying down on the ground.“Hey,” I say to him. I sit down near him. “Hey,” he says, “What are we going to do after?” he asks me.“I don’t know. I think that we will just keep moving around. We’ll never be in one place,” I tell

him.“You might be right,” he says.“So, whats your favorite color?” I ask out of nowhere.“Its a little too late for that but, blue,” he answers.“Oh,” I say.“Your’s?” he asks me.“Turquoise,” I answer.“What’s the difference?” he says. He sits up next to me.“It depends, what blue are you talking about?”

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“Blue is blue,” he says.“No, its not,” I argue back, “There is sky blue, navy blue, turquoise, periwinkle, teal, which one?”“I don’t know?” he says.I calm down. I’m over reacting. It doesn’t matter that he doesn’t know the shades of blue, it

matters if we live or not.“Okay. So now I know what to expect from you in the next week or so,” he says.I want to say something to him, but I close my mouth, and calm myself down. Breathing in full

deep breaths. “I’m just nervous and scared okay,” I talk back to him.“Fine, you have an excuse,” he says.Again, I have to calm myself down. And when I am calm enough, I realized, “How did I ever fall

for you?” although I don’t say that outloud.Instead I say, “I’m going to go now,” and I walk to mom again.“Hey,” I say.“Hey. You want to play with us? We’re just playing around,” she says.“No, I rather just watch,” I tell her.“Well okay. You are free to join us whenever,” my mom tells me.I watch her play ‘peek-a-boo’ with Chao. And he’s always laughing. At what? I don’t know. Just

a baby thing.I sigh. I think back to when everything was normal. When Ashley was telling me that nothing

will change. Well, it did Ashley, everything changed. How are you doing? Then Ashley would reply by saying, “Great,”. But now her answer would be, “Where are you?” instead. I don’t know Ashley. I just don’t know.

Chapter 15Cody shakes me awake.“We’re going now, try not to make a sound,” he whispers to me.I slowly stand up. My mom is already up and near the doorway. She glances at Tom, then

motions us to come. Cody and I slowly tiptoe to her. We pass Tom, and he’s just sleeping soundlessly. It almost makes me afraid that he might not even be sleeping.

“This way,” Mom whispers. She gestures to the left, and we walk slowly there.Then before we can make another step, Cody says, “What about the rocks?”“Right,” my mom says, “Karina get the rocks,”“Okay,” I whisper. I walk slowly across the doorway of the house. Then I turn to the side, and

pick up the rocks.“Okay,” I whisper when I return back to Mom and Cody.“Okay,” my mom says. We keep walking slow. I watch my feet, careful not to trip or step on anything again. I look back

at the house. I turn back, and keep walking.“We are pretty far away from the house. Let’s run it,” I suggest.“No, we can’t risk anything,” Mom says.We keep tiptoeing into the trees. We avoid walking into the branches that stick out. “So what do we do again?” Cody asks.

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“So the plan is: Get out of their house by tomorrow night (done), keep walking left of the house until we see another tribe. Then we talk to Brett,” my mom recites.

“Okay,” Cody and I say. I try to follow his shadow because it was too dark for me to see. I can’t hear them as much because we are walking slowly and not making a sound.

“Are we going to make it by tonight? We need our sleep,” I whisper in the dark. I am still tired because I just woke up. And my eyes are still too weary.

“Maybe. We can take a nap when we get to the other tribe,” my mom answers.“Fine,” I say. I keep walking. Following the shadow that I am most certain, is Cody. I feel the

dirt between my toes. It feels almost, normal. The walk seems forever, and my legs start to feels sore.

“I think we’re here,” mom says. I follow Cody out onto this small clearing. Then I see a wooden house too, like Hui’s.

“What do we do? They’re probably sleeping right now,” I say.“Knock?” Cody suggest. He sees my mom and I stare at him. Then he says, “Do you guys have a

better plan?”We say nothing.“That’s what I thought,” Cody says. He walks up to the house, and gently knocks on the wall near

the doorway.We hear nothing. I look inside a little, and everyone is still asleep. Cody knocks again.Tap Tap Tap“Huh?” I hear a groaning voice say.“Hello?” Cody says.“Who’s there!” the voice says, frightened. It sounds like a boy.“Its some people. We need help,” Cody says. I can see a small figure sitting up, and walking. He

looks small. But I can’t tell exactly because I can’t see that well.“Dad,” I hear the boy say. I think he’s shaking his father awake.“What?” another voice says. “There are some people outside,” the boy answers.I hear a lot of moving. Then a man comes out, holding a knife in one hand. He must think we are

here to attack him.“Who are you?” he asks us. Holding up his guard.“I’m Cody, that’s Karina, and that’s her mom, Emma,” Cody introduces, “Are you Brett?”“Yes. Why are you guys here?” Brett says.“We just came from a tribe nearby. One of the people were going to kill us, and another person

told us to escape by coming here. Do you know Grace?” Mom summarizes.“Yes, why?” Brett asks.“Grace told us you would help us,” Cody says.“Sure, I will help you,” Brett says. And he calms down, and lets us in.“You guys can sleep there,” Brett points to a small corner near the back.“Thank you,” I say.“No problem,” he says, “Jerry, go to sleep,” Brett tells the 6 year old boy.

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“Who are they?” Jerry asks.“Just some people that need help. Now go to sleep, we can talk about this in the morning,”They both go to the corner where they came from, and lay down to sleep. I look at the corner,

there are more people in there too, about 5 more people.“Come on Karina. Now you can sleep,” my mom tells me.I lay down on the wooden ground, and try to sleep. But I can’t. I keep my eyes closed, and try to

change into a new position. I can’t sleep. I hug something, or someone. I think it might be my mom, but it could also be Cody. It doesn’t matter who I hug though. I could hug anyone.

Chapter 16“I’m Karina,” I say to the tribe.“Hi,” they say shyly. I count the group in my mind. 4 women, and 2 men. Plus Brett and Jerry

that’s 3 men, and 1 boy.“So…,” Mom says awkwardly. We stand there. Looking down at the ground because we don’t

know what to do.“Okay,” Brett says finally, “So ummm… this is Jerry,” he gestures to his son. Although we

already know who he is. “This is Summer, Contessa, Chuntao, Qiang, Weimin, and Tosin,”The tribe doesn’t seem that happy. Maybe they just don’t like meeting new people.“Well, I’m Karina. That’s my mother Emma. And that is Cody,” I say. Smiling. Trying to get the

others to be happy.They just wave.“Okay then,” Brett says. Everyone just spreads out. But Cody and Mom are still with me.“Are we really going to stay here?” Cody says after.“Yes we are. Until we come up with another crazy plan,” Mom answers.“Lets just see how this goes. Who knows, it might be better in the end,” I say.“Sure,” Cody says. He laughs at the thought, “They have no social skills,”“At least we won’t die tonight,” I point out. “Fine,” Cody says, “Lets wait and see,”We sit down at the corner. I look at everyone. They are smiling, having fun with their friends.

They must be really shy to strangers then. I play with my hair a little. Then I start to braid it. The left in the middle, the right to the middle,

and doing it all over again. Once I have a nice braid on my right shoulder, I let go of it, and it falls easily apart. I do it again. Left in middle, right in middle, left in middle, right in middle, left… Then I hold it together.

“What do we do now? I bet they don’t have mancala,” Cody says irritated.“I don’t know,” I say. Still holding on to my braid, “Just, do something,”He looks at me in the ‘What?’ face, “But what?” he says.“Sleep?” I suggest.“Sleep? Sleep? I need something to keep me busy,” he says.“Just-,” I stutter, “Just ummm… think then,” He doesn’t look at me anymore. He just makes a face. I look down, still holding the braid. I look

at the details of the ground. The pattern of the wood. The wood is pretty dry, and the lines aren’t clearly shown.

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My mom talks to Brett. She’s waving her hands around to gesture something. Brett respectfully listens to her, and doesn’t argue. I am assuming there is nothing to argue about.

“Let’s just talk then. Do you know anything more about your dad’s plan? Or at least what will he do to us in the future?” I ask Cody.

“His plan doesn’t matter now,” Cody says, looking down. He has his legs bent out, and his elbows are on his knees.

“Well it does,” I say. Looking at my mom.“He was going to have a meeting with the other Head Supremes about something,” he says,

“Something about paupers,”“That gives us no clue,” I argue.“You were the one that asked for it,” he says.I stare at him more. Half in fear, and half in anger. Then I just forget about it. Looking at the

tribe, I feel alone. Like no one notices me. But its a weird feeling now because I am sure everyone in San Francisco is noticing me now. Ashley is probably scared. She might have asked Charissa about me. And who knows what Charissa told her. The truth, that I escaped. Or a lie, to keep everyone from knowing Mr. Scanlin’s plan. I wonder what the school heard about me, some might even think I’m dead.

“Okay. So how is everyone doing?” Mom says while she’s coming towards us.“Good,” I mutter.My mom is smiling. When she sees us, she makes kind of a fake smile.“What’s wrong now?” she asks us.“Just thinking about Ashley,” I say.“Cody?” Mom asks.“Nothing,” he says. He keeps looking down.“What is wrong?” I ask him. “Nothing,” he says even louder.“Karina, just let Cody think for a while,” mom tells me.I turn my attention back to the ground. Just thinking about back then. In the 20th century, where

they had no problem. But I wonder, Was there ever a person in my situation then? It couldn’t have been all perfect. I mean, there had to be a person out there that ran away. I wasn’t the first to do so, and I probably won’t be the last.

Mom still stands there. Then she sits beside me. Looking at the house.“I know this must be really hard on you,” she whispers to me.“Why?” I ask. But I already know why.“Because you just found out I’m alive, and that we are running away from the Supremes,” she

says, “Its just what I think to expect from a person in this crazy situation,”“Right,” I say back to her, “This must be something hard on you too, isn’t it?”“Yeah,” she says. Staring into nothing. I see her eyes start to water up a little. I look at her with

concern.“Are you okay mom?” I ask her.“Yeah,” she says. Wiping away her tears with her sleeve.I look at her more. Then I look away. Putting my head down because I don’t want to waste all my

energy putting it back up.Then something hit me. Literally. My head is searing with pain. I look up a little, and I see a rock.

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“I have to remind mom about what to do with our rocks,” I think to myself, “There still in the corner,”

I look at Mom and Cody.“Are you okay?” Cody asks.“Yeah,” I say. Letting go of my braid, and using that hand to feel my head, “Where’d that come

from?” I ask him.“I think they did it,” Mom says from the corner of her mouth. I look at the tribe. They all talk in a whisper about something. One of them keeps looking back at

me.“Ow,” I say. Talking about my head. I feel around that area where the rock hit me. Then I look at

my fingers. Red. All red.“My head’s bleeding,” I say.“What!” Mom says.“Yeah, look,” I say. Showing my mom my fingers. She gasps.“Let me see,” Cody says. He grabs my fingers to bring it closer to him.“Those-,” Cody starts. But he got interrupted by Brett.“Oh my god, what happened?” he says.“They threw a rock at my girl’s head and now its bleeding!” my mom explains.“Hey!” Brett shouts to the group, “Who threw the rock?” No one answers, “Who threw the rock!

Karina’s head is bleeding because of you guys!” he yells.No one moves. No one talks. No one does anything. And I look at them in hate. Holding my

bloody head.“Just answer the question,” he says calmly.I see a hand slowly rise. Then I look at the girl whose hand it belonged to. She is blonde. About

my age. But I don’t remember her name.“Contessa! You threw the rock!” Brett shouts, “Do you know how much pain that caused her?”

he points to me.She doesn’t say anything.“Go get something to help her!” he shouts more.Contessa scrambles to her feet, and runs outside.“I’m so sorry Karina,” he says normally, “Feel better,”He walks away, leaving me really scared. I look at the group, and they stare at me in despite. I

look away quickly.“Jerks,” Cody says quietly.I don’t say anything. But I stop touching the wound. “Maybe I can dry the blood and chip it off,”

I think, “Stupid idea, but might work,” I start to go outside, when I realized that Contessa’s friends were on the way there. I sit back down.

“What?” Cody asks me.“Nothing,” I tell him. He just keeps staring at me. Confused. Then he looks back at the ground.“Why can’t we just go away and just, not exist?” I talk to myself.“Because we can’t,” Mom answers.Contessa runs back with a clump of tiny green plants. She jogs to me, and puts it on my head. She

presses it on my skull.

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“Is this supposed to help?” I ask her. She says nothing. But I let her continue anyways. After Brett yelling at her, I don’t think she would want to harm me more. Contessa keeps pressing the clumps on my head, like she’s massaging it.

She takes the green thing off my head. Removing pieces of it out of my hair. Each time, I notice the green clumps are now dark red clumps. I’m assuming that they sucked up all my blood. I touch my head (with my other hand) , and I just feel a little scar on my head. I look at my hand, and its not stained with blood.

“Thank you,” I mumble to the girl.She takes the clumps, and she walks outside with them.“What do you think she put on my head?” I asked my mom.“I don’t know. But it soaked up all your blood,” she answers.“Good at least,” I say. Still at awe when I didn’t find any blood on my head. Its just a little scar

caused by the dry blood. Its a good thing.“We should use it when we get hurt on our journeys,” Cody says.“Yeah, we definitely need to use this,” I say. Half joking.I hear a weird sound.Chk-Chk-ChkChk-ChkChkChk-ChkChkChkThe noise becomes louder.“What’s that?” Mom yells to us.“I don’t know!” I shout to her. Everyone steps outside. I stand up, and join them. Looking up, I

see a ‘thing’ with wings that make it fly. It looks like those plane/helicopter vehicle we saw a picture of.We all look at it. It then starts to lower it self down. And as it comes closer to view, I realize that

it can fit in front of the house. It touches the ground. And the wings stop spinning. A man in a suit, and his 2 bodyguards come out of the plane/helicopter. The man isn’t Mr. Scanlin, but I think he’s another Supreme.

“Karina, Cody, Emma,” the man says, “Please come back with us to the US,”“Aren’t you afraid we have the disease?” Mom asks.“If you had the disease, you would die already,” he says. His guards come after us, but we run.

