ALLEGIANCE

ALLEGIANCE part 3

BEA

The only thing standing left was our table. Rodan nearly collapsed. All his writing, movies, and pictures were merely ash now. His camera was now a lens and a pile of rubble. I knew this was coming. I grabbed his shoulders and held them tight as he shook and hid.

His writing was what kept him sane. During a hard day he'd go in and write anything. How he felt, fiction stories, poems, anything to release his stress.

I lost my picture of my parents in the bombing. Walking around in the rubble, I spotted it. It was merely cracked glass and a picture burned to ashes. The only vivid memory I had of my parents incinerated.

And right then I realized that I couldn't do this anymore. Even though I was born in a war torn world, I was done with it. I had to get out. I had to find a place where I could fly in a plane and see the stars. I wanted to climb a tree and drink lemonade and feel extreme joy when school got out for summer. I wanted to marvel at the beauty of the ocean and chase a squirrel in the woods. I wanted to live in a world with peace.

I turned on my heel and sprinted down the street. Past the bomb shelter I'd just spent the last day in, past the nurses station I got my head injury fixed in, past the War General's office across from the empty grocery store. I hit the trash littered beach, the sand squirming in between my toes, making me tingle inside. I looked at all the litter: the empty ammunition cases, wasted old guns, trash bags, ropes, processed food that would never biodegrade, just wash into the already filthy ocean that lay before me.

Despite how disgusting the idea of swimming in the water of dead fish and oil seemed to me, I went against my judgement and lifted my shirt off my chest. I pulled my pants down off my legs, and, shivering, waded into the murky water.

"BEA!" Someone called. It wasn't Rodan's voice, but I recognized it. I turned, half naked, to face my childhood friend, Tate. His curly, messy brown hair was flapping in the wind and he was squinting his emerald green eyes. He started coming closer, his arms folded tightly across his chest to block the cold. "Bea, what the hell are you doing?!"

"Um," I muttered nervously. "I'm going for a swim silly!"

He gave me a skeptical look. He knew I was lying. He picked up my shirt and pants and looked over them.

"There's nothing in them," I said. He was looking through the pockets of my pants, probably looking for money or food stamps. "I don't carry that stuff with me."

In this time, you leave anything out in the open and people will search through it. We're all desperate.

"Go home, Bea." Tate muttered. "I'll walk you back."

"That's the thing, Tate." I replied, pulling my clothes back on. "I have no home. It's gone."