Wanderlust

“I'll never be able to thank you enough, Dahlia. You saved my life.” Millie sat next to me on my bed as I sorted through my belongings the next day.

“Serious, Millie, anyone of us would have done the same thing. You don't owe me anything,” I told her for the millionth time.

She scoffed and smiled simply, “Jaden sure doesn't think so. He respects you now, it's not an easy feat.”

“Oh good, my life goal of gaining your brothers approval has finally happened. I can sleep easy now,” I remarked sarcastically but collected a serious breath. “That's good though, I was getting tired of be discarded by him.”

“Now he'll just be meaner and treat you like one of us,” she false enthused, her smile looking a little manic.

“Wonderful,” I laughed, flinching when I felt the scab on my lip tear a little.

“Are you feeling any better?” She asked, noticing the slightly bothersome pain I was in.

“I suppose,” I shrugged. “My arm is stiff as hell and my face aches constantly with every movement, it'll all heal up soon enough though. They even gave me a sling to wear but I haven't because I'm fine without it.”

“You should wear it,” Millie warned me. “You don't want permanent damage to your arm because you were too stubborn to wear a stupid sling.”

“I won't get permanent damage,” I sneered playfully but a second thought told me otherwise. Paranoid, I got up and grabbed it off the table and slung it on. “But just in case though, maybe I'll wear it for a little while.”

“Have you seen your long lost cousin yet today?” Millie got up to meet me halfway across the room, rubbing the sore spot on the back of her head.

“No, I was going to go visit him though. Have you met him?” I opened the room door and exited the hall, Millie shutting the door behind us.

“I have for a like two seconds, he was cute.” I saw the small smile creep on her face and I couldn't help but try not to laugh.

“He's gay, Millie.” I told her, her smile falling from her face.

“Damn,” she huffed but retreated to her always there smile and lead me down the hall.

I chuckled as I followed her down the hall, trying to get my arm comfortable in the sling. Today, Marcus, would give me a tour of the place and tell me a little more about it. I knew it would take a long time to learn everything about my previous life, there would be countless stories to be heard. I was ready for it though, excited almost. I was also afraid that I wouldn't like who I once was or wouldn't like the life I lived previous to this one.

“Eva,” Marcus called, not gaining my attention because I wasn't attuned to my original name. “Dahlia!”

I turned and felt foolish for not recognizing the name, it was mine after all. “Marcus,” I grabbed him up in a quick hug, stepping aside for him to officially meet Millie.

“I'm Millie.” She stepped forwards, grabbing his hand tightly in hers and shaking it lightly.

“Marcus,” he nodded, patting her hand as they dropped the grasp. “Are you joining us on the tour?”

“Oh, no. I have other things to do,” Millie politely declined. I knew she was free the whole day, she was just giving Marcus and I time to reconnect.

“I'll see you,” I called after Millie as she departed from us. Marcus grabbed my wrist and I looked down to see my scar.

“I have it too,” he held his wrist up next to mine. “You're isn't a clean cut, I don't know what they did to you.”

“Does everyone who lived in the city have one?” I asked, tucking my hands into the heavy sweater I wore.

“No, only the people who could do some damage. We were born into higher power I suppose, other people who were just workers or lower on the chain didn't have them. Kruger keeps close what can harm him.” He lead me down through the area with all the food carts, starting to explain all the various parts of where I now lived.

“How did you find this place? Better yet, how has Kruger not found this place?” I looked around, seeing people carry on like they lived in a normal town.

“It was an old chamber he used when the U.S. was still on the verge of crumbling, no one knew for sure if he would rise into power. He used it to house planes, cars, weapons, anything really. When he did rise into power, he deserted it. He hasn't found it yet because he thinks its been destroyed, it's hid inside of a mountain. One of his right hand men, Giovanni Bluski is actually part of the resistance. He build this place up when Kruger thought it was being destroyed. He put signal stoppers in it, generators, pretty much built this place up as a safe haven for years. When I escaped, he found me. He was sent on a lot of cross country missions and stopped into check in on the place. There is no one in charge here but there is someone who knows what to do and knows how to keep the peace. Giovanni was dying, he was old and was on his last cross country mission when he brought me here. You would have known him in your past life and I thought he was lying when he told me he had been living a double life all these years. He taught me everything I know and died sometime last year. You'd think with this place being only an ear shot away from the borders they would have found us by now. It's smart though, Kruger keeps his eyes looking forward but never on the things right under his nose. There are just a few things that we have to stick too so this place isn't discovered. We can't go outside, not completely. We have lookouts but that's only for people assigned to be out for a certain amount of time. Everyone here is marked with a black, X, just so we know that we don't have any intruders. The ink isn't permanent, we replace it every month or so. Otherwise, you can live good life here. We grow our own food, live in our own spaces. People get along and work through their tribulations because we want peace.”

“But what if people don't want to stay here anymore? Don't you get cabin fever?” I could imagine there had to be some people who just needed to be outside.

“We all get cabin fever, that's why if you want out, you can apply to go hunting. It's once every two weeks and we only hunt in the shadow of the mountain. Otherwise, you can't leave. It's the golden rule around here. We don't let just anyone in though, if we did, we'd be at maximum capacity.”