Like all of us are in-sync, we run together. Sprinting into the no where. I look back behind me, and the guards are on our tails. I feel a excruciating shard of pain go in my feet, and I trip.

“Karina!,” Cody and my mom say. But as I try to get up, the guards are already there. Ready to take us back.

I look at my feet, and I see a twig in it. I carefully pull it out, and the lucky thing is, my feet isn’t bleeding. But it hurts a lot.

The guards carry each of us by one arm. I am carried off my feet because of the injury. So Cody and my mom have one arm free. Though they don’t even attempt to escape. Scared of what will happen to them.

We reach the flying contraption, and the Supreme jerks his head towards it. The guards take us up to the vehicle and make us sit there. The Supreme says some words to the tribe, and he waves goodbye, and jumps on the ‘plane?’.

“So, I guess you’re wondering who I am?” he says. One of his guards go up to the front and drive the thing. Lifting us off the ground one Chk at a time.

We don’t answer his question. But of course its ‘yes’.

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“Well, I’m Kevin Quilliams. Head Supreme of New Haven Connecticut,” he says. New Haven New Haven where have I heard that before?

“Why are we here?” Cody bursts out.“You’re going to New Haven to do something,” Mr. Quilliams says.“Do what?” Mom asks sharply.“You’ll know when you get there,” he says. Driving a blade of fear in my neck.“Can we at least know why?” Cody says. Obviously not intimidated by him at all.“That answer would give away the answer to the last question,” Quilliams says smartly, “Just

relax,” he says. But everything about him scares me too much to relax.“I really can’t,” I mutter without even thinking about what I said.He stares at me for a long time. And it makes me really uncomfortable. I look out the little

window instead. I see San Francisco and China next to each other. I see the border from the sky, and its so small. All the land is mostly green or brown from the wooden houses of tribes.

“How long until we get there?” Quilliams asks his bodyguard that is steering the ‘helicopter?’.“An hour,” he answer formally.“Okay,” Quilliams says.“One hour!” Cody shouts out of no where, “We had to row for 3 days!” I wasn’t sure if it was

three days, but its about.“This is a helicopter, its way more faster than a boat,” Quilliams says slyly. “So unfair!” Cody says.“You betrayed your own father. You weren’t fair to him,” Quilliams says. “But he wanted to kill people!” Cody shouts.“Just calm down!” I tell him, “Calm down,”Things aren’t fair. That’s true. But sometimes, its a good thing. Especially when you want to get

back at someone. But it wouldn’t be fair to them. So fairness depends on the point of view. A criminal might say its not fair, but to others, they might think it is.

Cody stops talking, and the whole helicopter goes silent. Except for the sound of the wings spinning really fast against the winds.

“So Karina. Tell me about your story,” Quilliams says after 2 minutes.“What part?” I ask, “The part when I could have died? You have to be more specific,”“Just a summary of your personality,” he shrugs.“I was once soft, then I grew stronger,” I say.“How?” he asks me.“Because I was in life threatening situations once, and I learned how to handle them?” I say.

‘Duh’ I should have added too.“Interesting. No chemicals injected into you?” he says.“Nooooo,” I say. I think back to the time when Scanlin told Katrice to put the serum in me. Is that

what that did? I have to be careful about what I say near Quilliams.“Mmm-hmm,” he says, “Interesting,”I feel like I’m being interviewed. How could the New Haven Head Supreme even know me? It hit

me. Not literally. Mr. Scanlin was working on a project with him. He probably knows everything that happened to me.

“Do you think I’m lying?” I ask Quilliams.“No,” he says, the word made me feel like he’s exaggerating.

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“Interesting,” I mock. I even stroke my chin to look like those wise old guys back then. They were mocked a lot by the funny way the stroked their beards.

“Why?” he asked. Crossing his legs, and putting his hands on his lap.“Just asking,” I say smoothly. I look out the window again. And I see the water, calm and steady.

And I look at the walls as the are nearing. But we don’t land in San Francisco, we pass it.

Chapter 17 (Cody)I look at the guard sitting next to me. He has big arms and a serious face. Looking forward. Not

moving a muscle. Emma and Karina are sitting on the other side of him. And Quilliams sits in the seat next to the other bodyguard. Steering the helicopter to maybe New Haven.

I look outside the scratched window near me. And I see hundreds of gray cubes, where the paupers live. There were only several glass buildings, only for the Supremes.

“Just think about the paupers,” my mom had said to me when we looked outside, “They don’t get to live as luxurious as us,” she said it all calmly.

“Why?” I asked her. I was very curious back then. When I was 6.“Because we need the materials to help the more important people,” she said. She looked at me,

and she looked sad. Maybe because she thought this whole thing was stupid. Maybe she didn’t like the idea of paupers and Supremes. Poor and the rich.

I brush my hair out of my face because it was getting in my way. I touch the window with my finger, and look at the states as they pass by. Nevada, Utah, Colorado. And some more others.

I stay in the helicopter for an hour. Looking at all the plain buildings I see pass by.“We’re here Mr. Quilliams,” the bodyguard says to Quilliams.The bodyguard next to me stands up (as much as he can) and slides the door open. He steps out of

the plane. So does Karina, and Emma. And I follow them. The blade of the helicopter slowly slows down. Then to a stop of complete silence.

“Welcome to New Haven,” Quilliams says. We are standing on a roof. I could see the complete sky, and when I look down, the ground. Quilliams leads us to stairs that lead us down inside the building.

I walk down the stairs on my toes. Looking down at every step.When we reach the bottom, and through a large room, I hear people say:“Good morning Mr. Quilliams,”“Mr. Quilliams,”“I have that report for you in your office,”“Welcome back,”They all look at us with interest. Though they don’t bother to greet us. They just act like we’re

not there.Mr. Quilliams leads us to a room. And he takes a key, and opens the door. The bodyguard holds

the door open for us to come in. And Quilliams goes in first.“Sit down,” he says. Gesturing to the three chairs in front of his desk.We all obey him, knowing that it wouldn’t make a difference if we didn’t. Karina sits down

nervously, while Emma and I sit down calmly.

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“So know since we’re here, we’ll tell you the plan from now on,” he continues, “First, we’re just going to get some of your background information. Second, we’ll put you through a series of test, that will allow us to see how you guys react,” he stops.

“Is that it?” I ask him.“You wouldn’t think this is nothing if you have done this before,” Quilliams says looking right at

me, “Like for instance, breaking a girl’s heart. May seem easy, but it might not be. Though I guess it was easy for you,” he says. I feel my cheeks getting red in embarrassment. Especially because Karina is here.

Quilliams looks at me, and smiles. Enjoying the fact that he embarrassed me.“So we’ll start with you first then, then Karina, then Emma,” he says. The guards take Emma and

Karina outside the room. I look at their faces when they leave. Fear, or anger. A while later, one of the guards returns. He closes the doors.

“What is the point of this?” I ask him, “You and my dad have been working together, you know almost everything about me,”

“I don’t really like your father,” he answers, “I need to have you tell me everything you know about his plans,”

“Don’t you know them too? What have you guys been talking about?” I ask him.“We were talking about how to make the formula for the perfect serum. But we never discussed

what were we going to do with it. And I suspect that Karina might have gotten a dose of Bodig Prevention,”

“I’ll help you if you tell me your plans for the serum,” I answer. If he hates my dad, and wants to use the serum for good, I might just join his side.

“I will first give it to the Supreme’s. And if we can make more, give it to everybody else,” he answers.

“But your plan is so plain. They have no detail. How would you know if the plan would work?” I ask him.

“We wrote down every formula we tried. So if one works, we can just follow the formula again,”“Okay,” I say. About to spill all of my father’s plans, “He was going to give the serum to

Supremes, and kill everybody else,” I say.“Then your father is stupid,” Quilliams says. And I agree with him, “How could you kill

everyone in the US? There are hundreds of people here. And plenty of Head Supremes that don’t want their people to die,”

“I don’t know. I was never on board with that plan,” I answer.“Listen. If you tell me what I need to know, everyone would be safe,” Quilliams says to me.Then my head has a tiny battle.He might be tricking you!But how can he? He’s nice and isn’t like my father.That’s what he wants you to think. You tell him everything, and he’ll betray you. No. That can’t be true. Someone can’t just fake kindness.Yes they can!I was tied between 2 good arguments made by my head.“Can I have time to think about it?” I ask him.“Why sure,” he says kindly.“You can move on to Karina,” I tell him.

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“Okay,” he says. And the guard walks over to walk me out, but I put my hand in front of me, and say, “I can do this by myself,”

When he opens the door. I see Karina and Emma outside. Waiting. One of the guards takes Karina by the wrist, and drags her inside.

“Ow!” she yells as he grabs her.“Let’s go,” he says in a low voice.Then Karina disappears behind the glass, and all I can see are blurs of them through the glass. I

look at the blurs, worried for Karina.“What happened?” Emma asks me.“He wanted to know about my dad’s plan for Bodig Prevention,” I answer.“Did you tell him?” she looks at me like I just went over to the bad side.“Not yet. I’m thinking if I should,” I say.“Don’t!” Emma says quickly. One of the guards come over, and they tell Emma to shut it. They

probably also want to know, and don’t want someone influencing my choice.I think about all my options. But then I think, if he is telling the truth, I could get an advantage.

He would want to know the answers badly, and I could ask for something in return for a part of the secret. Tricking him into letting us go. Or tricking him to give us the serum first when its perfected.

“Ahh!” I hear Karina say. Her turn was finished. But it was short.“What happened in there?” I ask.“Just some asking questions,” she answers.The guard takes Emma. And they leave.“Good luck,” Karina says to her mom.“So what happened?” I ask again.“Well, he wanted to know everything. So I just told him everything, a summary of my life in 3 or

more minutes,” she says happily.“And did he do anything?” I ask her. “He wrote some stuff on a piece of paper. Then he told the guard that I can go. So the guard

carried me to the door. My foot still hurts a little from the fall,” she says. Pointing to the wound on her foot.

“Huh. What do you think he’s going to do with your mom?” I ask Karina.“I don’t know. Maybe he’ll ask about your dad. She was in his prison for a couple of years,” she

says.“Oh,” I say. Looking around the area. It’s so much different from our Supreme Headquarters. For

one thing, its clean.“Did he do anything bad to you?” Karina asks me.“He asked me about my dad’s plans,” I tell Karina.“Did you tell him?” she asks me.“I’m deciding whether or not to tell him,” I answer. “Well you shouldn’t,” she says. And the guards shut her up too.“Why does everyone keep telling me not to? He has great plans for the serum,” I explain to

Karina.“I don’t know. Just don’t,” she says.“I need a better reasoning for that,” I say.

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She shrugs. I look at Emma’s blur through the window. She’s calmly sitting down in her chair. And Quilliams is calmly talking to her.

“What do you think their talking about?” I ask Karina.“Maybe our adventures in China?” she answers, “I really don’t know,”I keep my eye on Quilliams. Watching him for anything that could be bad. And for a second, I

think I saw him look at me through the window. Straight in the eye.“Did you see that?” I say out loud.“What?” Karina asks.“Nothing,” I say. From the corner of my eye, I see Karina looking at me. Thinking You’re

wasting my time. But really, it won’t make a difference. Quilliams is on a schedule. So we are really on time.

I keep looking at them. But it seems like everything is fine. Nothing is out of control. And the bodyguard is also just there, calm. Standing up straight at the door.

I watch them for five minutes. Then finally, Emma walks towards the door. And the guard lets her. Emma walks towards us, and doesn’t say a word.

“So Cody, come in again,” Quilliams invites me. I walk inside, scared.The guard closes the door. I sit down, unsure of my answer to his question.“Before you tell me your answer, let me show you something,” he says. I see a girl’s blur at the door. And I know it isn’t Karina’s or Emma’s because I see four blurs.

The guard, Karina, Emma, and whoever the girl is.She opens the door, and the guard holds it for her. The girl is wearing the standard Supreme

outfit. All black. And she looks pretty.“Hi dad,” she says, “Why did you call me?” then she notices me, “Who’s he?”“Malini, this is Cody Scanlin,” the name rings a bell. Malini is the girl who I was supposed to

date, but I turned her down. I never saw her before but my heart was set on Karina. And it still is.“And Cody, this is my daughter Malani,” he says.“Oh,” Malani says. Looking at me with a vicious look in her eyes, “Him,”“Hi,” I say awkwardly to her.“Hi,” she says back, “I’m going to go now,” she tells her father. And she leaves the room.“What was the point of that?” I ask Quilliams right after Malani leaves.“You owe me. Breaking my daughters heart is a big thing. I’ll forget it if you tell me what I want

to know,” he says.“Or else?” I ask him quietly. “Someone is going to die,” he says, “You have a week to make this decision. You can go. Walk

around New Haven,” I stand up, and walk through the open door. Karina and Emma are there again, and I tell them,

“We’re going around New Haven,” and just walk out the entrance to the sidewalk.They catch up with me.“What did he tell you?” Karina asks me.“That decision, one week,” I say, walking down the sidewalk.“Then don’t tell him,” Karina suggest.“Well. You remember when I talked about the chick from New Haven right?” I ask Karina. We

pass by a house that has watermelons fully grown.“Oh yeah,” she says.

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“Well that girl that came in was her. And he apparently doesn’t like it when people break her heart so I don’t want to die,” I explain to her.

“So now we have two options; One, we make a plan to get out of this place. And two, tell him,” Emma says.

“What about the option of not telling him?” Karina asks.“We can make a plan, or Cody can die,” Emma says. We pass by a funeral. Irony.“Let’s make a plan,” I tell them.“Okay then. Let’s start with the facts,” Emma says.

Chapter 18 (Karina)“We know that he has a helicopter on the roof,” I tell them.“Right but we need the keys,” Cody says.“You need keys for that?” I ask, feeling stupid.“Yes. But even if we do get the helicopter, who knows how to fly it?” my mom says.“I know how to fly one. My dad has one too. He taught me,” Cody says.“This might be a bad time to talk about it but why didn’t you take the helicopter when we went

from San Francisco to China!” I ask him. I look around the city, and it doesn’t look any different from where we used to live.

“They would have caught me,” he says. We all stop, and form a little circle. Even though we didn’t plan this out.

