𝗧𝗼𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗿𝗼𝘄'𝘀 𝗟𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗕𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗵 | an apocalyptic novel ©

Chapter 11

Find Me

1995

Maxine

The next day feels surreal. It feels like I'm standing still while people around me are moving faster than I am.

I want to send my letter. Although I'm sure that it won't be picked up by a mailman and delivered, I could still try.

This either means I have to bribe a soldier into making my letter a priority or sneak out of the camp – against the rules – to do it.

I know internally, my objective is absurd.

At this point, with how far the weather anomalies have progressed, mail exchange probably doesn't take place anymore.

And because I have nothing but the newly written letter and the plastic binder on me, the first suggestion falls away.

Sneaking off grounds it is, then.

Unless...

Asking the Commander for a simple and mundane task like sending a letter is stupid. I'm stupid for that.

And yet, I'm standing in front of the military tent I have last seen him disappear in, in the hopes he'd show up for me.

I wait for perhaps thirty minutes, nervously scratching the tip of my sneakers in the dirt. My fingers subconsciously begin to fold the corners of the letter I'm holding in my hands.

And as I would have guessed it, Ryle does not show up.

He has a job, he is on duty, Max. He can't always make time for you.

What I'm doing next is stupid, too. No, not only that, it is ill-considered too.

Maybe camp life is wearing me down, making me make these stupid decisions.

After lunch is announced, I walk with the crowd to the community tent and wait until my name is crossed off of the list.

Then, I excuse myself to go to the bathroom – or that is what they should think.

Perhaps, my idea is badly executed, surely someone will notice my disappearance.

But I can't think too much about it, I need to get in contact with my parents. I need to hear my mother's voice. A part of me needs to hear her worrying about me.

I need to feel comforted.

And before I know it myself, I sneak along the wired fence until I reach a part that is partially overgrown by ivy and I dig my fingers into the mesh.

Jumping over that can't be that hard, right? After all, asking the soldiers at the gate to open it would be idiotic.

I can barely get a hold on the fence, so I halfway slip and fall over it rather than elegantly landing on the other side. My knees hurt from the impact with the solid ground. But I am out, and free. Just to make sure, I clutch the pocket of my pants to feel the square of folded paper of the letter still inside – I won't make the same mistake of losing it, again.

Of course, I know the army keeps me in here for my safety, but when an anomaly hits the camp, we're all equally as fucked as the people still out there. Another badly executed concept by the government, yet to have failed.

Another rule from the list I spotted in my tent that I broke.

At this point, I'm wondering if I'm the only one who broke some or if these rules are just too insane to stick to.

"I'll find my way back, surely," I keep repeating, in my head and mumbling, while I try to get an orientation in the Bronx. This all is new to me. I can direct and navigate my way in Florida, but not here.

The streets and turns at home are the ones I know blindly, I grew up there. But here, it is seemingly impossible to remember the way I came from. Every street and corner looks equal to the empty ones I spotted before.

I need to calm down.

All I need to find is a post office.

Not more, not less. I can state my urgency and hopefully will be able to drop my letter off, and then I'll leave back to the base, they won't even know I was gone.

Easy-peasy, a piece of cake.

The piece of cake I imagined this task would be is a huge one, tough to chew.

I try to make out a sign in the distance, a post office, just anything.

After my third failed attempt, I take a break and lean my head back to look into the sky.

The skyscrapers looming over and around me seem to have minor damage to the upper floors, at least there I can't spot reflections of the graying clouds in the glass windows – merely because they seem to be missing, chipped away like a foul tooth.

This whole city is crumbling apart.

The sky is announcing rain, I can tell from the way the air smells.

Praying that it won't be acidic rain, I look around for a place to find shelter.