Running With the Wave

Chapter 22

Keara runs her hand along the ledge where Era used to sit all day long. She looks out onto the surroundng world with dead eyes. Ever since Era became one of the Disposed three weeks ago Keara couldn't really force herself to do anything but sit here, where she feels closest to Era. She'd been whipped many times for refusing to move and there were more times to come, but she didn't really care. Nothing mattered without the girl who had been like a sister to her. She looks at her belly, rubbing her hand over it. She'd be giving birth within the next week or two, the little time until birth being a side effect of the Scar. She was scared, to be honest, and she wishes Era was here, in this world. Not dead. Keara's hand slips into the pocket of her day outfit and she pulls out the stone shaped like a wave that Era had given her. She rubs her hand along the stone, remembering the conversation she had had with the girl:

"It was my mother's." Era had told her, "She gave it to me right before she died. Nothing bad can happen to you while you have it. Her love is in it."

"Era... You can't give me this."

"I can and I will."

Keara had stood there as Era kneeled down to her height.

"I won't always be here for you. It's only a matter of time before I'm Disposed."

"Era-" Keara had begun.

"Let me finish." The older girl had interrupted, "The stone, it's also something to remind you of me, to remind you to be strong when I'm not here. Do you understand?"

"Please-" she had tried again.

"Do you understand?"

"Yes."

Keara tries to remember the feel of Era's arms when she had enveloped her after she had said that. The warm feeling. The feeling of being safe, with her whole world in front of her. Tears appear on her eyes and she lets them flow down, miserable. Why is her life like this? Why is she being tortured again and again, losing but never gaining?

"Keara?"

She lets her hand slide away from her belly and looks down at Moa.

"Yes?"

"Tomorrow's my birthday. I've never spent my birthday without my mother."

Keara bites her lip, not sure how to respond to that. Maybe if she wasn't feeling her own loss she would know what to do, but she is filled with pain right now.

"I'm sorry, honey. We'll spend it together, okay? I know it's sad, but you're still far away from twelve. You at least dont have to worry about the Scar yet." Keara says awkwardly.

"I guess..." Moa sighs, sitting on the floor.

Moa hadn't been the same since Era had died. She'd lost her cheerful attitude, and was quiet most of the time. Keara looks down at the little girl, feeling bad that she can't give her the comfort that Era had given both of them.

"Moa?"

"Mm-hm?"

"Do you miss Era?"

Moa deflates, collapsing against the wall and tears flow down her cheeks.

"Every day, Keara." She cries quietly, "Why is our life like this?"

"I don't know. The one thing i do know is that Era told me to be strong. She told me that if anything happened to her, I couldn't give up. And neither can you Moa."

Keara slides off the ledge and onto the dusty floor of cell fifteen. The other women don't even look at them, too busy grieving for their own lost ones.

"I want to give up."

"So do I." Keara admits.

"I love Era. Why did she leave us?" Moa sobs.

Keara wraps her arms around the eight year old, trying to comfort her when she feels so hopeless herself.

"She didn't leave us. Era was taken from us, she couldn't do anything."

Moa burys her head in Keara's shoulder.

"We need to keep running, Moa. All we have left now is each other, and we can't abandon each other. Not after we've lost Era and our mothers." Keara whispers in her ear.

Moa nods and she and Keara curl up together on the floor, crying and wondering how they're lives could be so horrible. What had they done to deserve this, The chime rings through the building, signaling bedtime and all the other women and girls go to sleep. Tamio sleeps alone, Amiya having fallen sick and died not long after Era had been Disposed. So many people, dropping like flies.

"You need to go to sleep, girls." An older woman tells them gently before hobbling on a bad knee into her bed.

The two girls watched the woman with arthritis a while after she had gone to sleep. They both knew that it wouldn't be long before the men found that she could barely walk and she became one of the Disposed. Perhaps the women did too. It doesn't matter, anyways. In this horrible, wreck of a world, knowledge had nothing in common with power.

Moa and Keara never did go to sleep. They lay together and cried the entire night until the wall screen lit up with the days scheduele, grasping each other as if the other might be the next one to be taken from them.