“So where do they keep the keys?” Mom asks.“Maybe I can go back there and pretend to discuss the issue, while really, I’m looking around to

find keys,” Cody says.“Good. Then once you find them, remember them. When he leaves his office, we can go in, and

take the keys. We’ll run up the stairs and take the helicopter,” Mom says with ease.“What about the guards?” I ask.“We make sure we don’t see them,” Mom says.“Okay. but can we at least eat and sleep. We have a week,” Cody says.“Fine. Let’s go back to Headquarters. Maybe they might give us a room and food,” my mom says.“Right,” I say. We all turn around to go back to Headquarters. We walk in silence, reviewing the

simple plan in our heads.When we reach the entrance, a voice asks us, “Name,” just like the one back at home. Or at least

the place where we lived.“Cody Scanlin, Emma Mercado, Karina Mercado,” Cody says.We hear a buzz. They must know why we’re here already.We walk in the route we took to get out of the place. Then it leads us to Mr. Kevin Quilliams.

Cody knocks on the door.“Who is it?” Quilliams asks.“Cody,” Cody says, “You guys stay out of sight. He might think we’re up to something,”We both nod, then move towards the main ‘room’. I watch Cody go in, and through the glass, I

can see him talking to Quilliams. It must be hard though. I mean, what else is there to talk about. We all have our terms now.

“So you know what to do? We’ll first stay here, to rest. Because if we don’t rest, we are going to be really tired,” she explains.

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“I know,” I tell her.“Just, think of a perfect moment. It might help you relax,” she says. I find it weird how she

knows. Maybe I tensed up or something. But who knows?I imagine myself back in San Francisco. With my mom, Ashley, and Cody. We could like, all live

together, and be a happy family I guess. And things would be different. All of us would be on the same level. Everyone in the world would be able to eat good food. It could be like the old times, but better because there would be people who love us with us. No one would even die. It would the best world ever.

My mom taps me on the shoulder, “Cody’s out,” she whispers. He walks to us, and my mom first asks him, “We can stay here right?”

“He said, ‘Sure, if that would influence your decision?’” he says.“Great. Did you find out where the keys are?” she asks him next.“Yep, there dangling on a hanger at the back of the door. And by back, I mean on the inside,” he

adds.“Great,” I say. Cody leads us to a room. Then he turns on the light. I look around, and nothing was in there

except for a bed.“That bed is only going to fit two of us,” Cody says.“You’re right,” my mom says. And he was. It was only small enough for 2 people.“I’ll sleep on the floor,” my mom offers. And when I realize what that meant, I quickly say,

“No,” “What do you mean ‘no’?” Cody asks. And I know that he knows what I just realized.“I’m going to sleep on the floor,” I say.“No, I should,” he offers.“Okay!” I say. As long as my mom doesn’t say anything about our sleeping arrangements, I’m

good.“So can we eat?” I ask. Starving.“Yes you can eat,” Cody says, “They should be here in a couple of minutes with our dinner,”“Good,” I say.“So what do we do now?” Mom asks. I look around the room. The Supremes couldn’t at least add

a fun feature to their rooms?“Just wait,” Cody says, “I think their food will be worth it,”“I hope so,” I tell him.

We eat their fruit. Some weird fruit to me. I haven’t even heard or seen it before. It was orange and we had to eat it with a ‘spoon’.

“They have good resources here to make this,” Cody compliments, pointing to the spoon.“What is this?” I ask. The fruit tasted good but it tasted weird too. The orange flesh had about 4

pieces of it that were like jello. “Its persimmon,” Cody replies, “They have two kinds of it. Be lucky you have this kind,”“Why?” I ask. “Because the other kind is very hard and I don’t think they can cut it,”

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Once I took out all the flesh, The skin kinds of rips. It drips some of its juice on my hand.“Where do I put this once I’m done?” I ask.“Just throw it back on the plate,” he says.And I do. I wipe the juice off my hands with my shirt. Then I look at my hands, and they are

dirty. I haven’t taken a shower in a long time.“Do you think they will let us shower here?” I ask.“Maybe. I’ll go ask them,” he throws the persimmon skin on the plate, and walks out the door to

Mr. Quilliams’ room.“I am fifthly,” I say out loud.“All of us are, we haven’t been washed in forever,” Mom says.“What do I do now?” I ask.“Go to sleep. I ‘ll wake you up if we can take a shower,” Mom says.“Okay, thanks,” I tell her. I climb on the bed, and go as close as possible as I can to the wall. And

I close my eyes. Just thinking about things.Mainly, what will happen? We are going through with this plan. But with all the factors in it, I

have doubts. Because the helicopter is on the roof, and the building has many stairs. I am not the athletic type. I never had any reason to run. And even if I did, I wouldn’t. It just takes out all my energy. And that’s what makes me nervous. What if I pass out in the middle of running, and Cody has to carry me? I might just drag him down.

“Wake up,” I hear. I open my eyes. And I look at my mom. Her hair wet. She’s shaking me awake.

“What?” I say, rubbing my eyes with the back of my hand.“Its morning, go take a shower,” she says. I get up from the bed, and I walk to the door. I stop

suddenly.“Two questions,” I say, “Where’s Cody? and Where to I take a shower?” I look at the ground.

And I see the blanket Cody used on the ground.“To talk to Mr. Quilliams. I‘ll walk you to the shower,” she says. She stands up from the bed, and

she opens the door. She leads me to a room right of Quilliams.“So what do I wear?” I ask her. Knowing that we only have one pair of clothes.“You can wear the black pants and shirt in the shower place. They already have clothes there,”

she say. She opens the door, and I walk in. “Go on. I’ll wait right here, outside,” Mom tells me. She closes the door. I look at the room. Its the only room in the building that isn’t made of glass. It has a faucet up

high. And the knob is on the bottom.I take off my clothes. And put them on a hanger on the door. Then right next to the hanger, I see

the black clothes all neat beside my clothes.I stand beneath the faucet. And look at the knobs to turn them on. There were two of them. One

has a red band around it, and the other one has a blue one. I twist the blue one, and ice cold water falls on my head. It makes my body shiver, and with my hand still on the knob, I turn it off. I stand up straight from the feeling.

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I turn on the one with the red band, and instead of an icy feeling, I get a burning one. It singes my body until I turn the knob the other way to stop it. I don’t turn them on. I take a towel off the hanger, and dry myself. The warmth of the towel makes me feel better. I put the black towel back on the hanger, and

I take a black shirt. It fits me fine, only the end of the shirt is below my hips. I take the pants off the hanger, and I wait. The floor was still wet from the shower I took.

I walk slowly to a dry spot. The floor was made of tiles, so if I go too fast, I could slip. I put my right leg through the hole, and I pull it up. I do the same to my left leg. And the pants are loose. I pull the string that comes out of 2 holes near the waistline. Then the waistband becomes smaller. I pull again, and the pants sit comfortably on my hips.

The ground becomes wet with my hair. I take the towel on the hanger, and put them on my hands. I put my hair in between them and rub my hands back and forth. The water getting caught in the towel. I could feel the water through the black towel. I look at my hair. Its not dry, but it is dry enough. I put the towel back, and open the door, taking my old clothes with me.

“You can just leave that in there,” my mom tells me. She was right outside, waiting for me. “They take the clothes that are dirty,”

“Okay,” I reply. I open the door to go back inside, and hang my clothes.“Cody just went back to our room. I just saw him leave a few minutes ago,” my mom tells me.“Let’s go back there too,” I say. Mom and I walk back to our room. Passing several people giving

us strange faces. They point to us a little, and whisper into their associate.“Since when were they Supremes?” I hear them whisper. “Since we came here,” I would answer.

But I don’t, because that would be telling a lie.When we get to our room, Cody is already there, eating red seeds. They are in a cup, and they

look like tiny red jewels.“You guys are done?” he asks me, “That’s pretty fast,” he says.“I’m not used to this,” I reply. “What’s that?” I ask, looking at the hundreds of red things.“Its pomegranate,” he replies. Popping 2 or 3 in his mouth.“And what is that?” I ask him. I wasn’t sure if I should eat it. Different cities have different seeds,

so the least I know is that its edible.“Just try it,” he says, “There’s a seed in it so you can eat that too if you want but its hard,”I take one out of the cup. I put the whole thing in my mouth. It wasn’t a problem because it was

very small. I bite it, and I could feel a bunch of juices, fill up my mouth. Though it was only a small amount. Then I feel the hard core, very small. I use my back teeth to bite it, and I keep chewing it until it was easy for me to swallow. I do swallow it.

I take another one. It tasted really good. “You like it?,” Cody asks. I see my mom eat it too. I think she already knew what is was.“Yeah. I do,” I tells him. Chewing the pomegranate in my mouth. I put in about 3 seeds in my

mouth, and my whole entire mouth is now filled with pomegranate juice. I tastes a little sour. Though I still want it.

My fingers start to get sticky from the juice. “How do I get rid of this?” I ask Cody, showing my fingers in front of him.“Just go wash it,” he tells me.“Where?” I ask him.“Where you took your shower,” he says.

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“But that might get me wet,” I tell him. Though that’s not the only reason. I might even feel the icy and burning feeling on my skin again.

“Then just,” he looks like he’s searching for a clear explanation, “lick your fingers and wipe it off on your clothes,”

“No,” I tell him. My fingers even had a little cotton on it. I look at them, wondering how to wash them.

“Then…,” he says, “I don’t know,”I stop eating. I just stare at my fingers for a long time. My mind starts to wander off to other

things. Six more days left. “When are we going to actually do the plan?” I ask.“Until all of us are healthy enough,” Mom says, “So let’s not do it until tomorrow or the day after

that,”“Okay,” I say. I get back to my sticky problem. “I have no choice.” I thought. “I have to lick my

fingers.”I put my fingers in my mouth. I take them out quickly. I wipe them on my black pants, knowing

that there wouldn’t be a stain. I look at my fingers again, and they weren’t dry yet. They were still covered in little pieces of cotton.

“Did they give us water?” I ask.“I think the juice in these are supposed to quench our thirst.” Cody says.I look at my finger sadly. The sticky red fingers make me feel uncomfortable. Then finally, I just

go outside.“Where are you going?” Mom asks me when I am at the door.“I’m going to clean my fingers,” I reply. I walk to the shower room.I walk inside the room. Maybe if I turn the knob slowly, I could wash my hands. I think. I turn the

blue knob slowly. Then drops of water come out of the faucet. I catch some in my hands, and clean my fingers. They aren’t sticky anymore, but they are still red. That doesn’t matter to me though.

I turn the faucet off, and head to my room.“Just wait,” I hear someone say from Mr. Quilliams’ room. I stop in my tracks, and listen.“Do what you have to do,” I hear Mr. Quilliams say.“How much will I get for my services?” I hear the someone ask.“What do you want?” Mr. Quilliams asks. I see someone coming, and not wanting to look

suspicious, I just walk away to my room.I try to calm myself down.“Before you panic, please be advised that he could be doing other things like,” my head tells me,

“cleaning the building, making serum BODIG PREVENTION better, other stuff.”I walk into our room to find everything exactly the way I left it. Cody is still eating pomegranate,

and Mom is also eating them.“I just heard something that might make you panic,” I close the door shut after me.“What?” Cody and Mom both ask. They both drop the seeds on the ground, staring at me with

deep concern.“Well, I washed my hands. And when I was going back, I heard Quilliams and someone else

having a conversation,”“What did they say?” Mom asks me.

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“Something about him paying some for services. He also said ‘Do what you have to do’,” I tell them. I sit down on the bed, worried again that if this plan doesn’t work, we could die.

“What do you think they were going to do?” Cody asks me.“I don’t know. Something bad probably,” I answer. I start to water up. Then I stop myself almost

immediately. Knowing that crying would only take up more time. “Then lets do the plan tomorrow,” Mom suggest.“But we don’t know when they are going to strike,” Cody says. He has the same look on his face

like I do, but more braver than me.“I don’t think we could do it now. We don’t have enough preparation to this now. Cody are you

sure you know where the keys are?” Mom asks. She explodes into a ball of planning. Because when doing these kinds of things, you have to be sure to be ready.

“We’ll just do it. We will just die or something anyways,” Cody says. He opens the door, and looks outside for a bit. He sticks his head back in, a calm face on him when he comes back.

“Fine,” my mom gives in, “We’ll do it,”“Good,” I say, “Because I think someone’s coming,” Cody and my mom look at me in horror. Then Cody runs to the door, and swings it open. My

mom runs out the door, and so does Cody. I follow them. Cody runs to Mr. Quilliams’ office. But he doesn’t go in.“I don’t see anybody in there,” he whispers.“Go in. If he asks, you wanted to talk to him. But actually get the key,” Mom adds.“Okay,” he breaths. He opens the door, and goes in. My mom and I wait outside. Not knowing

what will happen next.Cody comes out 3 minutes later. “I got the keys,” he whispers. He looks around consciously for

signs of people watching him. “Let’s go,” he says.We both follow him to the stairs that lead to the helicopter. He occasionally looks back to check

for people.When we make it up on the roof, I find that no one is guarding the helicopter. Really? I think, You

couldn’t get a person to guard this advanced technology?Cody jogs to the door of the helicopter, and he slides the door. He helps my mom and I up the

helicopter. We get up, and sit down on the tiny seats. Cody puts the key in the keyhole near the wheel. He turns it, and I hear an engine sound.

“Are you sure you know how to fly this?” I ask Cody uncertainly. Looking at how he’s struggling to find a button.

“Yes,” he says. He switches some buttons, and then he puts his hands on the wheel, “Are you guys ready?” he asks us.

“Yeah,” I sigh.“Look!” my mom shouts. She points to the ground outside. I see some guards pointing at us.

They run towards us.“Go!” I yell at Cody. He does something that makes the helicopter fly higher and higher. Mom

hurries to close the door shut. I hear an ear breaking sound. Cody flies the helicopter so high, I see the guards give up, and go back inside.

I sigh. I wipe the sweat off my face with the back of my hand. I try to lay down on the seats, but I don’t fit on them.

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“Where are we going now?” I ask Cody. I look at Cody, and look at his movements. Wondering where we are going to land.

