Maybe You'll Live For Me Sometimes- Adopted by the Killjoys

Part Two

Last year, the year before Better Living Industries truly took over everyone and everything, is when I ran away from "home" and made myself comfy in a little desert hut, way out here. Mom and Dad still haven't come to look for me. They're probably made negligent and emotionless from those stupid pills that everyone is now forced to take. Even without the pills, they never really cared for me. It got me thinking that it was all my fault that our "relationship" is so estranged and broken. I should have never let them lose me or any sight of me during the fires nine years ago. I had to punish myself in some way. I had to. I can't just keep running from my problems to rid myself of them. And when they did give me attention, it was horrible attention... I really thought I was gonna be awesome when I was little, huh?
          "I am a mistake," I wrote to myself in my journal that I got when I was five. I managed to keep it safe from the Great Fires. My "parents" had kept it in a bag of stuff that they ran with while escaping. So, I can thank them for that: unknowingly giving me a way to express my feelings that can never escape the Great Fires of my mind. No one to carry them out of the fire and smoke and into safety. "Years of neglect catch up to me as I cry myself to sleep every night. I don't even have a gun or any experience with combat, so what point is there in helping this revolution of the Killjoys, or whatever they call it, go any further? We're all gonna die at some point trying to fight so much, so I'd just let it happen to me. I have no purpose, no way out. Alone for life, I am. Got a deathwish closing my eyes," I continued to write. And then I just plopped onto my little bed and contemplated the point of everything. Continuing to live under a rock.

Then I came to a thought: what if Gee and Mikes are still out there somewhere? Still alive? They're the ones who saved my life when I was four, so I could live for them. Maybe... I haven't seen them since I first met them. But they wouldn't recognize me if they hadn't seen me for nine years. But these are my heroes, I guess, so I'm going out to find them and meet them again. Somehow.
          But if bothering some random men in the desert to remember me and being all needy is gonna be the only way to feel better... I don't know what else to do about this... I'm surprised I haven't died out here yet, being solitary this whole year of living out here. I would sometimes walk around a bit and visit other empty bases to find water to drink and something to eat, but it's gross... I haven't eaten anything in a week now. But I'm dying to get out of this base and walk around a little. So, I got up, grabbed my journal and a pencil, and headed out.
          Just as the sun had gone down, I ended up somewhere in Battery City, just wandering and wondering: I have no life anyway, so what's the point? Let these BLI knuckleheads kill me. "If you have to rely on total strangers to save your petty little ass and you can't just do it for yourself, maybe you deserved to get lost," said Mom a year ago, just before I ran away from home. That was the last straw for me. I was four at the time that happened.

Mikes's POV

What a hell of a nine years since the Great Fires; Party, Ghoul, Jet, and I are in our thirties (and Grace is nine), shooting around ray guns in the desert to kill BL/Ind and rid what's left of the world of this disgraceful, traumatizing company. They're getting even worse now, and the punishments are harsher: death for expressing even the slightest bit of care or emotion. Ugh.
          I then thought about the kids out here who are fighting alone. I'm sure they're out there somewhere, but it's even more dangerous now with all these new laws... and then I thought about Adeline, the child that Gee and I saved during the Fires. We haven't seen her for nine years, but I really hope she's still out there and doing okay. The kid was pretty bright, really sweet. But her parents then seemed a little... I don't know. They did scare her and try blaming their loss on their own FOUR-year-old. Hm. I wonder if we'll ever find each other again...
          The guys and I are out on a mission tonight to gather food and water for the Diner. "Let's all sing a song, shall we?" asked Ghoul, who really meant "scream" by "sing."
          Party, in the driver's seat, turned up the volume on Dr. Death's radio and started screaming the lyrics to some old pre-Fire songs we like. And for a while, we were having some fun. But when we got into the city, we saw a girl, who looked to be about thirteen years old, walking along the sidewalk ahead. She couldn't be a BLI worker; she wore all whites and blacks but had her head down like she was sad, and held a purple journal and a pencil. It was a rather warm night, but she wore long sleeves over her hands.