Life Sentence | Harry Bingham

-Three

You need water and food to survive.

You can go three or four days without water but no one wants to be hydrated. You can live three weeks without food, but starving is painful and slow.

So when Campbell has sent out that text that we were basically trapped in our small town in West Ham, everyone went into a panic mood. I stood inside the local grocery store, watching as my peers ran with carts filled with food. They weren't thinking, they just wanted to live. I slowly walked to the produce aisle, calmly getting the necessary things I would need, but I wasn't being selfish.

I wouldn't get everything, I would leave some behind for who else would need it. Then I got canned food, bread, water bottles, the essential items. Glass shattering could be heard from many aisles and everyone was running.

I knew this would happen, chaos.

Back at my house, I put things away with a bit of sadness. My house was quiet, and I wasn't used to that. Bella would've been running around the kitchen as my mom and I would have been putting away the groceries. I usually would tell Bella to quit and go watch Tv or something, but now I would do anything just to see my baby sister run around with her bubbly laugh.

Maybe, just maybe, our parents would come back. Maybe Cassandra was right about them being evacuated, but why were those trees there? To block off anyone from entering? Bewildered as hell at the whole situation, I tried my best ignoring the powerful silence that engulfed me.

I wanted a cigarette.

=

I sat next to Sam on the table as Becca looked through papers in front of us. "I want to know why we're here." Becca's signed and said at the same time to us. "Why?" She looked down at the table she stood in front. "And why this place is exactly like home? And the lights still go on?" She slightly laughed. "And our cell phones still work."

"Our parents gone," I added and Becca nodded.

"What if there is no why?" Sam signed. "What if it just is?" He shrugged.

"No, I don't accept that. We've been kidnapped. Or rescued or something."

"Or the bus driver took us to some parallel universe or something." I joked, lightly laughing. I didn't want this topic to be so dark, even though the situation is. I believe there is always light in a horrible, dark situation. You just need to look deep enough to find it or create one.

Becca shook her head, looking off to the side at the wall. "I mean, there's a story here." She pointed her hand to the pictures and papers pinned to the wall. She took one. "People don't just disappear." She mumbled and looked at it.

Sam banged his hand on the table to catch her attention. "I can't hear you."

Becca shook her hand and started to sign slowly to Sam. "People... don't just disappear." I had looked off to the side at the walls to carefully analyze each picture.

"Apparently they do. You go missing, you go deaf for no reason." I looked back at Sam to see what he was saying. "You're looking for answers. There are none. Doesn't this prove that?"

I had thought back to what Cassandra had said earlier at the bridge, how there are always answers to things.

"No." Becca shook her head. "I don't accept that. You know what? Something happened yesterday."