Running With the Wave

Chapter 9

Era:

My shoulder stings and I already miss cell fifteen as I hike through this stupid meadow. My mouth is parched but I dare not take more water than I need to survive. I grit my teeth in frustration. This is so messed up! Tired, I slump down on the grass and put my head in between my legs. Why is this happening to me? I hear someone walking through the tall grass and I curse silently. If I get caught like this they'll know that I'm an escaped woman! This isn't happening, this isn't happening!

Hunter:

I decided to skip Keeper practice this morning even though I know my father will not be happy. I'll probably get a beating when I get home, but after burying the woman that escaped with the bullet in her chest yesterday I can't bear to go train to be one of the men who does that kind of thing. Before I dreaded going to Keeper training. Now even thinking about it makes me want to throw up. So I decide to go out to hunt because maybe my father will be a little less angry if I bring back food to fill his stomach. Maybe I'll get out tomorrow with only some bruises and cuts, unlike the broken arm and nose I got last time I disobeyed him. I run through the forest and manage to get a family of badgers and some rasberries. The squirrels and raccoons have already finished off the peanuts, but I think we have enough of those to last a month or two. I sigh and sit down on a rock, emotions creating a battlefield in my head, tearing at each other. I can't stand it anymore! Why does no one else feel the way I do? Why am I the only one that actually thinks? Frustrated and close to tears I stand up again and pace around a bit. Finally I decide that I need to go back to the meadow. I need to see the grave I made for that poor woman who was muttering about her daughter Moa. I don't want to think about what the girl is going through. I rub the tears out of my eyes and get angry at myself for being so weak.

"Act like a man, Hunter," I mutter to myself.

I get up and tear through the forest, enjoying the burning in my lungs as I pant and the aching in my legs. I love to run, love to feel that pain. I sprint the half an hour to the meadow, getting lost every once in awhile since it's only my second time going there. No one goes there, really. Not many people go out of the City's wall and the people who do have no interest in being close to the women's prision. Never mind the consequences of being caught there. I slow to a walk as I near the edge of the field. I scan the grass filled land, trying to remember where I buried the woman. A figure crouches in the field. My eyes widen with surprise. Is it another escapee? How is that possible? A lump forms in my throat. Oh God, am I going to have another body to bury? I don't think I can take that. I'm stronger than most when it comes to death, pain and loss. I've been beaten by my own father for any wrong thing I've done, seen people shot in the street or walking around with a million bullet wounds puncturing their flesh. But I can't take having to bury another body that was killed by the cruelty of men. No one can take that, really. At least no one who matters. I chew at my lip. Should I go check it out? I guess I have too...

"Note to self," I mutter as I pick up speed, jogging to towrads the second body I've seen in the normally deserted field in two days, "get stronger mentally, though physically couldn't hurt either because this is so going to end up in another war."

Oh joy. You know how much I love wars.

Era:

I want to cry. I can hear the person getting closer and closer... Am I getting closer to my death? Am I meant to die? I force the tears away and turn my face expressionless then look up at the boy coming ever closer to me. I've heard stories of love from my mother. She never experienced love, she was also born after the Fall. Heck, all the women and most of the men from the time before the Fall are long gone, but my mom told me stories about love that have been passed on for generations and I've heard of that feeling where you see someone and your breath simply disappears. That's what I wish could happen when I see this boy. Black hair that looks like it's been chopped himself falls perfectly on his pale forehaed. Green eyes look over me, but they're not the merciless gaze I expected to see. Actually, they're gentle but with a hardness in them that tells me he's been through pain. He's slim, but I can make out the muscles that decorate his body. I desperately want him to fall for me, want him to not feel the need to murder me. I stare at the gun slouched over his shoulder, and I panic. All of hope of a happy ending filled with love evaporates as the truth I've known all my life hits me hard in the face. This boy may seem nice, but he's a man and men will stop at nothing to kill us. I scramble up and find that I'm at least two inches shorter than him. I don't even bother to run. As long as he has a gun I'm screwed.