“Dang it!” he shouts, “No more gas,”“No more what?” I ask. I search my brain for the word ‘gas’. Nothing comes up.“Gas,” Cody tells me, “Its what you need to power cars, planes, helicopters,”“So what now?” I ask him. I still wonder why ‘gas’ is so important.“Now we will probably crash in another city,” Cody says. I hear a beeping sound. Beep! Beep!

Beep! Then I look around the area Cody is. I don’t see anything wrong, though I’ve never ridden a helicopter before to know anything.

“Which city?” my mom asks.“West Haven maybe?” he says. He looks around the area below to find out where to land.“West Haven? Are you making that up?” I ask. I stare at him in anger. Looking for an excuse for

being funny right now. “West Haven is a real place,” Mom says. I look at her embarrassed. My cheeks begin to turn red

and hot. Cody looks at me, laughing at my stupidity.I look out the window as Cody turns back to steer the helicopter. I can’t even look at my mom or

Cody in the eye anymore. Not at least until we land in West Haven. Everything looks the same. Gray cubes, and glass cubes.

“We’re going down,” Cody says. I see my point of view begin to tilt. First it slowly moves forward, then, it plum its.

“Get ready. This will give us a giant impact,” he warns us. My mom and I cover our heads with our hands. We wait while the rumbling continues. Cody kneels down, and covers his head too.

I feel the shaking from the helicopter get worse. Then I get a big feeling from an excruciating contact with my face to the side of the helicopter. I roll around in it, and it gives me several injuries. Then the rolling stops, but a fire starts. I run out of the helicopter as quickly as possible.

When I regain a good amount of breath back from the outside, I take some water from a nearby stream, and dump it on the helicopter.

Cody comes out coughing a while later.“Are you okay?” I ask him. I run up to him when he’s a fine distance away from the fire. Then I

hug him tight.“Yeah,” he says. Even though we both honestly know that he’s not. “Are you okay?”“Good,” I say. “Can you help me put out the fire?” I ask him. He nods. We each do our best to

put out the fire with our hands.“Look! I found a cup!” Cody says. He points the the dirty cup in his hands.“Good. It will be easier,” I tell him.

“Did you see my mom?” I ask Cody. The fire was put out, but we couldn’t find my mom. I look around the wreckage to find my mom.

“No…,” Cody says quietly. We both look at each other for a moment, and we both run to the helicopter, and try to look for my mom.

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“Karina,” I hear Cody call out to me. Cody was on the other side of the ruins. “I found something you’re not going to like,” he gestures for me to come to him.

I see it. My mom’s hand sticks out of the helicopter window. I’m afraid to touch it, or even pull out my mom’s body.

“What do we do with it?” Cody asks me. He speaks in a murmur, not wanting to make me even more sad.

“We-,” I stutter while my tears come, “We just have to… go,” Cody puts his hands on my shoulder.

“Are you sure?” he asks. I hear him also crying too. I nod.“What are we going to do?” I ask him, “Where are we going to go?”“We’ll just have to see what happens next,” he answers. We walk away from the scene. “Goodbye mom,” I whisper to myself.Cody must have heard me because he whispers, “Goodbye Emma,”We walk to their town. I look at it. It reminds me of home. Though my home isn’t special in a

certain way. Any pauper can look at this and say this is their home.“Where do we go?” I ask Cody again. But this time I’m not crying. My tears have dried on to my

face.“Maybe we can ask the Supremes for help again,” Cody says softly.“I don’t think I can take in anymore of this though,” I tell him. We keep walking past the many

gray houses.“I know but, where else can we go?” Cody says. He looks sad.“Okay,” I say. We walk to the basic glass house of Supremes.“Name,” the voice says. I look down, wondering if the people will recognize me.“Karina Mercado and Cody Scanlin,” I say. My voice is still a little caught from the crying.The door buzzes immediately. Then I feel the cold air of fear on my arms. What if they know

who we are? I think about running, but I can’t because they would know. We can’t outrun the guards anyways. Unless we were on a helicopter.

“Are you as scared as I am?” I ask Cody.“No,” he says. Then he looks at me again, “Yes,”“Do you think they know who we are?” I ask Cody with a really worried look on my face. I

whisper a little more because we are inside the building. And some people are looking at us.“Hopefully not,” Cody says, “But that doesn’t mean that the word won’t get around,”“What are you doing here?” I hear someone yell at us. I look at them, and my entire face is a big

shock.

Chapter 19“Same question I should be asking you,” Cody says. I look at Mr. Scanlin. He doesn’t look that

surprised, but he does look very angry.“Because I didn’t want something terrible to happen. But apparently, something terrible will

happen,” I look at Mr. Scanlin’s hands. They are full of papers.“What will happen to us?” Cody asks. He looks straight into his father’s eyes.“You’ll see on the helicopter,” Michael Scanlin says. Guards near him come, and they carry us to

the roof of this building. I hear Mr. Scanlin say to his friend, “Thank you,”

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We lift off into the air in his helicopter. Though I think Mr. Scanlin must have done something fantastic because I can see his helicopter is even more luxurious than Mr. Quilliams.

“We saw them,” I say quietly to Michael, “We saw your friend Quilliams,”“Did you?” Michael says.“Yeah. He is going to change things around here,” I tell him. My head becomes really hot with

rage.“Is he now?” Scanlin says with sarcasm, “It doesn’t matter, I hated him anyways,”“Oh really now?” I talk back to him in sarcasm. I see Cody at the corner of my eyes. Surprised at

how fast I jumped back from just seeing my mom die.“You guys are in a lot of trouble. My plan was almost heard by the West Haven Head Supreme. I

think they're suspecting us,”“That’s good,” I say, “Then they can bust you, and you can go to hell,” My brains feels weird by

the new sense of language.“That’s a little different from how I last saw you,” Michael says.“How did you see me?” I ask him. Scowling at him.“You were nice, poor, and were always wanting to help out,” he says smiling. I look at him with

my eyes, lock on all his movements.“Things change,” I tell him. I throw myself on to him, but one of his guards stop me before I hurt

Scanlin.“What are you going to do anyways?” Cody asks his father. The guard holds my hands tight so I

won’t move.“I’m going to act fast. I’ll give you my serum, then I’ll test it,” he says plainly. Cody and I sit

still. “How are you going to test it?” I ask Scanlin. I calm down enough to talk, and the guard lets my

hands go.“Africa is the most infected area in the world right now. We’ll send you there, and we’ll see if

you’ll die,” he explains.“What are you going to do with me?” Cody asks. He looks confused. I look at Scanlin.“If Karina dies, you can be our next test subject,” he replies calmly.“But I’m your son,” Cody rejects. He looks at his dad with his sad eyes. I see his eyes straight to

fill with tears. But they don’t come.“You always hated me, didn’t you?” Scanlin says, “You never liked my decisions,”“I know that but,” Cody looks down. He murmurs, “I thought you loved me.” I look at him

confused by the comment. I don’t know what to think. I want to believe that he’s lying and trying to make his dad feel sorry for him, but I also believe that he really means it. He loves his father. I think that over and over again. I’m looking at Cody, open-mouthed, and shocked by such a thing. I believe that no one could love that man. He’s pure evil. He will murder millions if he has too.

“No, your mother loved you. I despise you,” Scanlin says. I look at some of the guards in the helicopter. They are still in a formal position, but I notice that some of them are feeling a little sad. When one of your parents don’t love you. I also get that feeling too.

Cody starts to cry. He does it quietly. Its almost as if he’s not crying at all. He just looks down, and let his tears fall onto his pants.

Michael looks away blankly like nothing happened. I want to comfort Cody, but I don’t know how. Then, I just settle for a, “Its okay. He hates you, and you hate him.”

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“Yeah but, now I’m just an orphan aren’t I. My dad doesn’t even like me so what’s the point of him begin my parent,” he whispers, though I’m sure Michael can hear that.

“It doesn’t matter now,” I say. I pat him on the back. I look at Michael, and he looks away.“How long until we’re there?” I ask Michael rudely. I look at the land out the window. Though I

can’t tell where we are because all the cities look exactly the same. Grey houses, glass buildings.“Just a couple minutes,” Michael says. He looks at the guard who is steering the helicopter. The

guard nods, “Yep,”Cody sits up straighter now. He looks out the window. I look at him. I can see him sniffing in his

tears. I keep looking at him. I feel sorry for him. But I’m also surprised. His dad looked like he hated Cody too, why was Cody so surprised when Michael told him he didn’t love him?

“Mr. Scanlin sir, we are about to land,” one of the guards say. We doesn’t take his eyes off the sky, making sure that we don’t crash into a bird or something.

“Okay,” Michael says, “We’re almost home,” he tells us.“This isn’t our home,” I tell him, “Most of my best memories were in China. With my mother,”“Well its where you used to live,” he says. I feel the helicopter lower down onto the roof of the

Supreme Headquarters. When we don’t go anymore down, a guard opens the door. A little wind brushes me as I leave the helicopter. The wings of the helicopter are just slowing down now.

“We are going to go inside,” Michael says.“Huh, and I thought I was going to get the serum here. On the roof,” I say. The guards take us

back to Michael’s office in 12B.“Karina will be injected first.” Michael says. The guards pick me up, and go through the door.“Wait! Can I at least see my friend Ashley?” I ask him before we completely leave the room.“No. You know too much too,” he says. Then the guards take me to 5A, the medical room. The guards open the door. When they push me inside, I see someone I haven’t seen in a long

time. Katrice.“Karina!” she squeals. She runs over to hug me. “What happened?” she asks, “Why are you even

here?”“That’s confidential Ms. Bowery. All we need you to do is inject her with this serum,” the guards

talks in a plain voice. No emotion. He pulls out a bottle with clear liquid in it, its not labeled. He gives the tiny bottle to Katrice, and she looks at it uncertainly.

“What is it?” she asks. She has a worried look on her face.“That’s confidential miss,” he says. “Mr. Scanlin has instrusted you to inject her with it, and give

her back to us,”“Well… okay,” she says. Scared. She picks up a syringe. She takes the bottle, and puts it in a

little holder on the syringe. “Karina, can you sit down,” she tells me. I do what she says.“Where do I inject her?” Katrice asks.“Mr. Scanlin hasn’t given us a specific location. I think you can inject it anywhere,” the

bodyguard says.“Okay. Karina, how about your arm?” she asks me. I nod. I pull up my shirt a little so she can

inject my arm. She takes the syringe, and she slowly sticks the needle in me. I feel a fast pain, but it stays there even when she takes the needle out. I feel dizzy.

“We’ll take her from here Ms. Bowery,” the guard says. He and the other guard carries me off my feet and into the hallway back to 12B. The guard opens the door, and I stumble in.

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“So Katrice did it?” Mr. Scanlin asks. He looks at me oddly. I fall on the chair, my head feeling light weighted.

“Affirmative sir,” the guard says. I try to get up and sit up straight. Cody helps me on the chair properly.

“What did you give her?” Cody asks, “She’s all dizzy,”“I can’t tell you that Cody,” Michael tells his son. I feel my head start to lean on one side. Then I

tilt it to balance it out, but it leans too far on one side. My head starts to wobble.“Is this supposed to happen?” Cody asks.“Yes, we expect this to happen,” Michael says, “Our top scientists have predicted that she would

become woozy,”“How long will she stay like this?” Cody asks. I feel like I’m going to pass out.“A couple of minutes,” Michael replies.“When will you send her away?” Cody asks. He looks really worried. Maybe even more worried

than Katrice.“Until she’s all healthy again,” he replies. My eyes begin to close.“Karina! Is this… the… effect,” Cody’s voice begins to fade.“Ye…,” I hear Michael say.

Chapter 20I wake up in Cody’s room. The one where he dragged me too. It looks just like normal. Nothing

seemed to have moved.“Morning Karina,” I hear Cody say. His hair is wet, like when we had our first real talk together.“Hi,” I say. I get up, and look around some more. My eyes fall on a plate of watermelon. Like the

time we first ate together.“Watermelon,” I say. I walk to the plate, and pick up a piece of watermelon from the plate with

my hands. “Yeah. Still pretty good,” Cody says.“The sugar,” I say. I put the watermelon piece in my mouth, and chew the sweet juice out of the

bright pink fruit.“Yep, the sugar makes it sweet,” he replies. He puts a watermelon piece in his mouth. Chewing it

too.“I’m going to take a shower,” I tell him. “Its like the one in New Haven right?” I ask. Not

wanting to be lost.“Yeah,” he says. I open the door, and walk around for the room that says ‘Shower Room.’ And I

find it fast.11A

Shower Room

I walk inside, and close the door. I find a lock on the door. I press the button to lock the door. I find the towels and clothing on the hooks on the door.

I hang my clothes on the hanger. Then I turn the water on. Slowly this time so I don’t burn or freeze myself. I look at the spot that Katrice injected the mystery liquid in. It turned into a tiny red dot. It doesn’t look like anything bad. I put my head near the faucet. And my hair become completely wet. I stop it there. I don’t take long showers. I’ve never gotten used to them.

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I take a towel from the hanger, and dry myself off. I pick up a black shirt, and black pants. I put them on. Then I take the towel again, to dry my hair more.

I unlock the door. Then walk across the hall to go back to Cody’s room.“What will happen to me?” I ask Cody right away. “You talked to your dad yesterday, I want to

know what will happen to me,”“Their going to send you to Africa. Their going to watch you for 1 week from a camera. And if

you die, I go next, if you don’t, they’ll kill you and me, and everyone else. Taking the serum for himself,” he explains.

“Oh…,” I say. I feel, really sad. They ship me to Africa, and wait, until I die.“Yeah… I know….,” Cody says. He looks away.“When will it happen? Today? Five minutes?” I ask him after a long period of silence. I try to

look at him. But he turns his head away. “They should be here now… ,” he says. I hear a knock on the door.“Hello? Ms. Mercado? Please come with us,” I hear the familiar voice of the guard say. He opens

the door.“Okay,” I say bravely. I turn to Cody, “Bye,” I tell him. I turn back to go with the guards.“Wait!” I hear Cody say. He pulls my wrist, and he forces me to look at him. We look into each

other’s eyes. He kisses me, I kiss him back. Then I pull away.“Bye,” I say to him, staring directly into his eyes. The guards take me away from Cody, and I

start to cry. I keep crying until we’re on the roof. I can’t cry anymore because the blades of the helicopter dry my eyes out. They spin and spin, and the wind from it makes me want to cry even more.

