Lighting up the Night Sky

I do not understand how it got to this. I am alone. I knew it was going to happen eventually. I just thought it would be years from now, leaving home and going off to university with my best friends or getting a part time job and saving up to travel Australia. But no.

I looked down at my small hands, dirt, and blood sticking to them. The love-heart locket she gave me was sticky with the residue of her blood. My fingertips briskly ran over the locket’s cursive words.

Home

A stray strand of my mousey brown hair fell out from behind my ear. Mesmerized by the locket I sat for a minute as warm tears ran down my cheek. I tucked the stray hair back behind my hair, taking the crumpled leaves that had been stuck in my hair from running through the forest.

I took a deep breath and laid down on top of a massive cold boulder. I closed my tear drenched eyes tightly and opened them up to witness the night sky light up with what looked like a thousand bright shooting stars. The air full force like a hurricane came surging at me knocking me to the boulder under me.

Black.

5 years later…

It had been years since the war on Sydney where the virus had spread rapidly. Back then I was just a teenage girl starting high school. Getting high grades and thinking of what I would want to be when I was older.

Never thought I would be a loner riding a bike from town to town. Watching the affects the war had after Sydney had been blown up. It was like watching a plague of rioting and there were not many survivors.

It had been months since I had seen another person. The last person I had seen had been dying slowly and was at their life’s end. As bad as it was it was nice to talk to another person even if it had a devastating end.

I was on my way to a coastal town that my mother had grown up in through her teenage years. She said it would be safe and after 5 years of the knowing I am never going to see her again that is where I am going.

Weaving the potholes in the decaying roads and ducking from the overhanging branches I finally came to the welcome sign of the town. I stopped by the sign touching it slightly. The sign had vines beginning to take over it. I moved them to one side to get a clear view of the sign. “I am here,” I whispered to myself, I had found I had been doing that a lot lately. Talking to myself that is.

Riding my bike over the hill that swerved around I arrived to find an amazing site. A massive inlet that leads out to the ocean. The water was the colour of aqua and it sparkled mystically as if it had been unaffected by the war.

I rode down to the iron bridge at the bottom of the hill. From the other side of the bridge the town looked serene and inviting.

I walked my bike across the bridge and when I got to the town side an eerie feeling came over me like something or someone was watching me. It was quiet and the only noise was the distant waves crashing on the shoreline. No birds, just quiet.

I jumped on my bike and rode into the town. A few of the shops on the main street had been burnt or ransacked from something recent. The trees in the main street hung over head trying to keep out the sun that had started to slowly set although something glinted from a tree.

I walked over to it, and it was a piece of blue glass I pulled it towards me to get a better look. Just like that I was swept up by a rope knocking my head on the trunk of the tree. Upside down, falling in and out of consciousness and then black.

A vivid dream, a memory, the worst type of nightmare. I looked over at the seat next to me. Her bloodied smile looking at me with her teared up, green eyes staring at me. She reached out to me with her shaking hand and touched my face. “Run,” she whispered. Click! My seat belt came flying off and I came tumbling down out of the car door into the black leaf littered gully.

Still in and out of consciousness. I hit the ground with a thud. “Get up and move! They will be here anytime soon!” a young voice whispered as she tried to get me off the ground. I slowly got up my head thumping and I felt dizzy.

The young girl put my slumping arms around her shoulders to steady me. “Oh No, they are here,” she said.

“The bike,” I whispered in her ear. She led us over to the bike. She jumped on the front, and I sat on the seat holding on to her as well as I could. I opened my eyes slightly to see a slight glow coming from in town.

She crossed over the iron bridge and led us out of town. We took a left to a secluded dirt road. She stopped the bike and got off dragging me with her.

“Can you walk?” She asked.

“Yes, I can,” I rubbed the back of my head where a bump had come up.

“Good! what the hell is wrong with you?” She said through her teeth. Getting a better look at her as she stared daggers into me, she would have been not more than 13 years old. Was I getting lectured by a 13-year-old?

“Answer me! Who are you and why have you come here?” she said again. I stammered a little bit with the realisation I had found a person who looked reasonably healthy and was not going to die on me.

“My name… My name is…” I spoke but I could not make the words come out.