“Is that people followed us? To make sure we were crazy killers like everyone else we seem to run into?” Marcus stopped walking, we were in a large section with vehicles.

“Yes, if we find a group, we follow them and monitor them for a few days or even weeks. We watched you guys for about three days before the ambush happened, we intervened then.”

“Did you know I was part of the group being watched?” We started walking, seeing welders adorning the vehicles with better materials for off road driving.

“No, I didn't know until I saw you in the infirmary bed. After we got you patched up, we moved you to your groups quarters. I knew it was a matter of time until I would talk to you, I knew you were going to be yourself. There was something different about you when I saw you for the first time, something that was missing.” He stared off and nodded to Bryant as he passed in front of us, rolling a tire in front of him.

“I don't have a lot of dreams, if I do they're nightmares. I lived in the forest for a year by myself, it was the most difficult experience for me but since I've left that part of my life, I've felt lost in a way. I mean, I have all these people I can call a family of sorts but nothing to call my own. The forest was my own, I was myself there because I had no other choice but to learn about myself. Now that I'm around people, I've hit this roadblock. Sometimes I feel like a stranger to myself.”

“You'll figure it out eventually,” Marcus assured me, rubbing my shoulder soothingly. “You're still the same Evanna that I knew, except for not remembering it all.”

“I feel like a disappointment,” I chimed honestly, the thought boiling out of my unexpectedly.

“Never,” Marcus scoffed like it was the most ridiculous idea. “Eva—Dahlia—I've got to stop doing that; you're still the brutally honest cousin I grew up with. You're not a disappointment, you're strong, alright?”

“Thank you,” I grabbed his hand, swallowing the lump in my throat. “So, what is there to do around here?”

“Well,” he blew a wisp of air out between his lips. He led me back to where we had met. “The Market, you could always help out here. You like nature, always have, so you can help in producing of growing our food. You could find a lot of things to do, I have a feeling you'll like the harvesting though.”

“Mind pointing me in the right direction?” I gazed over to where he was pointing.

“You can't miss it, we're about to harvest a lot of grain. When you get there, find Hannah. She runs the whole thing whether she realizes it or not, she'll help you.”

“Thank you, Marcus, for everything.” I told him before I turned to leave.

“Come find me if you need anything, alright?” Marcus looked at me like some sort of Mother Hen. I have a feeling he was like that a lot when I knew him previously.

I gave him a small wave as I set off towards the garden, I didn't know what to expect. I was picturing a average sized area, various sorts of plant life with one or two people harvesting. As I walked through the Market and to the end, I could see the fully grown grain ahead. The closer I got, the most I realized that this area was much bigger than I expected. Like the ground everywhere besides the resting quarters, it was dirt. It was easily the same size as the area they kept the vehicles and there were about a dozen people harvesting as I approached the edge of the small field of grain. I also saw different vegetables and even an apple tree far off in the corner. How long had it taken them to get this plowed and seeded? Better yet, how do they keep all the plants alive?

“Can I help you?” A small voice cut into my thoughts and I fixated my gaze to the equally small woman in front of me.

She had wildly curly blond hair and wide brown eyes. She was shorter than me, probably barely five feet tall and wore loose fitting overalls. She was skinny, and her elbows were quite angular. She was pretty in a odd way though, she gave off a strong presence.

“Marcus sent me over,” I began nervously. “He said that you guys could use some help harvesting maybe?”

She looked me over, her nose crinkling as I watched her judge me. I stood uncomfortably, my thumbs rubbing against each other as her hands rested on her hips. “Alright, I'm Hannah. It's nice to meet you.”

Her demeanor changed after I guess she thought I was worthy enough to befriend. I took her waiting hand and shook it, “Dahlia, nice to meet you too.”

“So we have a lot of people who help harvest but we like to have regulars. Most people get tired of having dirt under their nails most times because of the shower situation and all,” she waved her hands around as she led me across the field of grain.

“Shower situation?” I asked confused.

She stopped and turned to me, “You must be new.”

“I haven't even been here a week,” I quipped in quickly.

“Huh,” she pursed her lips but suddenly turned and started walking again. “We have well over 500 people living here, so you can imagine the generators have trouble providing enough power. The showers usually last about five minutes, just enough time to throw some soap in your hair and rinse it all out. When you work in the fields, the dirt gets all ingrained in your skin, you have to scrub that out. Since we can't do that, most of the time we just stay dirty.”

“I don't have a problem with that,” I spilled out, thinking that if I told her I lived in the forest that she'd understand that I had no problem getting dirty. “I lived in the forest for a year.”

She turned her head to look back at me, “Haven't we all.”

It didn't seem like a snappy remark but it was true most likely, most of these people were found somewhere in the open. She stopped on the edge of the field, picking up a curved blade and a canvas bag, holding them out for me to take.

“It's easy,” she started, picking up her own supplies. “Take the blade, cut the grain by the chunk, and load them into the bag. When it get full, take the load over to Carl and he'll sort it out for you.”

“Easy enough,” I smiled, feeling edgy.

“See you on the other side,” she smiled almost reassuringly, like I needed to relax.

She walked off and I was left alone. I started working and it was a little hard to get a rhythm going at first but I fell into a concentration that let my mind wander and soon, I knew I had found a peaceful place to escape, even if for a little while.