Hope

Chapter 4: Charmaine

I'm sitting at the computer, trying to see if the pods are stable. Jordan walks up to me. He appears on edge.

"Are you alright? You seem off."

"Listen. Uh... I didn't know how to tell you this so... I'll just let her do it." He hands me the note that was next to my pod. "I'm so sorry." I open the envelope revealing a note card. It has my name on the front. I flip open the flap. I recognize the handwriting. It's my mother's.

It reads, 'Hope, I love you very much, that is why it is so hard for me to leave you. Since you were a baby, I knew you were special. You were skilled in hacking by the age of 8, hand-to-hand combat by the age of 10, and a
sharpshooter by the age of 12. You will do wonderful things in your life, I know it and I love you unconditionally. I don't know how to say this, so I will just say it. I'm not putting myself in cryo. I need to know that you will be okay because you have a brain tumor. I figured it out last week. But you are going to be fine because while you are in cryo I am going to write a course of action for Abby to look over. I love you, Hope. Do great things. Make me
proud, kiddo.'

A tear rolls down my face. That tear turn to two, which turns to three. She's gone. My mother is gone. It's all my fault. I start sobbing, thinking of her. The bedtime stories she would read me. The training she would give me. The fight we had two weeks before I was put in cryo. I hear footsteps coming towards me, but I can't stop crying. I feel a hand on my back.

"What's wrong? What can I do?" I hear Bellamy say.

"Everything is wrong and no one can do anything about it." I cry out. "She's gone!" I repeat over and over again as I cry into his shirt.

"Who's gone?" He asks me in a calm voice.

"My mother! She's... she's..." I respond barely able to get any words out at all.

"I'm so sorry, Hope." He says after understanding what I meant. We stayed there for a while.