Fractured

~Chapter 7~

Leaving family isn't easy, when they show it in the movies the emotion isn't right, its not the same as when you feel it. I felt it. The thought of never seeing her, my mother, again, the thought of death.  Sitting in this van I knew I wasn't ready to leave. As usual, I didn't have a choice. There were no windows, they had been painted black, but the small cracks in the paint let beams of light shine through, I watched numbly as dust danced around in the light below my face.

James sat next to me, he played with his fingers. If I didn't know any better I would think we were prisoners. I saw a young girl on the other side on the van, she was dirty, probably was roaming around and they found her, wrong place at the wrong time kind of situation. Next to the girl in the corner was the quiet boy that I had recognized from next door, he was looking at some writing that somebody had scratched into the wall next to where he sat. He looked so clean next to the young girl, her hair tangled, his neatly cut and scruffy, her clothes ripped and filthy, his in tact and clean. He looked up and for a second and our eyes made contact, but we both avoided it and looked away.

There were two other girls in the small van but I didn't pay much attention to them. One of them had blonde hair but never looked in my direction, she just stared out of a small hole that had been scraped out of the paint on the back window, she watched as everything got smaller. The other must of been her sister because she seemed younger and had gripped onto the blonde girls hands tightly, she was crying and shaking  quietly to herself. The blonde girl occasionally moved a small strand of hair out of the eyes of  the crying girl and assured her that she would be fine before going back to her gazing.

It seemed like forever before we felt the van start to slow down, we all tried to find a space to peek through the windows and understand where we were but after a while I gave up and sat back down. When the van stopped Leon looked at me and we both looked towards to doors when they opened, the light blinded us and I had to raise to shield my eyes. I was amazed when I saw what was behind the men who had opened the doors. We were fenced in some wonderland, or at least as good as Wonderland would be in an apocalypse. There were gardens and people all around doing things, there were kids and teens doing training as if it were some career holiday choice. 

"What is this.." I heard Leon whisper to himself. 

"This is the P.F, welcome" said one of the men who had opened the door, he started walking away, but stopped when he realized none of us were following him.

"Are you coming or not?" He said before he continued his striding steps. The boy who had sat across from me jumped up and jogged after him...He was smiling, he was excited. Leon and I got out next, followed by the dusty girl, the other two didn't move so we left without them. All around seemed so happy. It was so strange. There was the occasional kid bent over, panting and out of breath, but they still seemed like they would rather be doing this than anything else. Everything we had learnt and been told about the P.F was wrong. They acted violent and tough but were still seen as heroes, but they weren't as scary as it had seemed, I now understood why my aunt had left the family to be here, she wanted to help and these people seemed OK.

We walked across the grass and I watched as small girl ran over to her instructor and gave him a high-five. I smiled. I hadn't seen anyone do that for a long time. We were all astonished by the beauty of this place in such a decrepit world.  

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I know that it is a really short chapter, but I was just thinking it would be best to start the next chapter explaining more about the new place while I think of some things :)