The guards take me inside the helicopter. I continue to cry. Putting my face in my hands. I feel like I don’t want to live anymore.

I feel a soft pat on my back. There was only one person in the helicopter, probably to record my progress. But he is the common guard I see a lot.

“Its okay,” he tells me, he goes to the seat which you can control the helicopter from. “Just let it all out,”

“What does it matter to you?” I yell at him. “What do you care what happens to me?”“Look, I’m being nice to you. Accept it. My name’s Adam by the way.” he tells me. We fly into

the air.“I don’t need you for a friend or for my life!” I scream.“Me neither,” Adam says, “But you do need me for your life. This helicopter is full of supplies to

keep you alive. It’ll help us figure if you actually died from the disease or from hunger. Well, if you do die at least,”

“I don’t care about the freaking disease experiment! I don’t care about anything!” I shout. He continues to steer the helicopter. What I’m saying doesn’t bother him at all.

“Why do you care about what happens to me? Is it because you will live? Is Scanlin going to kill you if this doesn’t work out?” I ask him. I am still crying, but the tears have a different meaning now.

“I just do,” Adam answers. “You’ll see,” he says. I don’t even begin to start to talk to him. I don’t want to waste this time in the air, fighting with him. I look at the land outside the window again. But it bores me because everything is the same.

“How do you guys even know where to go?” I ask Adam. My tears dry up. And my voice is clearer.

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“We use a map. We know where to go because we just look at the map. It has everything on it,” he explains.

I nod without saying anything. I close my eyes. Nothing to do in the air, I might as well sleep. I lay down on the seats. I have more room when there’s almost no one in here. “We’re going to be there in about an hour,” I hear Adam say.I sleep.

Chapter 21 (Cody)I go to my father’s office. I open the door with a hard push. My dad looks at me.“Why are you here?” he asks me, not alarmed by anything. “I’m here to ask you what’s going to happen to Karina. Are you sure that she will live?” I ask

him.“We are sure. But there is a small possibility that she will die,” he answers, “Now get out of my

office,”I sigh, and I walk out of the door. I go back to my room across my dad’s room. I pace around my

room for a while. Unsure of what to do.“I have to a way to help Karina,” I tell myself. “They already took the helicopter.” I keep walking

around. I don’t know what to do. I sit down, and just think. Maybe I can escape on the raft again. No, that would be too risky. I can’t do anything.

I walk outside to Charissa.“Can you help me something?” I ask her. I see some of the guards are already keeping an eye on

me.“Sure. What?” she asks me.“Can you get me to Africa?” I ask her. She looks fine though.“No, I’m so sorry. Mr. Scanlin has forbid you from going outside these walls.” she says. “Please, can you help me?” I beg her.“I sorry Mr. Scanlin,” she says. I walk away. So its official. There is nothing I can do. I go to the

library of Supreme Headquarters.8B

Library

I go to the fairy tale section. Those were the types of stories Karina liked. I pick out the book, Snow White.

A story about a beautiful girl, who is about to die. Then a prince kisses her, and she comes back. That’s exactly how I want it to happen with Karina and I. I want to save her from dying in Africa.

I put the book back in the shelf. I look through the titles. Cinderella, Peter Pan, Hansel and Gretel, Rumpelstiltskin, etc. I get bored in here too. I’ve been here so many times to read that there isn’t a single book I haven’t read. Its amazing really.

I walk outside again. Its boring here. “Maybe I should just sleep,” I think to myself. I walk back to my room down the hall, and lay down on the bed.

Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep.I can’t sleep. I just can’t. I have nothing to do. I sit on the bed. Doing nothing. My thoughts just

walk in.

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Maybe you can save her by fighting the guards? What does it taste like to eat all the fruits in the world at the same time? Is Karina okay? At least she is doing something that doesn’t bore her. Is this how other Head Supremes’ sons feel like? Am I crazy?

I’m still there though. I can’t even think of a plan to help.

Chapter 22 (Karina)We get off the helicopter. I run out of the helicopter to run away, but Adam catches me. “No, you aren’t going away that easily,” he tells me, “I’m going to set up a tent so you can sleep

later. Eat this for now. Then do whatever you want,” Adam tells me. “That’s not running away,” he adds.I sigh. I take the apple he gives me and take a big bite. The wonderful smell of the juice going

into my mouth. I remember the scent, when I had my home.“What are you going to do?” I ask him while I’m chewing the apple.“Watch you so you don’t go anywhere,” he says. He sets up the tent quick.“Okay,” I say. I walk into the tent. Its not as roomy as it looks outside. I go back out. “Where are

you going to sleep?” I ask him.“I’ll try not to. I can’t let you escape,” he answers. He looks at me sternly.“Okay,” I tell him, still holding my apple. I climb into the tent, and lay down. I come back up

because the apple is starting to make me choke. Although, it didn’t. I give Adam my apple.“Why?” he simply asks.“I want to go to sleep so I don’t want to choke on it,” I answer. He nods. And I go back inside my

tent.I imagine Cody, coming here to help me. But the thought disappears quickly. They wouldn’t let

Cody go anyways. And now that he’s escaped before, they will put a higher security on him. We’re hopeless. I might die, and he won’t actually live life.

I sit back up again.“Adam, how old are you?” I ask him.“43,” he answers. Though he looks younger. Maybe being a bodyguard helps you.“Okay,” I say, and I go back down. I think about my mom. Her life. I don’t remember much of it

though. Its all a blur to me. I was very young. I am still. Though once you’ve been through a lot, you become more older and stronger.

She was right though, about my dad. Didn’t care at all for me. I once just walked out of the house, and a person was running for some reason. He hit me. I fell down. I guess he was in a hurry that he didn’t notice me. I started to cry and yell ‘Mom!’ and ‘Dad!’. My mom showed up, but my dad just didn’t care.

“Do you need water?” Adam asks me. “No, I’m fine,” I answer to him. I look at the top of the tent. It was a dark shade of orange. It was

terrible. I close my eyes so I don’t have to look at it at all.“Are you sure?” Adam asks again. “You’re going to need it,”“No!” I shout out to him. I put the back of my hands on my forehead. I felt like I had a really bad

headache, I don’t know what to do. Waiting is boring.“Okay then,” Adam says. “If you do, just call me,” “Okay,” I tell him. I look at my fingers. I clean them by putting one nail under the other one,

taking all the dirt out of my fingernails. Though I don’t understand why I’m doing this because there’s no reason to.

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“Do you want to continue eating your apple?” he asks me. I think about it for a second.“Yeah, sure,” I say. I sit up straight again, and he gives me the apple because he’s not under the

tent.“Thank you,” I tell him. I sit in the tent, biting the apple with my front teeth. I keep eating it, until

there is nothing but the core.“What do I do with this?” I stick my hand out of the tent. Showing Adam the core of the apple.“Take out the seeds and plant it,” he answers. He pushes my hand back in the tent. “You can do

that,” he says.I scorn at him. Or at least, scorn at where he would be. I use my ‘now long’ fingernails to pick

out the apple seeds one by one. There were only 3 seeds in the core. The juice makes my nails really white. They become really soft.

I climb out of the tent with the core and seeds. “Where do I put the core then?” I ask him. He just keeps watching me.“Burry it in the ground too. We don’t have a place to put it,” he answers. I roll my eyes. I dig up

the ground which is made of dirt. It gets my nails really dirty. I drop the core in first, because if I put in the seeds first, it might have to take a longer time growing around the plant. Then I plop the seeds in the hole, one by one. I fill the hole back up.

“Can I have water to grow this?” I ask him. I watch him as he quickly gets out a bottle of water. A cup to be more precise because it really is a cup with a cap or something on it.

“Here,” he says. He gives me the cup. I stand there with the cup in my hands and wonder.“Can I pour all the water in or is this all our water?” I ask him. Scared that I might just use all our

water.“We have more water. Just pour everything out,” he says with only one tone. He still watches me,

afraid that I might attempt to escape. But it doesn’t matter. If I go, I might just die.I open the cap, and start to drizzle the water over the ground. I pour the whole thing on it, that

there is now one spot on the sand, that is one dark spot.“Where do I put the cup then?” I ask him after all the water is gone.“Give it to me,” he says. I give him the cup, and he puts it back in the helicopter. I slowly walk to

the tent again, and crawl in, and fall face down. I lay there. My legs are halfway outside on the sand. I think about my mom. How she was always caring. She would teach me how to do things. I

learned how to grow plants from her. I learned how to do the laundry from her. I even learned how to fight and be brave from her. I don’t know what I’ll do without her. There are so many things I could learn from her at this point. I may never learn them because she left.

My throat begins to feel tight. My eyes begin to close automatically. Water comes out from the sides, and I start to cry. I sniff, and it makes me move my body. Adam must have noticed because he asks me, “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” I tell him. My voice begins to change. It makes my voice sound dry. Though my eyes aren’t.

“Are you -- crying?” he asks me. I don’t answer him. I stay still, trying not to move. I open my eyes, and it becomes hard to see. I

use my hands to wipe off my tears, and I think of something happy to make me stop crying. Cody. There’s still hope. He might be able to come save me. He might be able to take me to somewhere else like China. Maybe we can meet up with Grace. Though Tom wouldn’t be too cheerful about this.

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I start to cry again. It seems that everywhere I go, I will end up dying. If I go to China and see Grace, Tom will kill me. When I came here, Michael is going to kill me, or the disease. If I go to a different state, they will probably recognize me because Michael can send out a clear message.

“What’s going on Karina?” Adam asks. I immediately stop crying.“Nothing,” I say, a little too grouchy. I pull my legs in the tent with me.“Are you sure, do you need help or something? Do you need water?” he asks me in a caring way.“No,” I answer. I do need water right now, but I don’t want him to see me like this. At least not

until I stop crying.“Well, okay then,” he says uncertainly. It makes me think of what he could have been thinking

about me in the tent, crying.I put my face in my knees. Continuously drying all the tears that come out of my eyes. My

clothes start to become wet.I fall asleep in my crying.

Chapter 23I eat the bright red apple that Adam gave to me this morning. It tastes very sweet, but I don’t

think that they put sugar in here like the thing with Cody’s watermelons.“What do you do while I’m asleep?” I ask Adam. He watches me all day, so what does he do

when I don’t do anything at all?“I watch the tent to make sure you don’t escape,” he answers. He takes a bite from an apple too.

Her own green one though.“Don’t you ever need to sleep?” I ask him. I take another bite from my apple.“Why are you asking these questions?” he asks me. He seems really suspicious. Even though

there is nothing to be suspicious about.I shrug. “I don’t know. What else can I do here?” I ask him. He stays silent. Either he can’t think

of an answer, or that he is thinking.“See, its hard,” I tell him after he doesn’t say anything. I look at him. Who, is in ponder. He looks

up for a moment. Then he looks at me and answers, “You can play with the sand,”“How?” I ask. I’ve never been near sand before, but it doesn’t even look amazing or anything. Its

like soil but a different shade.“Do what they did back then. Dig up the sand until they find a watery sand, or put water in sand,

and just mold the sand into whatever,” he answers.“Okay,” I say bored. “Can I take some water?” I ask him.“Here,” he says. He gives me a little water from one cup to another.I take the cup, and I sit down on the sand near the tent. I pour all the water in one place, and mix

it. I have a section in the sand that is all my molding material. I take a piece, and I roll it up. I want to make my name in the sand. I want there to have a part in the sand that is like a pop up name.

I place the sand line onto the sand in a straight line, bottom to top. Then I make smaller lines to finish the ‘K’.

I keep spelling out my name. When I’m finished I look at it over, and I see that the sand dried up. You can’t see where my name is because everything is all blended.

“Try making something else Karina. More structure,” he tells me when he sees that I have disappointment in what I just made.

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“No. I don’t want to waste anymore water. I’m just going to play with the sand somehow,” I say. I put my hand on the hot sand and clench my hand into a fist, the fist holding the sand. It becomes a ball. I let it go just a little, and it falls apart a little too. Then I give it a tighter grasp. I stand up, and throw the sand ball hard against the ground. It explodes. Adam isn’t surprised, as he was watching me.

“Why don’t you see how far you can throw?” he suggest. I grab another sand ball because there isn’t anything else to do. I throw it in the sky. It just all falls out to a million specks of dust.

“Put water in it. It’ll hold,” he suggest again.“No,” I say. I go back to lying in the tent. I wait there.“Why don’t you just eat? That’ll keep you busy for at least 10 minutes if you are eating a

pomegranate. You have to open it and pick it out,” he says. I become confused by what he just said. How to you open those little seed-sized fruit?

He shows me a pink fruit the size of a grapefruit. I assume that all I do it crack it open so I try to do that.

“Can you open this for me?” I ask Adam. My hands a little sore from trying.I hear a crack, then he gives me the two halves of the fruit. I see the seeds in the fruit. They are

grown in there. I take one of them out, but I accidently squeeze it too hard so it splashes red juice all over me. I quickly wipe all the juice off of me because I don’t want to embarrass myself if Adam wants to come here.

“When you are done, just give me it,” he says to me.“Okay,” I say. I take one out one by one, eating it. I discover that there are more of these things in

the ‘pockets’ of the ‘skin’ like thing. I want to eat it without picking it. But I have to pick it. So I decide, I’m not going to do it at all.“Adam, I’m not hungry anymore.” I yell out to him. I stick the halves out the door of the tent. I

feel him take it away from me.“Okay,” he says as he takes them away. I cuddle up in the tent. I need to get out of here. I’m just

going to be here forever. But how am I going to get out of here? Adam is always keeping me on eye. Though I never really know what he does when I’m sleeping. Maybe he checks up on me, then he sleeps?

I have a little brainstorm in my head. “I should test that,” I think, “Tonight, I’ll go to ‘bed’ and when he sleeps, I sneak away.” I rub my chin, “To where? The helicopter? It might to be loud. I don’t even know how to fly one,” I keep thinking, “I’ll just have to try.”

