My Mother Saved Me

I am running, for my life. I don't know what day or even what month it is. The ground is hard and cold under my bare feet. The sun is either going down or just coming up because it is barely light out. There's trees everywhere, and I'm tripping on the fallen branches, stuck up roots, and vast amount of dried leaves. I am so tired but my adrenaline is boosting me forward. I see what looks like an abandoned building up ahead.

I quickly get inside and close the oversized, dragging door. My heart is pounding against my chest that is heaving from my labored breathing. I need to stay quiet or they will find me. I don't know just how far I have made it from the site. I hunch over putting my hands on my knees. My heart shaped locket swinging in the air before me. The only thing I was aloud to keep while being in the site. It must be fall or close to winter with how cold it is. I am looking around trying to see if I can find something to keep me warm, if only for a little while.

Every part of my body is freezing and the horse blanket I had found didn't help much. I was so exhausted and ready to just drop. I have to keep going, my mother is counting on me to come back and save her. I hear the sound of tires on the road ahead. When I get to the road I see a big vehicle passing. I quickly duck behind the trees and wait for it to pass. Hoping they didn't see me. They must have put out a wide spread alert. I have seen this happen when the other more important people escape, but I didn't think I was on that list.

Then again, I don't think they want you to have any good thoughts on yourself, so they can use you as the tools they see you as. When the world collapsed on the foundation they built and people were dying, the world came to realize that some humans were adapting and changing. Our habitat was rejecting us and some of us were adapting to it. The adapters were hauled in to be tested on. They thought we were adapting to our surroundings, which we were, but we were also creating the resources we need to survive. Not only for ourselves, but for others who weren't

They originally were just keeping us separate from others for "our protection," but it soon became imprisonment. We were no longer aloud to lead normal lives or have basic human rights. All of us in The Sites got a tattoo our first day and then segregated by gender and sent to our new living quarters. Mother and daughter or father and son were aloud to bunk together, but no one else. Once you reached age 18 you were moved to your own bunk.

As I run across the road, I hear my mother's voice pushing me forward. "Go Keira, I will keep them busy to give you a head start but you must hurry." I was a girl adapter, she knew that if I was left at The Site they would force me to get pregnant with artificial inseminations. No pregnancies in the 10 years they have kept me there have ever been carried to term. I've watched my mother grow and then I'd find her on the floor of our room bleeding from another failed pregnancy. Every 18 year old woman adapter has had to endure these miscarriages, and I just turned 16.

My mother gave me the directions to her old friend. She said he would help me if I can get to him. She said it would only be a few miles from the site. Go out the side door and straight. No turns and no side trails, just straight. I don't know how she knows this person, I've never met them, but this is all I have. Once I have reached him, we can hash out a plan to save my mother. "Remember Keira, if they find you they will not kill you, because they need you. There are far worse things than death for you. You will never get this chance again. You will know you have reached the right place when you see a yellow house, a metal windmill will be in the front yard just right of his blue front door." I find it odd for someone to have such bright colors on their house, but I suppose maybe he has a happier life than I do.

The Site has been using us to send out the proper essentials since the Earth stopped producing adequate resources. They hook us up to this machine by wires on our heads. That's why we are all supposed to be bald, to make the signal sync better. Then somehow they transfer our ability to the machine and it sends out the stuff people need. They never tell us exactly what they are doing, but if we don't obey we get beaten, our food and water taken, and even our entertainment activities. The process takes hours and that's the first thing we all have to do when we wake up in the morning. You usually feel a little tired for awhile, but it usually isn't too bad. I guess before they found out the information they needed from the testing, many adapters died from the meet ups. The Site commander finally found the right amount we could give, that wouldn't result in us dying, after many years of research. Many of the male adaptors will sometimes undergo testing, but all female adapters are constantly being tested for a variety of things. They are trying to understand why all the pregnancies have failed, as well as, wondering why as long as the mother is an adapter the baby is one too.

It's fully dark now, and while I feel I have been running forever, I still haven't seen any sign of the yellow house. If I can't find this guy I won't ever be able to go back for her and the others. As I was leaning on a tree for a quick rest I see a glint of light, then an almost flashing glint of light. It was the moonlight bouncing off the metal blades of the windmill! I ran straight to the blue door and pounded on it as hard as I could. "Mister! Mister! It's Keira, my mother sent me!" I pounded as hard as I could on the door. Then I saw a faint light come through the side window next to the door. A very stern looking man opened the door "what the hell do you think you're doing?"

I wasn't expecting that reaction so I kind of froze. He grabs me by the shoulder and pulls me in, with a slam to the door behind me. "Mister look I don't mean to impose on you, but my mother sent me here. She made me escape and sent me to you. My mother doesn't make mistakes like that. Now, you need to help me. I need to go back for her, and the others." He was looking out every window, then drawing the curtains closed the whole time I was talking. "Look kid, if you keep blabbing your mouth you're going to get us both dead."

"Mister, I need your help. A lot of people do. It's not right what they are doing to us. There's enough adapters to keep everyone alive while just leading normal lives. Keeping us locked up like animals isn't right, the stress is killing the last resource we have." I was trying not to let my voice break, so he wouldn't know just how desperate I was. "Look I told your mother in the last letter I would honor the deal I made with her. I never thought she would be able to go through with it, and now, here you are."

"Letter? Go through with it? What are you talking about? Look it doesn't matter. We need to get going I need to go back for her." He put both hands on my shoulders and sat me down. "Your mother sent you here to save you." He's meaning she made me leave her. I'm not going back, and she's not coming out.