“Oh! spit it out woman you didn’t hit your head that hard,” she said again.

“May. It’s May. I’m sorry I came here on a whim. You see my mother was from around this town and she’s passed away now, and I just wanted to be closer to her. You know stop moving around and start establishing somewhere stable.” I trailed off. I guess everyone knew what that felt like at some point during this whole fiasco. The young girl’s facial expression changed to a more sympathetic expression.

“Nice name. Look, I will take you to talk to Mrs Green. She has lived here her whole life and knows everyone,” she picked up my bike and began making her way down the dirt road.

“Come on. I’ll have my ass handed to me for being late,” she replied looking behind her towards me.

“I’m coming! What exactly do I call you?” I asked catching up and walking side by side from each other.

“Juniper,” she replied.

“Well Juniper. I think I deserve some answers. What just happened?” I replied trying to keep up with her.

“Well, you just walked into the The Townspeople’s territory. Who are very territorial and if you fall into their traps and they will take everything from you and most likely kill you if you aren’t of any use to them,” she replied in a matter of fact tone.

The dirt road swerved around to a lookout that looked over the whole town. There were flickers of lights in the town and chanting in the distance.

We stopped for a minute so I could take it all in.

“The Townspeople live in the middle of town. From the wharf to the beaches are the Fisherman, old fisherman and their families that barter fish and seafood's for other goods. On the other side of town where the chanting is coming from, they are called the Oms, not much is known about them and you never see them you just hear them at night,” She explained. I took it all in.

“Then what are you?” I asked.

“We are the outsiders; we stay on the out skirts of town on our properties tending to our farms and stuff,” Juniper said.

“Enough dawdling we need to get a move on,” Juniper said starting to walk again.

“Where do you come from?” She asked out of the blue.

“I originally came from Sydney but me and my mum left Sydney just before lock in,” I said.

“Hey city slicker, that when she passed away?” She asked.

“Yeah, we were trying to get out of Sydney and a riot broke out at one of the roadblocks,” I stopped talking as I flashed back to that day. A man in a camo uniform shot at her and she veered off the road into a steep gully. I only made it because she forced me out of the car.

There were no other sounds. The waves faded away the further we walked further down the road, the chants and the noise from town were distant enough that all you could hear were the sound of our footprints on the gravel road.

We took a right onto a property. The gates were closed and stood 2 men on either side.

“Juniper you let in strays again. Green won’t be happy.” Said one of the men sternly.

“Shut up and let me through,” Juniper said sternly.

“What’s the password?” the man said again as he stepped in front of her.

“You suck,” Juniper said pushing past him towards the gate.

“Enter,” He laughed.

The other man stood silently focused on my chest. I looked down and realised my locket my mother had given me was showing. It must have come out when I was in that trap hanging upside down. I grabbed it and tucked it under my shirt.

He looked away as if he snapped out of a trance. Standing quietly.

“May hurry up,” Juniper said still walking the bike into the property.

We walked up the driveway and up to a cabin that sat on top of the property.

Juniper and I went to the front door Leaving the Bike at the front lawn.

“Before you get settled you should meet Mrs Green,” Juniper said as she took me up a set of spiral stairs.

Juniper led me to a door at the end of the hallway. I was nervous as she knocked on it.

“Come in,” said an older voice. She looked up from her book as we made our way in. Glasses rimmed the end of her nose.

Eyes focused straight on me. “Juniper who is this?” She asked as she placed her book on the desk she was sitting at.

As Juniper began to explain my eyes drifted down to the old woman's neck. A shiny chain hung around it and at the end hung a gold love-heart locket with the same engraved cursive writing as mine.

Home

I stepped forward. My knees felt wobbly, and my head throbbed a little. I reached into my shirt and took off my gold love heart locket from around my neck. I looked at it in my hands, remembering that night of the lights lit up the night sky.

I put the necklace on her wooden desk.

She stared at the locket for a long moment and her eyes began to water.

“May?” she whispered. Her eyes the same shade of green as my mothers, staring at me in disbelief.

I nodded my head slightly.

“I’m your grandmother,” she said through a few deep breaths. She got up from her seat and ran over to me. She wrapped me up in her arms so tightly. It had been such a long time since I had been hugged.

“Welcome home,” She whispered.