I go outside, and wait. I wait for the sky to turn dark, and the moon replaces the sun. But the blue sky just stays like that. I look inside the helicopter, but I don’t go there, I just look. It’s all supplies. I only see food and water. Nothing else.

Adam notices me looking at the helicopter. He warns me, “Don’t try anything now Karina.”“Don’t worry,” I tell him, “I won’t.”He still looks at me. Because that’s his job. Because he needs to do that. I look away, and I wait

for the night.

I close my eyes in a fetus position because the tent is too small. I wait until I can hear something move. I try not to move. I also try not to fall asleep. He might come in and go out without me noticing.

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I hear a ruffling sound. Not the kind you hear in the woods but the ruffling of the tent. I hear a silence, then I hear the ruffling again. He must have left.

I open one eye to check, and I don’t see anything. Just the inside of the tent. I, as carefully as possible, move outside. I try not to make a single sound. When I’m outside, I find Adam, on a blanket on the sand. He’s sleeping. I walk slowly around him, and into the helicopter.

I look at the door from the inside. I’m not sure if it will make a sound, but it might. I walk slowly to the steering device. I sit down on the seat, and I look for a button that says ‘on’. I can’t find it. Dang it! I hit my hand on a button, and I hear the engine start to run. Adam starts to wake up.

“Hey!” he yells. I quickly slam the door, and take the wheel, and I do what Cody did when he was flying it. The helicopter goes in the air. Adam looks hopeless. He just sits back down. I don’t think he could have done anything.

I try to fly the helicopter. I just go straight to some place in the US. I don’t know where, but I might be able to get help. I fly to city. I don’t know how to land though, so I will just press that button again.

I aim for the closest US place there was. When I’m on top, I press the mystery button again. The helicopter drops from the air.

I land with a crash, but all I got were a couple of scars. I climb out of the helicopter. I look around to find myself surrounded by gray houses. I also notice that people are getting out of their homes to come see the sound. They are really surprised when they see me. Their faces filled with shock. It was incredible. Not in the good way though.

“Hi…” I say quietly. I hear whispers of confusion.“Who is she?”“What happened to her?”“What should we do?”I look for the glass building. Its not that far. I run away from it. Not knowing what will happen to

me if I didn’t.I run as far as possible, until I see a bodyguard. Not Adam, just another bodyguard. He sees my

black clothes.He takes me to the Supreme Headquarters.“Who are you?” he asks me on the way. He carries me there.“I’m… uh…” I don’t know how to answer the question. What if I get in trouble?He doesn’t say anything until we get to Headquarters. That’s just only for getting in though. A

woman asks him, “Who’s that?”“I don’t know,” he answers, “But she has black clothes so I’m going to figure out what’s going

on,”She let’s us go. He takes me to some room, that I think is the Head Supreme’s.“Who is this?” the Head Supreme asks. She looks at me in wonder.“I don’t know,” he answers again. “Look at her clothes.” She examines me. The bodyguard is still

holding my hands behind my back.“I think she may be that test subject ‘Karina’ Scanlin’s been talking about,” she says. She looks at

me again. Then she picks up the odd device to ‘call’ people and presses some buttons.

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“Michael Scanlin? This is Veronique Doxie, I think I found your test subject for the bodig prevention. Its a girl right?” she asks. The whole US must be in on me. Everyone knows me. Not just Scanlin’s friend from New Haven.

Veronique nods a couple times. Then she says, “Okay. Just come by here to take a look at her.” She puts the thing down.

“What are you going to do to me?” I ask worried.“Mr. Scanlin from San Francisco is going to come here to take a look at you. Are you from the

project that is created by him?” she asks me.I give her no answers.“You have to tell me.” she says.“No,” I mumble.“It won’t matter anyways because Michael is going to come here and take you away,” she tells

me. “Sit down,”The guard releases my hand, and pushes me towards a chair across from Veronique’s. I sit down. “So what happened?” she asks me, “Did something go wrong with the experiment?” she asks.

She looks at me thoughtfully. I don’t trust her though. I say nothing.“So you’re not a talker,” she says afterwards.”That’s okay. Would you like some grapes?” she

asks me. I look at her when she says the word. Does she know? Or was that a guess?“No,” I answer, not ready to take a chance.“Would you like anything?” she asks me. I don’t know what to expect. I don’t know if she’s my

friend. Or is she an enemy trying to make me mad?“No,” I say. I look around her office. Looks like all the other offices I’ve seen. Though her’s

looks nicer. Instead of papers all over her table, she has separate places for each of the different types of papers. Maybe she sort them by important. This might make my escape plan more easier to achieve. But I don’t know if I’ll make one or not.

“You sure?” she asks again, “Alright,”“What’s your deal?” I ask her, “Are you trying to help me?”She shrugs. “I don’t really care. I just need to wait.” I look at her. Then I hear a knock on the

door.“Its me, Michael Scanlin,” I hear Michael say.“Come in,” Veronique says. Michael opens the door. And he looks at me.“How did you escape?” he asks. His face is just shocked.“So she is the test subject,” Veronique says. She looks at me skeptically.“Yes. You are coming back, and we are going to send Cody,’ he says angrily. His bodyguard

takes me away to the roof. I see another helicopter waiting.“Where do you get these helicopters?” I ask him. We move quickly in the vehicle. There is a

bodyguard already to go. And the other one is keeping a really close eye on me.“Nevermind that. You are dead,” he says. We lift off into the air. We are already moving fast.“Where is Cody?” I ask Scanlin.“Where he is supposed to be. Do you know how important that experiment was? If you would

have just stayed there you would have lived longer,” he releases all his rage.“Sorry? You were going to kill me anyways.” I tell him.“Though it would have took a shorter amount of time. We wouldn’t have to wait again.” he says.“Just get it over with then!” I shout.

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“It will be. When I get off this plane, things are going to happen,” he yells at me. I look around at the guards. They don’t respond. They do nothing.

The whole helicopter, is in an angry silence.Chapter 24

“Cody!” I shout when I see him. I run to him, then he opens his arms, and hug me.“Why are you here?” he asks me. “She’s here because she escaped. Now we are going to give you the serum, and see how it goes,”

Michael says.“What’s going to happen to Karina?” Cody asks him. He lets me go, and looks at his dad.“She’s going to die,” he says plainly. Michael Scanlin has absolutely no heart at all. He takes

Cody to another room, and his guards take me to his office. Keeping a really close eye on me.I wait. I look around for anything that will help me escape. But there isn’t anything. The guards

are strong, they will stop me if I just go up there and run.Scanlin returns to the room a couple minutes later.I stand up quickly, “Where is Cody?”“He’s just getting the same medication you got. Everything needs to be the same,” he tells me.“So he didn’t go anywhere yet, right,” I ask him.“Yes,” he answers. “Now we have to ask you questions. What happened to my bodyguard

Adam?” he asks me.“He’s somewhere in Africa,” I answer. I talk fast, I want to ask him some questions.“So how did you escape?” he asks me. Eyeing me really carefully.“He was sleeping so I just jumped on the helicopter, and went,” I answer. I sit back down,

knowing there are probably more questions to come. It will be a while before my turn.“Did anything strange happened?” he asks me again.“Don’t you already know this stuff?” I ask him. “Didn’t you have me on surveillance or

something?”“No,” he answers, “Adam was giving me an update every hour.”“Oh…” I say. I guess there is no way to stall anymore. “Then no. Nothing strange happened,” I

answer. I sit down. What can I do? The only story that doesn’t have a happy ending.“Nothing? Not even like, more energetic?” he asks me. Really surprised that the fact that his

serum didn’t work the way it did.“Nope.” I shake my head. I cross my arms too.“That’s no good,” he says to himself. He walks out of the door, and he leaves me with the guards.

I look at them.“What is he doing?” I ask one of them. They don’t say anything. They just stand there. I sigh.

What’s going on?I look at the floor. Then I look at the ceiling.

They take me to the prison I was at with my mom.“You’ll stay here until I decide to kill you.” Michael says. They throw me into the room. I look

around, everything is just the way it is. Except my mom isn’t here.

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They close the door shut. I hear the clicking of the locks. Then they go away.I go over to the tic-tac-toe place my mom and I carved. It still there. I miss it. I miss my mom. I

miss us playing it.I cry.“Come on!” I hear someone say through the door. I walk to the door, and put my ear against it.“Go now. The only reason you get to live is because you did one thing to help the serum,” I hear.

I don’t know who is talking, but they seem rough. If they are at this place in the hallway, whoever he is talking to must have done something really bad.

I hear the click of the door, and then foot steps. That person must have helped make the serum. I guess they are being punished for not getting good results from me. Poor guy, or girl. Though we would have both died either way.

“What happens next in this crazy adventure.” I ask myself. I sit down on the ground. They have to at least give me some mashed potatoes. I’m starving.

I hear more foot steps. Then a knock on my door.“Lunch!” a familiar voice shouts. He carefully slides the tray in, and I hold it while he pushes it

slowly more.“I got it,” I tell him, but I think he already left. I put the tray on the ground like I always do, then I

take the spoon, and take a scoop. It tastes good. Like happy childhood memories. I eat it fast. there’s only one portion for me anyways. I just leave the tray near the door when I’m done. I don’t know what to think. Just nothing. I can’t think of anything.

I look at the tic-tac-toe board. Then I remember my mom and I playing. And I would win. I would just be so happy, to see my mother again. The only good is that at least I know for sure if my mom is dead or not. And sadly its dead.

“You done yet?” the man comes back.“Yes,” I answer. I take the tray, and slide it through its hole. The guy on the other side gets it, and

he takes it.“Thanks,” he says. He leaves.I’m still standing. Not knowing what to do, I look at the board again. I start to cry. The wet, salty

tears make my shirt and pants wet. I slowly sit down, and begin to curl up. I cry, still very sad of everything. I begin to grow sleepy, I lay down. It makes me want to sleep, but my brain tells me not to. Who knows what people will think? But I won’t go to sleep, no matter what my eyes tell me to do.

I stand up, and calm myself down. I take a deep breath, and let it out slowly. All the air coming out of my mouth. Then I wipe my tears carefully. I don’t want my eyes even redder than before. I’m sure no one cares about my feelings here but I still don’t want to see anybody like this. And if they can’t see me, they can still hear my croaky voice.

I try not to close my eyes for too long. I look at the dark stains on my clothes. My tears have been soaked in the black clothing. But you can still see it. Its all there, some are long lines created by the tears that drip onto my clothes. Some are blobs because I had to wipe my tears. Some are a combination of both. I don’t know why though.

When I am calm, I tell myself, “It okay,” but my voice is very unclear. I need to work out how to make my throat feel normal. I need to make no signs of crying. I sit down, as far away from the board as possible, and think about happy things. I also remember the scientific fact that has helped me through the worst. If you try to look back on a memory, a detail will chang. Each time you remember, there will be a

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change. I keep telling myself that. Now I think that the event was not as worst as it was. It might even be fine. It might be worst. But I like the mystery rather than knowing the truth. I know none right now.

I feel my head start to get sleepy. My eyes are forcing me to shut them. I feel very awake though. My eyes are always dragging me down to sleep. I close my eyes eventually, and it feels very nice. My brain starts to melt with it. No. I can’t sleep. I have to make it until night time. I just have to.

But I have nothing to do. Why did life have to be so boring?

Chapter 25 (Cody)“What do you mean I have to do it again?” I ask my dad, “Do you know how much pain that

was?”“It didn’t work. We need to test a new serum,” he answers.“How do you know it didn’t work?” I ask him. I’m sitting on the chair. I look at the bandage I got

from struggling. Why would he put me through this?“When you know it works, it will have an effect on you,” he answers. I look at him again, very

scared about what’s going to happen.I sigh. I have no choice. “Okay,” I tell him. He looks at Katrice, and she takes a needle, and

syringe, and puts them together somehow.“Are you ready?” she asks me. I nod bravely. She takes the needle, and pierces it through my

arm. I feel the sting of the needle, and then it goes away.“I’m done,” she says. My father dismisses her, and has a private talk with me.“You know what to do right?” he asks me. He scares me. I don’t know if there’s a wrong answer

or not, but I answer, “Yes,” I gulp.“Good. And remember, no escaping. Not like your friend Karina,” he says. I hear a certain tone in

his voice, but I don’t know what it is.“Okay,” I tell him again. I touch the place where Katrice shot me, it doesn’t bleed.“Good. You are off tomorrow because Karina crashed my helicopter. We have to get another one.

It’s very hard to get a hold of it,” he tells me.“So I go to my room?” I ask him, maybe too eagerly. I try to keep my face, though, very

confused.“Yes, but later in the morning,” he makes a motion with his hand. Like, a ‘go’ motion. I gulp

again. I fear what my dad can do with his powers.“Okay,” I tell him. I walk off to my room. He stays in there, maybe thinking of an idea for the

experiment. I look at the food already in my room. Its lychee. Already peeled. A cup near it to spit out the

seeds. I walk to the white balls of fruit juice, and take one out. I put it in my mouth, it tastes really sweet. Not because of the sugar, but of its natural sugar. Nature can be really good sometimes.

I spit out the seed. The black pit. I take another lychee from the cup, and I eat it again. It tastes wonderful. I wonder how Karina will react to this. What will she do? Will she even like it?

I think about all the things. Then I remember, Karina is in the prison room. Maybe I can to her through the hole in the door.

I get up, and walk towards the room with the lychee cup. I want Karina to try it. I stroll down the hallway, careful not to get caught. I pass by my father’s room casually. If I go to fast, it will look suspicious. If I go too slow, he will notice me. If I just look like a regular person, nothing will happen. I am pretty sure.

