Migration

Sarah

8am

Light had been forcing its way into the little white room for some time now, peeking first around the edges and pinholes of the metal blind, making dusty threads of morning light. Now though, sunlight bore down on every surface, bleaching out colours and replacing the fresh morning air with a fug of used oxygen and warm skin. Outside the Metropolis was already wide awake and the murmur of the vehicles and pedestrians that pumped purposefully around its arteries drifted through the haze and glare.

Sarah came around slowly, gradually tuning into the sounds around her, the hum of life outside, an insipid pop song playing on the radio and the faint rattle of plates and cutlery coming from the kitchen. She took a sharp and involuntary breath as she shifted gently into consciousness, as if she had been accidentally suffocating all night. Opening one squinting eye, she frowned a little to make sense of an abundance of colour that filled her field of vision. Reds and blues, purples and golds, yellows and silvers. Colours were everywhere.

She stretched down through her legs, enjoying the sweet tingling that shot through her limbs when she did so, then blinked and widened her eyes firmly to gain some focus. Balloons. There were at least thirty of them that jostled and bumped for her attention as she turned over in her bed. Some sparkled with random patches of stuck on glitter, others floated proudly with metallic splendour and one, the nearest to her, showed off carefully drawn ink eyes and a smiley face as it rotated slowly towards her.

Zoe must have put them there whilst she was sleeping. Sarah put her hands behind her head and smiled as she took them all in, one by one. When her eyes had completed the circuit of everyone, her gaze returned to the first, the inky-faced front-runner who still smiled at her enthusiastically. As she smiled back she noticed the tiny tear which was delicately drawn below its left eye, and her smile dropped a little as she felt her stomach twist and sink for Zoe.

Sarah looked towards the door and let her thoughts wander down the hall and steps, to where Zoe was making her breakfast in the kitchen. She smiled a smile that felt more like the start of a cry, as she pictured Zoe busily setting the table, making toast and jam and pancakes. She knew she'd be getting her timings all wrong, buttering the toast as the pancakes scorched in the pan, leaving egg shells scattered all over the work tops. She loved her so much, their mother-daughter bond was so strong and she knew she was desperate for her not to go, but she just had to. They both had to.

She remembered her broken face on the day her father disappeared, the look of utter betrayal and dejection that had stared out from her young eyes. Zoe had been devoted to him, she had loved him far more than Sarah and she knew that. But once he was gone, Zoe picked up all the nine years of love that was now orphaned and dumped it straight onto Sarah. Since then, they had been almost inseparable; more like sisters than mother-daughter. Zoe hardly ever went out apart from to and from school, she never brought friends home, never went to events or training camps, never showed any interest in anything other than Sarah and their home.

Sarah loved Zoe's love. It had given her a way through her own grief and anger, but she knew deep down that Zoe had never dealt with her rejection, never gotten over his complete disappearance from her life, and she was terrified that once she went over, Zoe's pain would come crashing out.

She should have talked to her about him, she knew that, but she just couldn't. Just saying his name brought all the pain back up to the surface, made her feel helpless and useless, and took her back to the place that she had spent six years working endlessly to leave behind. Today was when it all paid off. Once she had migrated everything would be better again. Everything would be perfect. It's why she had to go. Why Zoe had to go one day too.

Sarah turned on her side and watched the blinds flutter on the far side of the room.

"Dad."

"Hey sweetie," a voice whispered back.