Aurora

Mama knew it was coming. I don't know how. Perks of working for the government as a genetic engineer, I guess. She had been prepping for at least a year. Well, that's when she first told me to pack a backpack. Said we were going camping for a long time. I loved camping. I was ten. I didn't know any different. My life revolved around school, dance lessons and riding my bike.

Mama and I arrived at the bunker after two days' walk. I don't remember arriving at the bunker. I was too tired to care. I remember Mama hardly slept and I remember she made us hide when the rumbling of the bombs started. I remember crying. I knew I wouldn't see my friends again.

We lived in the bunker with the other scientists and their families. They tried to make life as normal as possible with school and playtime. The important years of my life were spent underground. I went in a child and I came out a young woman. In body and mind.

Us fifteen kids learnt survival skills as best we could underground. There is only so much wood chopping and building of fires you can do when there isn't much around. I read everything and watched every video and movie they had in the bunker. I longed for the outside though. I missed the sun. My name was Aurora after all.

As I grew older and understood things better, Mama started explaining what happened. It was a international criminal ring – the FTE – that made it all happen. No one saw it coming. Not the governments anyway. They apparently weren't terrorists. She said that a bunch of big wig crime bosses from all over the world banded together and decided to build their own bombs to take over the world. All lead by The Boss. They had coordinated a massive bombing to destroy everyone and everything. They didn't care who. It made no sense. Why kill everything? There would be nothing left. Mama said The Boss was a manipulative psychopath and would stop at nothing to get what he wanted which was ultimate power.

Then, one day, we had to leave the bunker. Just like that. I had just turned fifteen a few weeks prior. Who was out there? Was any one still alive? I didn't want to leave but Mama said we had to coz we were running out of food. We weren't running out of food. There were twenty super smart scientists so they could pretty much fix and make anything.

Acceptance eventually set in and I pulled out my backpack. The unicorn shimmered in the light. Symbol of a bygone era. I packed the few personal items I had now, my survival pack, a knife and some of Mama's clothes. We were pretty much the same size now. We all emerged from the bunker together, eyes blinded by the sun. The air was clean and fresh. It was so green and I could hear the birds chirping. We tried to stay together but once the first two women were taken for breeding, we decided to split up and hide.

Mama explained that we needed to go the Citadel to destroy The System. The Citadel was the old presidential house in the capital city. She never told me what The System was, just that we had to destroy in order to end what The Boss was doing. I had so many questions but she wouldn't answer them. We had to make our way there. She had contacts there apparently that could help us. Mama showed me several maps. We were at least 1000 kilometres away from the Citadel on one map. The other maps were marked with crosses.

“Friends,” she said. “They can help us with food and supplies.” She and I decided on the best, most direct path following the train line. It should only take us a few weeks on foot. We had at least one river to cross and ridge to ascend. But the journey took more than a few weeks. I lost count of how many. At least a month or two. With the growing heat and few water sources, we really needed to get to the Citadel or else we'd die of dehydration.

We headed for as many 'friends' along the path as we could. We travelled by night, hidden by the darkness but also because it was much cooler. Mama and I managed to survive on roots and berries and the occasional small kill in between.

But we found no one. There was evidence of a struggle and there were blood stains but no one. Some of the buildings had been bombed. With each one, I became more and more disheartened. A few nights, I cried myself to sleep as Mama held me but she kept saying that things would be different once we destroy The System.

One night, we were searching for food at a highway service station when at least three vans pulled up outside. We tried to hide in the back but the dogs sniffed us out chased us as we went out the back door. They caught up with us and dragged us kicking and screaming back to their vans. They threw me into the back of one of them.

From the small window in the door, I saw a young man with a pointy nose, witch-like face holding Mama by her collar lifting her up so she was on tip-toe. I couldn't hear exactly what they were saying. I could see by the light of the torches that he was choking her. She really started to struggle then. She was trying to claw at his face which was just out of reach. He cackled and pushed her towards his men. He struck her across the face and she went limp. The men dragged her away. Pointy-Nose-Witch-Face looked around, sniffing the air before following his men.

I took a couple of deep breaths. Surely, they'll head straight back to the Citadel. They had prisoners. This could be a blessing in disguise. Two taps on the wall and the van lurched forward. The lolling of the van put me to sleep. I was so tired.

“Keep the locket with you,” Mama said as she handed me the heart-shaped locket. We had been reminiscing about our life before the bombings. “Why?” I asked.