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“Karina?” I say when I am at the end of the hallway.“Cody?” I hear her voice say. “Cody! Is that you?” she asks me. I turn around to the door I can

hear her best from.“Yeah!” I say to the door excitedly. “Karina!”I hear a thump on the door. And if Karina were me, it would mean that we are both hugging the

door. I look through the door by using the hole. My eyes meet Karina’s.“It really is you!” she says happily. She peers through the hole. I see her eyes through them. They

are perfect, just like how I last saw them.“Yeah! Are you okay?” I ask her. “Do you want lychee?” I remember the cup.She gives me a puzzled look. Then she says, “Yeah, I’m okay,”“Good.” I tell her. I add, “Lychee is a fruit.”“Sure then.” she says afterwards. I take one from the cup, and put it through the opening. She

grabs it with her small fingers. I see her put it in her mouth.“There’s a seed in it,” I tell her. She pulls the fruit out, and I see the shiny, black seed in between

her fingers. She looks at it oddly.“I think the white part is good but I don’t like the pit part.” she says. She throws it into something

I can’t see. “Do you want more though?” I ask her. Holding up the cup.“No, its okay.” she tells me. Then she looks at me more, “Can you get me out of here? I want to

spend my last few hours or so, with you. Like, where I can see all of you and not just your face,” “I can’t do that. I don’t have his finger print,” I tell her. “I don’t have the keys either.”“Just try it,” she edges me. I look at her in a sad face.“I can’t do that. It has a very loud alarm.” I say. I look around to make sure no one is there. They

are taking a break though.She looks away. I see her walk to the side of the room. I can’t see her there.“Karina?” I say. I wait for an answer, but I don’t hear much. “I’m sorry. But there’s nothing I can

do.”“Just go. Someone might catch you,” she tells me. I think she’s angry at me. But I don’t know for

sure. I go back to my room, baffled. I don’t know if she’s angry at me, or she really cares if I get caught.I put the lychee cup back on my table. I lay down, eyes closed. I look up at the ceiling. Then I

think, “If tomorrow is my last day, I should at least see Karina in person. I’m going to do something about it.”

I get up, and walk to my dad’s room. I see him still there, eating lychees. He looks up at me.“What do you want?” he asks me. He looks very irritated. “I want to spend time with Karina.” I tell him. “I want her to be released until I go.”“No,” he says right away. “You guys might plan something. It might ruin my plan.” he explains.“We won’t.” I tell him. “I just want to see her.”“I don’t care about your love.” Obviously I think. He continues, “I won’t risk it. You guys might

escape again.”“We won’t. And if I don’t see her, I am going to ruin your plan.” I threaten him.“Fine.” he says finally. “Five minutes before we take off,” he tells me.“Thank you.” I tell him. I walk back to my room calmly. Though inside, I am very, very happy.I eat the lychees again. One by one, I put the seeds in the cup. I hear a knock after I finish my last

one.

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“Who’s there?” I ask. Turning my head to the door.“Are you done with the lychees?” a manly voice asks me. I open the door for him. He comes in,

and takes the two ups away.“Thank you.” he says politely. He walks off, and I close the door behind him. Then I sit and wait.

My insides, full of joy as I wait for my meeting with Karina to come. I smile, as I walk around my room. Wondering what to do later.

I decide on going to the food storage room. I was bored, what is there to do besides eat now? I walk through the hallways to find:

3BFood Storage

I walk inside it. I see some people in the room, getting them ready for dinner. “Hi Mr. Scanlin.” some of them say politely. I say ‘Hi’ back to them. I look at all the fruits and

vegetables. I see them making the plants into salads. They have given us some variety. Fruit salad, or regular salad.

“I’ll take 2 fruit salads to my room in the early morning.” I tell the workers. I think Karina will love eating good food for once instead of mashed potatoes.

“Okay,” they say obediently. I look around to find some good food. I look at the blueberry pile for a moment. Then I ask the workers, “Can I take some?” I point to the pile. They nod. So I take one of there cups, and I fill it with blueberries. I put one in my mouth, and it tastes sweet.

“Thanks.” I tell them. I walk outside the room, and into my room. I take the cup with me. Eating them on the way.

I bite the berry, and the juice comes out the skin. I swallow the skin. It gets stuck on the roof of my mouth.

I walk inside my room first. Then I take my finger, and I push the skin down, I swallow it again successfully. I take another berry again, and I bite it. Then I make a face. I ate a sour one. The small ones are always the ones that are sour.

I eat several at the same time. Some are small, and some are large, so its mix of sweet and sour. I pick the ones that are big, and I see the insides. There a purple-ish color. I take a small bite out of the tiny one, it insides are green. I keep chewing it, and it made my teeth feel a little funny, so I stop eating.

I hear another knock on my door.“Come in.” I shout out. I see a large figure come through the door. Its one of the guards. He

walks towards me, and behind him, is my father.“Great news for us, we got a helicopter.” my father says to me. He looks so happy. Full of glee.

The guard carries me up.“Wait! I thought I would at least get to see Karina!” I yell.“Five minutes only.” he says sternly. I know that my father can’t promise me something, and then

do the opposite. Sometimes he just can’t do that to me.“Okay.” I tell him. The guard loosens his grip on me, but still has hold of me. I follow my dad to

the room that Karina is in. He puts his finger on the pad, and the door opens. Karina looks up.“Cody!” she says. She runs up to me, though she doesn’t hug me because she can see the guard

holding my hands together.“You guys have 5 minutes.” my dad informs us. “Use it wisely.”Karina and I look at my dad, then at each other, then at the guard holding me.

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My dad notices, and tells us, “He will be watching you guys to make sure you don’t escape.” he leaves the scene.

Karina looks at me, worried or something like that. But she doesn’t say anything about it on the presence of the guard. Instead, she asks me, “What’s going on?”

“I thought I was leaving tomorrow in the morning, so I ask my dad to see you. But then he said that we are leaving right now, so I get to see you now. After this, I’m going.” I explain to her.

“Okay.” she says, “I love you,” she looks at the guard. “Can I hug him?” she asks him.The guard looks at her, then releases me. Though he moves to a different angle of the hallway to

block us from running out. Once I am out of his grip, I hug Karina. I could feel wet tears start to form on my shirt. Then i

kiss her forehead. “Everything is going to be okay.” I tell her. Even though I know that I am only lying to her.

She keeps on crying. “No. Its not,” she wipes her tears. I could feel her wanting to be released from my hug. So I do release her.

“Nothing is going to be the same. Nothing will ever be.” she tells me. Still wiping away her tears.I look at her, then I feel the urge to cry. And I do. The guard still stands there, watching us. I

don’t know if he feels sad or not, but I look at him. Then I look away. His blank face scares me.I hug Karina again. I know I can’t do anything to help her, but I don’t want to feel like I didn’t

help her in some way. I want to comfort her, make her feel better. But I just can’t. Its the end.I see Karina looking at me. Her eyes, filled with tears. I wipe some of them off with my thumb.“Its okay,” I tell her. She still stares at me. I stare back. My eyesight is good enough to see the

guard at the corner of my eye. He checks his watch, and says, “Time’s up.”We let go of each other. I see my dad walking towards us in the distance. The guard grab hold of

my hands.“Are we ready to go?” he asks me. He doesn’t seem to notice any of our tears.“Yeah.” I sniff out. I feel my chest start to feel hot. The guard drags me with him, and he is

following my dad up to the helicopter.“There’s a guard already there. Unload the helicopter and fly it back here. I don’t want another

crash landing.” My dad tells the pilot guard.“Affirmative sir.” he says back to my dad. The other guard pushes me in the helicopter, and

closes the door. We fly up to the clouds, and I get up from the ground that I landed on.“Ow,” I say out loud. I put my hands on my head. Rubbing it so it will feel better.“We will be there in about 1 hour. Maybe less. Depends.” the pilot tells me. His eyes are focused

on the sky.“Thank you.” I tell him. I sit up on the chair. Then I put my legs on the other chair too. And I lay

down. Hoping to at least get a nap out of this.I rest my head on the side of the helicopter. I rub my forehead. It makes my head hot. Burning. So

I stop. But my head aches instead. I make choice, and just go with it. I don’t want searing pain, I would have headaches instead.

“So why are you doing this?” the guard tries to start a conversation. I look at him in a funny way. But act more serious when I realized my answer.

“My dad forced me to.” I answer him. Trying to ignore the pain in my head.“Why did you listen to him though?” he asks me. I don’t know what to think. Is he my friend? I

would see him later, a guard is already stationed there or something.

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“He’s the Head Supreme. I kind of have to.” I tell him. I just know that he feels uncomfortable. Maybe because he’s embarrassed that he doesn’t know who I am.

“I’m so sorry Mr. Scanlin sir.” he tells me. Changing his tone. “You are very brave to do this.” “Call me Cody.” I say to him. “And I didn’t even want to do this, but, I just have to.” I look up at

the inside walls of the helicopter. They’re damaged slightly.“Okay.” the guard says, responding to what I said about my name. He seems nice. Though having

a casual talk with him is weird.We have a moment of awkward silence. Then I just think of a question so he won’t be

uncomfortable.“Why do you have this job?” I ask him. Then I add, “Why do you want it?” when I realized that

the question sounds rude.“I just needed the food. My parents always thought I was strong, and they wanted me to have a

good life.” he tells me.“You have good parents. Do they get any of the food?” I ask him. I never knew what my dad’s

workers got. “Yeah. I visit them sometimes, and bring them food.” he explains to me. “I don’t go frequently

because I live in Headquarters.”“Oh.” I say.“So, I never saw your mom…” he says to me. I8 can see that he wants to know what happened to

my mom.“She… ran away.” I tell him. My head stops aching. I just close my eyes and think. Wondering

what he will ask me. Or if he will ask me at all.I hear silence. He won’t answer me. I just try to sleep. Though it is very hard to do when listening

to the sound of the blades, moving against the wind in a very high speed.But I manage.

Chapter 26“Just eat it and go to sleep.” the guard tells me rudely. The sky is dark, and the helicopter just left.

I’m left with another guard, Adam. Apparently this was the guard that Karina escaped from. “Fine.” I say. I grab the apple from his hand, and crawl in the tent that is already up. I think how

this is where Karina slept a few days earlier. Why she escaped and everything, is in this little place.I think that Adam is really mad because Karina just took all his food and water. He will probably

be more careful with them now. But I won’t do anything to him. I don’t care about him enough to do mean things to him.

I bite the apple quickly, until nothing is there except the seeds. I walk outside, and I see Adam just watching me. It makes me feel very uncomfortable, so I just look away, and walk near the tent.

I dig a hole in the ground. The soft sand slides back in the hole. I push it out of the way, and try my best to dig a hole. I put the whole apple core in the pit. The seeds, I assume, would just grow out of the core. Why do I have to pick them out?

“What are you doing?” I hear Adam say to me. I think he might be suspicious of me. Like if I was doing something very bad. But I’m not. I’m just planting seeds in the desert ground.

“Just planting seeds. Can I have water?” I ask him. I remember that I needed water for the plants.“I’m trying to save water Cody. I already used it on growing another apple tree,” Adam tells me. I

see his face relax when I told him that I was just planting seeds.

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“What other apple tree?” I ask him in wonder. Did Karina plant an apple here?“The last person here, Karina, she planted apple seeds too, right around there.” he points to a

direction near the supplies.Yep.I walk towards there. Wondering if Karina left a sign. A message that she actually has this all

under control. I feel my hand around that area, looking for a piece of paper or a carved message in something, but I don’t find it.

“What are you doing?” Adam asks me when he sees that I am digging up the plant. Or at least it looks like it.

“I’m just looking around.” I say as casually as I can. I stop looking around, and just, walk around the place. Seeing the sand and sky.

Adam looks at me even more suspicious than the last time. But I don’t think I should worry. None of us, Karina or me, have anything up our sleeves. I was just confirming that.

“Okay.” he says slowly. I walk back inside the tent. That’s the only place here that I can at least get some privacy. I don’t think that Adam can see me, so I assume that I get privacy in this tiny place. Though I don’t know for sure.

“Go to sleep!” I hear Adam yell. I think he thinks that I can hear him. Or maybe he’s just in a bad mood. But he is right. The sky is so dark. I should get some rest. I just have to.

I wake up. I walk outside to Adam. He’s already awake. He throws me an apple, and I catch it with my hand.

“Eat it. Its your breakfast.” he tells me. I look at him in a ‘wondering’ face. Does he think that I don’t know what breakfast is? I take the apple with me, heading to the tent, until I remember.

“Do we have anything else to eat besides apples?” I ask Adam.“No. We eat apples, while the other people in Headquarters, get to eat all kinds of foods.” I don’t

hear any sarcasm in that, so I crawl in the tent, and eat the apple. One bite at a time.I think about the world before. Nothing to do here, might as well. I mean, had they ever had to do

this? Go through this type of thing. I am guessing they must have. With all the advances they have made, they had to test it out. Why would they make something that could do harm? Besides war and conquering land, why would they? You just had to test it out. Maybe someone was trying to make a serum for our exact same reason, they had to test it on someone.

I lay down in the tent, apple in my right hand. Thinking about all their options and what they could have done.

Adam though, might have a grandparent or parent that has told him stories about the old times.“Adam,” I say, I crawl out of the tent. “Have your parents ever told you a story about their life?” I

ask Adam. He looks at me.“No,” he answers. “They died when I was young.” I am surprised by his tone of voice. It doesn’t

sound that sad. But he’s a guard, it might just be an instinct.“I’m sorry.” I tell him, I go back in the tent, sure that I just hurt his feelings.

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“It’s okay.” he says. I really can’t tell if he’s sad. Arms crossed, and looking at me, not frowning or smiling. “I don’t even know if its a loss or anything because I never knew them.” he answers.

I guess his answer makes sense, but I don’t know how to answer to that, so I don’t say anything at all. I just go back inside the tent with my apple. Biting the hard white part of it makes all the juice come out. Some of it gets on my clothes.

“Do you want any water?” I hear Adam ask me. I think he recovered from my question.“No thanks. Not right now at least.” I tell Adam. I look at my apple. The apple already has water

in it. I don’t need anymore now.“Okay then.” Adam says. I continue eating my apple. Then i realize that I actually do need the

water. The apple somehow, is making me thirsty. Not wanting to annoy Adam, I go outside, and I take a bottle of water. Adam is not alarmed, but says to me:

“So you do need that water?” he laughs.“I guess so,” I say. I think that I can reply that way. It seems appropriate.Adam and I both laugh. Once we are done laughing, I drink the water. Successfully drinking it

without spitting it out while I chuckle. After I drink the water, I go back inside the tent. Still smiling like an idiot because I can’t stop laughing. Its nice to see this side of Adam because it makes you less afraid by him.

