Dedicated to Megan Faywood - For being the first to read this, for being an amazing person, and so much more. I miss you, I really do.

TRIGGER WARNINGS: Death

(23 August, 2017)

A long queue ran right round to the back of the shop. The shop. It certainly was The shop. There were only three stores in the town and this one was by far the most popular. The shop sold just about anything and the prices were reasonable. In theory, it should have been a great place, in practice however, like so many other places, it was an entirely different story. The government kept people on strict rations around here and the owners of The shop were more than happy to assist in keeping the law, probably because it meant they got extra. Necessities were limited and most people wouldn’t even think about anything extra, most people were on a tight budget. People were barely given enough food for three meals a day, let alone a simple snack. Unless of course, you could pay a “little” extra. Which, of course, wasn’t little at all. Kai herself worked every day and most nights, but still she didn’t earn enough money for her family, which admittedly was rather large (there were eight of them, plus her best friend who had been abandoned by her parents for being different). Instead, she had to be endlessly grateful that her parents worked as well.

Kai had been working since six that morning when the line of people had been almost as long as it was now. She was going to be working until nine that night which was when she would rush to grab her bag, ru out of the shop and sprint home, hoping to make it in time to help prepare dinner. Usually she couldn’t, but she tried anyway. So most nights she would return home, drenched in sweat. But it wasn’t time for that yet, she reminded herself as the next customer moved up to the counter, with a small sigh she looked up. “Hello Mr. Danu,” Kai greeted the customer brushing a strand of black hair off her face.
“Oh, hello Kai. I’m afraid I can’t stop to talk today,” the customer said, his eyes shifting around, looking anywhere but at Kai. “I need a pass to get upstairs,” he continued, fiddling with the sleeve of his coat.
“You need to get upstairs? Well okay then. Here you go,” Kai replied, not showing her surprise in her voice, but most certainly feeling it.
“Thank you Kai,” he said as he stepped out of line and headed towards the staircase, still fidgeting nervously. Kai put her hands in her head, momentarily wondering what the town was coming to. Quickly though, she straightened up and put on a smile, ready to serve the next customer. If she kept a customer waiting, she knew that she would be fired, she had seen it far too many times. She looked around as customers wandered around the store, pretending that they had the leisure of buying whatever they wanted. It used to work, when the laws were new, but now no one was fooled, least of all Kai. She could feel the anxiety coming off them in waves. It said “How am I going to feed my family. How am I going to do this?” Most people were anxious around here as soon as they worked out how things worked around here, most people were tormented with thoughts of their families dying of starvation or being killed, most people were tormented with thoughts, full stop. The next customer walked up to the counter, a small child with say eyes, long eyelashes, dark hair and a book in hand. “Good morning,” Kai said kindly, stepping out from behind the counter. “Do you need help?”
“Yes, thank you,” the child said in a hushed tone.
“What’s your name? I’ll check to see what you have in your rations,” she explained, picking up a book off the counter and then bending down to the child’s level.
“My name is Ven,” the child said, voice still soft.
“Alright, Ven,” Kai said, flipping through the pages of a heavy record book. “It says here that you can take home enough food for two days. Take whatever you want,” Kai lied, she didn’t want to have to tell the child the limited amount of food she was meant to get, people should enjoy the world for as long as possible, she told herself, still hoping that not too many people heard what she had said.
“Really!” Ven exclaimed, obviously excited.
“Yes, take what you want, but be careful. Make sure no one takes it from you, okay?” Kai said, lying again.
“Thank you!” Ven called out, stepping away from the line and gathering food and other necessities to take home, no doubt imagining the scene that would happen at home. Kai smiled slightly as she watched Venn skip out the door, but quickly her expression turned serious and she walked back behind the counter, ready to serve the next customer. “Good morning, just here to pay for these things,” a woman said, she was obviously one of the people that could pay the “little”extra, the amount of food she piled on the counter would look ridiculous to the majority of the people here, she was wearing jewellery and she didn’t have the waves of anxiety coming off her.
“Of course,” Kai said, biting back a remark about how lucky the woman was. Instead, she just nodded and placed the woman’s things in a bag. “Here you go,” she said, passing the bag to the woman. “Do you have the money or have you already paid?”
“Here’s the money. Fifty, is it?” the woman asked, reaching into a bag to pull out a bag of coins.
“Yes, it is,” Kai replied, taking the bag of coins to empty it into a box before handing the bag back. That was how money transactions worked around here.
“By the way, it was a very nice thing you did for the child that was before me,” the woman said, smiling quickly before she left the store. Kai watched her walk out, surprised that someone so lucky could be so kind. As the woman walked past the other people in the line, Kai could see her pressing small parcels of food into children’s hands. Kai barely repressed a gasp, she could almost always control how she showed her emotion in every way possible, but this took her by surprise. Kai looked away from the door as she saw another customer waiting out of the corner of her eye. It was a figure, cloaked heavily in black. “Kai,” the person hissed, as Kai turned her attention towards them.
“Harper?” Kai asked softly, her eyebrows raised, hoping, hoping that the thing was thinking hadn’t happened.
“What do you think?” the cloaked figure asked, obviously exasperated. “We have to go. Now.
“What stage? Harper, what stage?” Kai asked, her voice becoming slightly panicked as she looked at Harper. Harper looked up from the ground, meeting Kai’s eyes and slowly shook her head.
“Alright, I’m coming. Let me just get someone to cover my shift,” Kai said, her voice low, but her words sharp.
“Quickly,” Harper urged.
“I know. I know,” she replied, hurrying to the back of the shop, disappearing through a door. A few minutes later she came back, carrying a small sack and followed by a girl with long blonde hair. “Thank you Cela,” Kai said, before grabbing Harper and dragging her out the door, excusing herself through the crowd of people that were still waiting for their chance to get in. As soon as they got free of the crown, Kai let go of Harper and broke into a run. She ran through the streets, swerving around people and other objects. She ignored the yells that came from Harper who was far behind her, she didn’t care at the moment, if she had to get out then she was going to get out. Completely. She knew that soon there would be officers, trained in capture coming for the two of them. All they could do at this point was run. Away.

