WE STILL EXIST

Chapter Twenty- Five- Conversations Part | One

NOAH BLAKE

He drove down a few blocks to get away from the house, music, lights, and people were distracting us as we sat in silence.

The bruising on my neck and face has become red and swollen as well and my ribs have become too painful to sit straight up. I need to sit at an angle, so my ribs don't hit the seat.

Coden hasn't said anything for the last ten minutes, he sits in the driver's seat and looks out of the window. The moonlight shines down on the grass around us making the illusion of shiny grass blades poking out of the ground. The clouds are gone through the night, they will come tomorrow. They always do.

Talking, "I was going to come home this weekend to see my dad." In the dark, Coden moves his head slightly towards me. "There is a meeting with the captain about the reservoir construction, something is prolonging the implants."

Coden doesn't bother speaking up. Either he knows what it is or he doesn't care to talk about it. In the swallowing hole of the car, I sit back contemplating my life decisions up to this point.

"Sometimes when it gets dark in the colder months like right now, I would go to the reservoir to watch the ocean waves crash up and down the cliff." Coden moves his hands from the dash to cross over his chest. "I could hear critters, birds, deer, and even the unknown dangers."

"Weren't you scared you'd get killed by the unknown?" We were never supposed to be out at night and if we were, we had to be with someone. "You were always alone?"

"No, Avery would come with me sometimes." He sighs, "he would lead the way in the dark every time as if he's lived in those trees his whole life."

I remember when Avery had brought me to those woods near the bottom of the beach, he knew exactly where to go and knew exactly how to find me. He also knew how loud we could be, so no one could hear us.

We were never out there in the dark and he always made sure that I kept in his line of sight. The off feeling I have from watching him a few months ago throwing those bags into the reservoir comes back to me, three of them turned in. But no one found them or said anything to me regarding those bags.

"Why did you go out there?"

He smiles shortly, "The world was sleeping."

"I was awake in the night, watching the world pass by as the world skipped ahead." Coden looks out of his window again, "With myself, it was easy to live my life."

"I had everything I wanted." He asks me, "What about you?"

I rub my rib cage, "what do you mean?"

"The reservoir, why do you want it so badly?" He turns his shoulders to face me, "I mean yes, for sustain water, but there has to be something else."

Our climate has been messed up for hundreds of years and even after three hundred years after the climate war itself destroyed mankind, we still can't build a new life. We have become so numb to what we live by that we never looked beyond what was here. There have been many opportunities for a better life, better disease control, and education rights for everyone, however, everyone just sees what they are told.

No one looks beyond what exists in sight.

"Sustainable water has and will be the most important factor of why I want to use the reservoir, but I also am attracted to it." I clarify, "It pulls me in, the trees, the water, the rocks, the layout, and the connection I have with all of the nature bits and pieces."