North

Mia had lived here for as long as she could remember. Existence rested on a delicate precipice and survival through each night was never guaranteed. Snow and ice bits sliced through her fragile skin as she stared out into the dimly illuminated darkness. Torches were lined along walkways, carved by the legs of various workers. This place was horrid, even after over a decade but Mia hardly remembered the times before this life. People came, and they went, usually by death, sometimes by banishment. If you didn’t pull your weight, you weren’t worth cultivated resources that others perished to retrieve.

A shiver ran down her spine, and it wasn’t just from the cold. There was something sinister about it all. Her 18th birthday was fast approaching, and she was expected to break her back for the sake of a people that was likely to die out. It didn’t seem fair. Amputees who lost limbs from frostbite or hunting expeditions gone wrong, cried in the streets, begging for their caretakers to grant them death. Without work, they were useless, but being shown the kindness of a meager life didn’t seem to suit them well, either. Orphaned children wailed in the homes once shared with their parents. The deceased sometimes littered the dwelling for weeks before the snow would let up and the ability to bury them was present.

The only thing Mia recalled before ending up here in the northern most part of Norway, was her own parents shoving her into a refrigerator when she was six, never to see or hear from them again. She had been aware of a massive war happening, and that she lived in London. But, aside from those facts, she wasn’t sure of anything.

She bundled deeper into her coat and blankets, turning away from the darkness and towards the makeshift table. Mia was shocked to see her aunt sitting there, seemingly waiting.

“Aunt Meredith,” she greeted. “I didn’t know you were still up.”

Meredith sighed. “I haven’t slept well in years, child. Tonight is just especially hard.”

“Is something wrong?” Mia pressed.

Meredith met her gaze. “Seeing as your birthday is coming up, and you’ll be an official adult, I wanted to fill you in before someone else does.” Her voice had a tone of solemnity, and also sadness. “Have a seat, child.”

Obediently, Mia took a spot across from her aunt, curious but scared of what she was about to learn. “What is it you want to tell me?” she asked hesitantly.

Meredith seemed to ponder where to start. With a deep inhale, she began, “You came to us when you were young. Expeditioners looking for survivors found you in a refrigerator. Nuclear bombing had shaken Earth to its core, leveling entire cities to broken down junkyards, caused earthquakes to waken all sleeping and active volcanoes and they’d erupted, raining ash on whatever was left from the devastation and oceans boil, even to this day, from underwater eruptions.” She heaved a gusty sigh. “Earth, and life as we knew it, may never return to us in this life. We are trapped in this cold, desolate landscape, and the people thrive on maximum hope and minimal instinct. To the south is nothing but ashen ruins, lands ravaged by tsunamis, cancerous plagues, and vast nothingness. It is a bleak existence and I suspect this planet is in self destruct mode. You’ll learn that the people we work with in the infirmary will have retained their knowledge from their respective schooling, but it is useless here. We haven’t got the resources or technology to treat our wounded properly. A lot of our methods are experimental, but we can’t let the patients know that.

I feel I should have let you in on this sooner, so you could better prepare, but I wasn’t sure there was a right time. You have to understand we’ve been forced to revert to a barbaric survivalist mindset, while attempting to maintain a sense of civility. The instinctual standards our ancestors held holds no merit here, as we cling to our higher intelligence despite it’s frustrating uselessness in this environment, in our lack of resources and inability to access any type of technology.”

The emotion and frustration in her voice brought Mia’s hand to her aunt’s. “You don’t have to continue. I understand, Aunt Meredith.”

Tears welled in her aunt’s eyes. “That’s not all, Mia.” She pulled something from her pocket and placed it firmly into Mia’s hand. “Your Uncle Charles and I aren’t your actual relatives.” Mia knew this already, or had figured some time ago, but nodded for her to continue without interrupting. “When you were found and brought here, we adopted you and you started calling us aunt and uncle on your own. We never knew your parents. I don’t have any answers to questions I’m sure you have about them, but this,” she glanced at their hands, “was found on you, and given to us for safekeeping.”

She released Mia’s hand, revealing a golden heart shaped locket. Mia looked at it curiously. The gold chain it was on was incredibly too small for Mia to try and put on herself now.

“What does this have to do with my parents?” she asked, looking it over for engravings or some hint at the correlation.

“Open it, dear,” Meredith murmured.

Looking it over again, Mia found a button at the bottom that released a hook that had it snapped closed. It opened to reveal portraits in both halves of the heart; one a woman, the other a man. Her heart stopped. “Is that. . . Are they . . .?” she stammered, lost for words.

“Those are your parents, child. Your mom and dad,” she confirmed softly.

Mia felt tears stream down her face, which immediately began freezing, and was instantly wrapped into a tight embrace. “Oh, Mia,” her aunt cooed. “I know it’s a lot to take in. It’s so much. I’m so sorry, love.”

A rush of warmth and love came over Mia. While she had given up hope of ever meeting her parents again, having this laid to rest the question of what they looked like. She returned her aunt’s hug and they remained in each other’s arms for a long moment, listening to the crackle of the meager fire in their tent.

After a few blissful minutes, it faded and, they pulled away. Mia wiped her face of tears, her face burning as bone chilling wind gusted through the entrance.

“Ah, those damned zippers never work with these gales,” her aunt muttered, forcing the entrance to zip shut again. She turned back to Mia. “I hope this didn’t upset you. Tomorrow starts a new normal for you. Try to keep your head down and watch me closely. How you interact, speak to and treat the patients ensures their healing or their doom. It’s all very important to keep this settlement pushing for a better tomorrow.” Meredith kissed Mia on the forehead and wrapped her in another hug.

Mia knew there wasn’t a better tomorrow to come. She had come to that conclusion a long time ago on her own. After losing friends when she was child, watching the weak, elderly and maimed perish or commit suicide from the cold or lack of usefulness due to lost limbs, and her own pondering to what more there could be to life beyond this wasteland, only to learn for certain that there was nothing, she found existence to be pointless. Earth was doomed to end.

“Goodnight, Aunt Meredith,” she murmured, laying down for the evening. All she could think of before she let exhaustion take her was, so be it.