Finally, they reached the wide open space that was at least twenty minutes from the town and that was at running pace. Kai had always been good at running, but she didn’t actually think that she was going to be able to run for thirty minutes straight, apparently adrenaline did help with running. Slowly, she brought her run to a jog and finally she stopped. She sank down onto a large rock as she looked around her, tears flowing freely across her face. The grass was covered in a thick layer of soft white snow, buildings could be seen in the distance and the sky was covered with clouds. The breeze was cold and now that she had stopped running, kai started to wonder why she didn’t think to bring a coat. “Kai! What were you doing? We weren’t meant to bring attention to ourselves!” Harper screamed as she came sprinting into the field. Still sitting on the rock, Kai shook her head slowly, the tears had stopped and now her face was expressionless. “It’s not your fault. You weren’t there,” Harper said, bending down to look at Kai. “Kai?” she asked, but still Kai didn’t reply she just sat there, staring blankly out into the distance, no emotion showing on her face, but inside her emotions tormented her, battling against one another and against Kai herself. They stayed like that for hours. Harper sat on the other side of the rock, her back pressing up against Kai, talking to her. She kept trying to get Kai to open up, but with no result. Kai still sat unresponsive, although sometimes she leant into Harper.

“Kai, we really do have to go. I’m freezing. You’re freezing. We can’t stay here. The sun is setting. Let’s go. Kai. Come on. Please. I’m sorry Kai, but we can’t stay here. I know you’re upset, but we have to go,” Harper said, trying to keep the flow of words constant, but still her voice broke every now and then, she had lost her family too in a way.
“Harper. Where are we meant to go? What are we meant to do? We can’t stay here. We can’t stay there. So what do we do?” she asked, her voice breaking as she choked on her own emotions. She was shaking, she had been for the past two hours, she wasn’t cold, but she was overwhelmed. She knew what had happened. They had been planning this for years. There were eight stages. Each stage meant a death except the last except the last. The last simply meant “Get out. You’re the only ones left.” So they had. They had been planning it for years, but apparently not long enough. Now that they had all been murdered and it was just her and Harper, where were they meant to go? She didn’t know. She wished she did, but she didn’t. It wasn’t even as if her power was a helpful one. Out of everyone in her (now dead) family, she had the least useful power. She could tell what someone felt. How was that helpful? She wanted to scream at whatever gave her that power instead of something more helpful. Her dad always knew where to go, her mum could always convince people to do what she wanted, her older sister could make anything beautiful, her younger brother could find a safe place anywhere, her youngest brother could find food anywhere, her younger sister could build anything out of almost anything, her youngest sister was fluent in every language. How was knowing the emotions of people meant to help them? “Kai, we have to get going,” Harper said, grabbing Kai’s hand and pulling her gently up off the rock.
“Where to Har? Where do we go?” she asked, letting herself be dragged upwards.
“It will be alright. Kai, you’re strong. Where did your strength go? I know where to go,” Harper said, beginning to walk further away from the town, still holding onto Kai.
“I’m sorry. I just…” she began, but soon trailed off.
“Don’t be sorry. I just had to get you moving. Your family is dead, people are usually upset after that,” Harper replied, walking faster now that she knew Kai could actually walk.
“Oh, okay,” Kai said, her voice soft.

They walked like that. Hand in hand for ages. Neither of them really knew how long they had been walking or where they were going to, but they were okay for the moment. Sometimes soft tears would fall slowly down Kai’s face, sometimes Harper would have to squeeze Kai’s hand a little tighter to reassure herself that she was still there, sometimes neither of them could breathe because of fear, but they were okay. They were going to keep going on. Yes, sometimes they would have to stop because one of them would have a breakdown, complete with hyperventilating and vomiting and yes, sometimes they would have to stop because one of them would be so consumed by grief that they just couldn’t walk any further, but they knew they needed to keep going so they did. They got up and walked again, never letting go of each other.