“Just in case something happens to me,” she said matter-of-factly.

“Nothing is going to happen to you!” I protested.

She looked at me sternly. “Just promise me. Please. And don't open it until we get to the Citadel,”

You don't argue with Mama when she uses that tone. “OK, but I still don't think anything will happen to you. What am I supposed to do with it when we get to the Citadel?”

“Once you open it, you'll work it out. Just make sure you're at The Mainframe.”

“But how am I supposed to open it?”

The vans stopped at gates and the jolt woke me from my dream, a very distant memory from our bunker days. I heard voices and then it continued on inside a dark plant room. I heard the locks click and the door open.

“Who have we here?” said a commanding female voice. I gingerly crept forward and jumped down to the ground. My eyes were pointed down and saw at a pair of dirty combat boots. My eyes traced up black cargo pants, a utility belt and vest and finally to a worn, but attractive, face of a forty-something year old blonde woman. I started to run, but she just grabbed me. I spun around and was ready to punch her. She was pointing a gun at me. “You're a feisty one. I don't want to hurt you. The Boss wants to see you.”

I relaxed my punch and straightened up to my full five foot three height. “Move,” she commanded as she waved the gun forwards. I turned and started walking with her behind me at an arms' length, gun pointed at my back.

We stopped outside a fortified metal door with two guards outside. One of them opened it and let us in. We entered a large, plush room with several couches and wall-to-wall shelves full of books. There was a tall, broad-shouldered man sitting in an armchair facing the door. There was something vaguely familiar about him. There were two other armchairs facing him.

“Please, have some tea. I'll have some food brought to you,” he said in a low, soothing voice. He looked up and saw me enter. “Ah, Aurora.”

How the hell did he know who I was?

It was then that whoever he was speaking to stood up from the armchair. “Aurora, what are you doing here?”

“Mama! What are you doing here?” I blurted.

Then another person in the other armchair stood up. Pointy-Nose-Witch-Face!

“Good. The entire family is here now,” the man said.

What? Family? Who?

Mama let out a sigh. “Aurora, meet your father, The Boss. Brian Oscar Scott-Smith.”

The Boss is my father? MY FATHER? How could this be? She had told me my father died before I was born. Brian? BRIAN?! What kind of big shot crime boss name is that? She let out another sigh. She could read the confusion in my face. “Yes, and this is your big brother, Benjamin.”

Pointy-Nose-Witch-Face was my brother? This was too much. I felt faint. How could she have kept this all a secret?

“Now where is the virus, Emmy?” The Boss asked Mama.

“There is no virus,” she said.

Without thinking, I brought my hand up to the locket at my neck. The Boss saw the movement from the corner of his eye. “Come here, child,” he said. “Aurora, no!” Mama shouted. Mama stood with her fists clenched as I walked slowly over to the man.

“Just put her into the Sheds, Pa. She can make babies like the rest of them,” Benjamin said sneeringly.

“Quiet! That is no way to speak to your sister!” The Boss bellowed. “She looks like you, Emmy,” he said gently. “She got the good genes.”

Benjamin snickered. I walked over to my supposed father and he yanked the locket off my neck. He tried to open it but couldn't. “Here, Ben, you try.” He tossed the locket to his son. Again to no avail. “What's so special about this locket, anyways? Useless piece of metal,” asked Benjamin and he tossed it to the floor and I went over to retrieve it. I put it in my pocket.

“Where is the virus?” he bellowed in Mama's face. “Over my dead body,” she said quietly without looking at him. He slapped her across the face. Mama didn't even flinch. “Do what you want with me but leave Aurora alone,” she said to him. He grabbed her by the face with one hand, his face so closed to hers, lips almost touching, eyes locked.

“She can watch me torture you,” The Boss warned. “Take them to their cells,” he directed Benjamin and the female guard that brought me in. “Ace, make sure they are well fed. Emmy will need her strength to put up with me. And make sure they bathe and get clean clothes. They stink. I want my girls to smell like roses.”

That night, fed, washed and clothed, I awaited my fate in my cell – a bedroom with bars on the windows. Quite comfortable really. I managed to fix the broken chain of the locket and it was around my neck again. I paced. Thinking. I heard a rustle at my door and a piece of paper slipped through under the crack. I ran over and retrieved it.

You are not alone. Be patient. Be ready.

At the blood of a new dawn, the heart will set us free.