Chapter 8

The back is quiet. The stress of the day leaves us all exhausted. I fight to stay awake. I concentrate on the vehicle parked sporadically along the road. Every now and again we pass another moving vehicle. Many times we have to take a detour around some craters in the road where lots of vehicles were. I always wondered why in the movies everyone just abandons their cars but when bombs are being dropped form the sky into any highly populated zones... I can understand the reasoning.

The memories begin to trickle in slowly. Everything I blocked out. I focused soley on surviving another few minutes. But now that I’m not fighting and am think my brain does what it’s meant to do. It thinks.

I try to move past the prone body on the ground. Try to ignore the fact that I never checked to see if he were alive. What if he was? What if he was still alive and I could have gotten him out of there? Could my consciounce live with that? Must I? I look at my blood covered hands. I have blood on my hands. I laugh at the sickness of it. I laugh at the obsurdity of life. The challenges we face. What we used to think was life and what it has become. I laugh. I laugh...

We pull into Caden’s neighborhood. The first few houses are fine. But the eighth on the right is blackened on the right. The next house is half destroyed. The next barely has a foundation. The next is gone. The last is a crater. Caden keeps driving.

He stops next to a half destroyed house that I recognize from pictures as being his. He gets out with his sister and walks slowly toward the building. I lean over and turn the ambulance off for now.

“Where are we?” Felicia looks at me through tired eyes. I think of the blackened hole where Jiavanni had said her house was.

“Last stop.” Her eyes widen slowly.

“What?”

“Yeah.” I’m abrupt. I don’t mean to be but it’s sharp.

“What about me?”

“Your house... Is there somewhere else...?”

“No! No! No! No!...”

After getting a crash course in how to drive (with little fear of hitting a moving object) I drive us home. Everyone sleeps in the back. Or at least pretend to. I doubt they can. I think of that one Twenty One Pilots song, “Car Radio”. It explains my feelings exactly.

The turn was a little tighter than I suspected. I get out of the ambulance and open the back up. They look at me with alert and scared eyes.

“I crashed it.” I scan over the people I will be spending time with for who knows how long. Caden. Felicia. Grace. Rippy. Caden’s sister, Olivia. And Megan. Rippy was my only true friend in there. But now he's another person entirely. I can see Felicia about to spark off.

"It's half a mile from here, we can walk." Caden and Rippy dig through the ambulance for any supplies we could take as I lead the girls down a curved road between trees on the left side and a fenced in neighborhood on the right side.

Within five minutes Caden and Rippy catch up and no sooner than we hear the scream of jets. Together we dive into the trees and hear exposions. We look back and see where the ambulance was is a ball of flame. The scream of jets slowly fades.

"A tracker..." Someone states. We stay down for several more minutes. We wonder if it's better to get behind where they've already bombed or go to where they have not. Where they hopefully have not. The thought dawns on me for the first time today. How could I have forgotten? How could I not have wondered if my own house and neighborhood was safe? Perhaps that is why neither of my parents answered- My phone rings. Just a soft vibration. But it rings. Rings! I dig into my pocket and carefully dig it out.

Jiavanni, my heart beat slows and I try to ignore the dissapointment seeping in. I read the rest of the text. Are you guys alright? No one is at your house. Your sister is with us. Who do you have? I look at those around me.

Yeah, we're good. You guys okay? We're a quarter of a mile down the road. I let her know who we got. I hit send and watch as the system button swirls. And swirls. And swirls. Then it stops and says "Send failed". I look at the connection.

"I lost connection," I state blandly. Everyone pulls out their phones.

"I still have mine," Caden tells us. No one else does.

"Text Jia, let her know we're about a quarter of the mile down the road and tell them who's here," I tell him gesturing around the group before leading them just through the edge of the wood to the neighborhood. We walk silently; with the exception being the attemptedly quiet sobs from someone I don't care to identify.

I look up tiredly. To the blue sky. The bright blue sky and the white fluffy clouds. It looks like a good day. Like every good day that has ever happened. But the smoke that can be seen in trails allows it some sinister character. Something to match the mood. To truly match the mood.