Jordyn
I rock back and forth, swinging my legs along with the motion. The wind cradles me and pushes my hair around my face. With my eyes closed, it feels like I'm flying. The gentle music of windchimes and the delicious smell of chocolate fills the air around me. I take a slow, deep breath.
Where ever I was before this is irrelevant.
I'm home, now. I belong here, not there.
I open my eyes and take in the world surrounding me.
I'm sitting on a porch swing. My legs can't touch the light wood of the porch under me, but they still rock back and forth. Around the porch lies a sea of wildflowers in more colors than I can count. The flowers are no bigger than my palm, and they bend double in the wind. A handful of metal windchimes hang from the edge of the porch, dancing like ballerinas.
I'm alone, but voices from inside drift out of the screen door. They lilt with the sound of the deep south, and it takes me too long to realize who they remind me of.
Samson.
"Jordyn!" a feminine voice calls from inside. "He should be here soon. I hope you're excited."
I'm not sure what I should be excited about, but the emotion inflates my chest with joy.
"I am!" I yell back, but the voice expelled from my lungs doesn't sound familiar. It's that of a little girl, not a seventeen year old.
The rumble of a truck floats in from down the road and a face appears in the screen of the door.
"That sound be him," the short woman says as she steps out onto the porch. She has long brown hair braided over her shoulder, soft blue eyes, and a patch of freckles across her nose. She wears a black outfit and is barefoot. The kitchen towel draped over her forearm tops off the leisure nature of her posture.
A man comes out behind her, much taller than she is. He's graying and older than she, and his eyes are much more serious.
"They're late," he mumbles, placing a hand on his wife's hip.
"Oh, he's safe with Thomas," she says, swatting away his worry with her hand. "He's just letting him practice shooting. Nothin' wrong with that."
A smile breaks out on her face, and I look out into the yard again. A silver truck rolls over the horizon and pulls up the gravel path to the house. The passenger door opens first, and I find myself jumping off the swing and jogging to the steps.
My excitement reaches a new high as the first person gets out of the truck and races around to the front. He hesitates there for a moment, seeming to take the three of us in. His messy brown hair frames a flushed, wind burnt face with two deep-set, dark blue eyes. They meet mine, and a sloth smile spreads across his face.
"Jordy!" he yells, breaking into a run.
My heart skips a beat, and I spread my arms open to catch him in a hug.
"Sammy," I whisper into his neck. The emotion coursing through me is a mixture of relief, happiness, and sadness. It feels like he's been gone for years, like I lost him only to find him again.
"I missed you," he says as he pulls away and looks at me. He's taller than me, but much younger than I remember him being. I smile at him, my face flushed from the emotion of the moment.
"I missed you, too."
The woman scoops him up in a tight hug, lifts him off the ground, and twirls him around the porch.
YOU ARE READING
The Island
Science Fiction"This is The Island, a prison designed for minors like me- too young to be executed, too old to be reformed, and too much of a stain on humanity to let exist. It was 'the answer' to the growing crime rate resulting from a world that was falling apar...