I finish the apple. I then dig a hole like the first time but somewhere else. Then I put the core in it. Even though Adam won’t give me the water for this, I still plant it in the ground. I don’t know where else to put it anyways. Adam doesn’t ask me any questions this time. I am sure that he knows what I am doing. Just planting a couple of seeds.

“Let me give you some water for that.” he says kindly. He gives me another bottle of water. Less in it though. I take it, and pour it on the clump of sand. The wet sand is ‘melting’. It ‘melts’ until it just a smooth lump.

I don’t pour all the water yet. But Adam takes the bottle away from me.“Saving water.” he tells me. “Okay.” I tell him. I don’t want to go back inside the tent, so I write in the sand with my feet.

C O D Y: It reads. I wipe it all out with my feet. Now its back to normal. The sand gets stuck to my feet.

When I was watering the seeds, some of the water must have gotten on to my feet. Now the tiny bits of dry dirt are stuck to my feet. I sit on the ground, and use my fingers to brush off the sand. It feels very smooth. I wipe off all the sand off, then I wipe my hands on my shirt.

“What the?” I hear Adam say. I look at him, he looks at the sky. Then I see it. A helicopter. It lowers itself down. I stand up, and I move away from it.

Adam is already a good distance away from it, and I walk to him. I keep my eye on the helicopter as it lands. Sand get blown onto my face and into my mouth. I spit it out, using my hand to wipe out all the sand from my tongue. I look at Adam. He seems to be fine. Shocked though. His mouth is open and his eyes are looking straight at the helicopter.

A woman comes out of the helicopter. I don’t know her name but I recognize her as the Supreme Headquarters nurse.

“Cody. I’m going to need you to come with me.” the woman says. I looked at her, puzzled.

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“Why?” That’s my first question. I walk closer to her, though keeping a great distance between us.

“Mr. Scanlin says to bring you back.” she tells me. I don’t trust her. Shouldn’t Adam know about this?

“Why?” I ask her again.She shrugs. That makes me believe her. I don’t think my father would tell anyone about his plans.

They are usually terrible. That’s probably what he has in stored for me. A terrible death. But that doesn’t make sense with the serum.

“Wait.” I hear Adam say. “How come Mr. Scanlin didn’t just tell me?” he asks.“He couldn’t. He thinks that his phone isn’t working.” the woman answers. Adam thinks it

through. Then he says:“Okay then.” The woman nods, and I follow her to the helicopter. Which is on the opposite side of the I’m

standing from so I have to walk around.When I slide the door open, I see Karina. She’s smiling. I stop and look at her, then I figure out

that she isn’t supposed to be here, so I don’t say anything about her presence. I won’t until I am sure it is safe.

“Hi.” she whispers to me. She’s crouched down, and behind the pilot seat. I don’t even think that woman knows she’s here. I close the door, and then look at Karina.

The woman flies the helicopter up into the air, and Karina pops her head out.“Hi Cody!” she says out loud cheerfully. She hugs me for a second. I don’t know what to say or

how to react, so I don’t do either.“Cody, I am sure you don’t know what the heck is going on. But let me explain to you. First, I am

Katrice Bowery. You probably know me in Headquarters.” Katrice explains. “I know Karina through-,” she stutters, “somethings. I am a kind person. And I know Karina got herself into something horrible, and I wanted to help her. So I help her escape, and she told me to come get you.”

Karina blushes a little.“So now, we are going back to the US. But not to San Francisco, but to Montgomery, Alabama.”

she says. “The Head Supreme there hates Michael.”“Thats good.” I tell her. I process all that she said. We will most likely think of a plan to ruin my

dad’s life. This Montgomery Supreme will probably help us.“So how long is this going to take to get to Montgomery?” I ask Katrice. I look out onto all the

land. We are still over Africa a little. And if I’m not mistaken, San Francisco is far away. I don’t even know where Alabama is.

“I’m not that good with math. But I suspect the regular 1 hour. Its almost across the United States from San Francisco.” she says.

“Okay,” I say. I am traveling too much. I just hope this is all worth it later.

Chapter 27 (Karina)I look at Cody. He looks calm. Although he looks calm, I think that this is pretty hard to take in

for him. So much is happening. Katrice can help us a lot. She gave me hope for this. Before then, I just thought I would die in that room. But I guess I was wrong.

I remember just a couple hours ago, when I heard the ‘click’ of the lock. And when I saw that it was Katrice and not a guard or Scanlin, I wasn’t sure what to feel. I thought that she was going to lead me

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to the Medical Room to give me another dose or something, but she and I had a short conversation instead.

“What are you doing here?” I asked her. “I’m going to help you.” she said kindly. “What do you need though? We are escaping on the

helicopter but I need to know if you need anything else.” she told me.“Can we go to Africa to get Cody?” I answered/asked.“Sure. We’ll go on the helicopter.” she said.Then it hit me.“Do we have enough fuel?” I ask Katrice. Then she checks something on the board.“Oh yeah, we need to stop by somewhere to get it.” she answered. “We can go to any city, but we

have to keep them from knowing who we are or keep them from calling Michael. Only Supremes have helicopters.” she explains to me.

“What if we cut their electricity?” Cody suggests. “We can just blame it on a blackout.”“Good idea Cody.” Katrice says. “But where is their main source?”“But would that work? Its pretty early and there is a lot of light. Does the electricity affect the

‘phones’?” I ask them. I am embarrassed a little because I don’t know if I used the word ‘phones’ correctly.

“You’re right.” Cody says. “What if we cut their phone line?” he suggests.“They must have his it really good because have you seen any wires yet?” Katrice asks. I don’t

join in the conversation because I don’t know if I will even fit in. I only knew about the blackouts because of school. I don’t think I paid attention to other lessons.

“Just search around.” Cody answers.“What about our clothes?” Katrice asks. She makes a perfect point.“Then we have no plan? We can’t just go all the way there with low fuel. We might crash.” he

says. I am sure that he is talking about the crash when my mother died.“I don’t know. We just land on an empty roof and hopefully, no one will notice.” Katrice says. I

can tell from her voice that she is getting really angry. But I have to side with Cody because technically, she is the one who is turning down his ideas. Cody is just helping, and she is pointing out the flaws.

I look at Cody. He looks pretty irritated. The first person that could help him, and he is mad at them. I look at Cody, then Katrice, then Cody, then Katrice. No one speaks a word in the helicopter.

“Where is the fuel anyways?” I ask them both. They look at me.“Its-” Cody starts.“Its on the roof. There should be a hose or something.” Katrice interrupts.“Oh good.” I say. “We can just land on the roof, then we can get the fuel as quick as possible. If a

guard comes, we can just say we are from another city and that your boss allows us to do this or something.” I tell them.

They look at me again.“That’s actually not a bad idea.” they tell me. I smile. I hope that will at least ease off the anger

between Cody and Katrice. “Thanks.” So are we going to do it?” I ask them.“Yes.” Katrice tells me. “We are. The helicopter is running low now so I am just going to land

over there.” I look to see a roof of a glass building. I see another helicopter there. Their own helicopter of

course. We move to the side of it. I can see that no one is there right now, Good, I think.

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Once we land, Katrice runs right out of the helicopter, and to a hose. I watch her, then I get off. Cody does too.

“Open that thing.” Katrice says. She points to an outlined square on the side of the helicopter. Cody pulls it down, and a hole is revealed.

Katrice puts the hose in there, and we wait. Its only a few minutes until Katrice says, “Okay. Get in the helicopter, we’re done,”

Cody and I go back inside the helicopter while Katrice puts the hose back in place. Then Katrice comes in the helicopter, closes the door, and flies off quickly.

“That was not that long,” I say out loud.“Yeah but we could have gotten caught at any moment.” she explains. I can actually see her

panting pretty fast. “Okay, next, Montgomery Alabama.” Cody says. He seems happier than before. I think this is

actually better for him.I look out the window. Everything looks the same. Gray cubes. One slightly-not-dirty gray cube.

And one glass cube. The only thing that is different is this. Actually in a helicopter. That is stolen. And the people who own it are probably looking for us.

I look at Cody, and he looks at me. Then we look away from each other. I look out the window again. I can see the gray from houses clash with the green from the plants. And with a hint of every other color because not all plants are green. Then I look at the clouds that are on the same level as the helicopter. They look solid, and they don’t. They just look kind of ‘mystical’ and lovely. Elegant.

“So when we get there,” Katrice starts, “should we ask him to do anything to Michael? The point of this was to escape but do you guys want to actually harm Michael?”

“I don’t know.” I say plainly, looking off into the light blue clouds.“Cody?” Katrice asks next.“I don’t know either.” he answers. He looks sad. It might be because Katrice suggested to hurt his

father. The man that doesn’t love him. The man that doesn’t love his son.

“Hello Katrice.” the Head Supreme of Montgomery says to Katrice. I look at them shake hands. Then Cody and I shake Mr. Frederick Zange’s hands.

We had just gotten out of the helicopter. I didn’t say anything the whole entire time, but from the sounds of it, Katrice made a meeting with Mr. Zange beforehand.

“So, I am aware that you are hiding from that monster Scanlin.” Mr. Zange says disgusted. He makes a ‘puke’ face to indicate that he’s disgusted. Though we were already informed that he doesn’t like Scanlin.

“Yes.” I answer. Cody sits there and looks nice. But it looks fake like he’s actually mad.“Mmm hmm…” Mr. Zange hums. “Well lets see. To make this look normal, because we don’t

want people to give us strange looks, you’re just going to have to go into the Standard Pauper Test. We’ll interview you guys like how we interview new paupers in the city.” he explains.

“Okay then.” Katrice says. “How does that work because I don’t think any of us have done this yet.” she looks at Cody and I. We both shake our heads. “Yeah.” she says. “What do we do first?”

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“You guys have to be interviewed separately. And I know some of the questions they are going to ask you like, ‘Why are you here?’ or ‘Where did you go before?’ things like that. Just lie. But do not say San Francisco because we might have to, under standard rules, call him, and get his conformation.” Mr. Zange explain all of it to us.

“Okay, lets start.” Katrice says nervously.“Great!” Mr. Zange says, “Go to room 57.” We all walk outside his office, and into the hallway. The building here is different from the

building in San Francisco. The hallways are different, but I just follow Katrice and Cody to the room.57

Office of Registration

I look at the door. Katrice opens it. Cody and I follow her in. Inside, I find several people. They all look at us.

“Mr. Zange sent us here.” Katrice tells them. “We’re new.”I see some people move to different spots. They reveal a small hallway with small rooms. A

woman comes up to us, and tells us to go inside the stalls. I go inside the closest one, unsure if I need to make a quick getaway.

Inside the stall, there is already another woman. She looks at me.“Are you a new pauper?” she asks me. She walks behind me, and closes the door. Since it was on

the inside, I didn’t even see the door.“Yes.” I answer.“Please sit.” she says kindly, as she returns to her seat behind a desk. She gestures to the seat

behind it. I sit down.“So first, what’s your name?” she says. I look at the nametag on her black suit. Laci Cerry: it

reads.“My name is…” I don’t know whether to use my real name, so I settle for a fake one. “Charissa

Ferner.” I tell her. I see her scribble something onto a sheet of paper.“When was your birthday and how old are you?” she asks me. I decide to tell my real age. And

birthday. It seems harmless.“12 and December 26.” I tell her. She scribbles again. I feel my hands getting a little sweaty. I

need to calm down before she notices that something is wrong.“Where did you live before you came here?” she asks me. I stutter. Trying to think of a city that I can say. “New Haven.” I answer finally.“Okay,” she writes on the paper again. “Why did you decide to come here?”I search through my mind to find a answer. “I came here because I heard it was great for planting

fruits.” I lie.She scribbles that down too. “Did you come here with anyone?” she asks. The question is easy

for me.“Yes.” I tell her. There were a couple of witnesses that saw all three of us together anyways. I try

to bring myself up to see what she is writing, but I can’t see it. It looks blurry. “Who are those people?” she asks me. Then I stop and worry. My palms getting really wet. I race

through my mind to find an answer that is just easy.I don’t know what Cody or Katrice said about this question, and if I just say something, it will

sound like something’s up.

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“Friends of mine.” I tell Laci. She writes that down too. I figure that its true, and if the others say something else, I could just say they are really close to me. That’s why I call them ‘friends’.

“Okay then, how did you get here?” Laci asks me.My sweating comes back. I don’t know how to answer this. I don’t know what to say. I don’t

know if the others said anything else.“What?” I ask her. Hoping that she will just move on to the next question. She looks at her paper.“How did you get here?” she asks again. Then I remember 2 very important things. What about

my black clothes? and that only Supremes have helicopters. Then I think of a good one.“I wanted to come here days earlier, but I couldn’t, so I stayed at Headquarters for a while, and

they sent us here on the helicopter.” I explain to her. I think that whole thing makes sense.“Okay…” she writes down things on the paper. “Now we are done.” she says happily. I see her

get up, and take out a pass. “This is for you so you can stay here for a while until we set some things up.” she tells me.

“Thank you.” I say politely. I take the pass from her. I turn around, and see a guard come in. He grabs me by the shoulders. It hurts really badly.

“What are you doing?” I shout. The guard drags me outside. And I see Cody and Katrice getting dragged out of the stalls too. I turn the other way, and find Scanlin standing right next to Zange. I stop struggling.

“You were right.” Scanlin says. “They are here.”“What are you doing?” I ask. But it wouldn’t matter anyways. It wouldn’t make sense or anything

to ask that because there is only one thing he would do to us. One thing he was waiting to do the whole time.

“Come.” Scanlin says. The two Head Supremes go out of the room, and into another. I see that they are smiling.

The guards shut us in a room with the Supremes. The room looks like the Medical room in the other Headquarters. Except instead of 1 chair, there are 3.

The guards lock all of us in the chairs, and then Zange says, “We are actually friends. I knew that Katrice was running away from Scanlin. So I decided to ‘help’ her.”

The guards gives us a serum, and force us to drink it. Then I fell all different. And then I realized what this is. Death.

All of that for nothing. And I feel like,

The World is Ending

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