Fortune Favors the Bold

2

That night, Kalani waited in the tree across from her home. She pulled an apple from a branch a few feet above her and dangled her feet, filling her stomach while she waited for the light in her parents' bedroom to go out. It wouldn't be long. Marina was already home, and they never waited up for their eldest daughter.

Such unbothered parents could be considered a blessing to those who didn't have them, but a curse to those who did. Everybody always wanted what they didn't have.

Kalani contemplated on what she wanted.

It was a simple answer: to shower.

Every bite of the apple mixed with the crunches of dirt in her mouth. She swiped some off her pants and wiped it across her face. People paid good money for mud facials like these. Maybe she could collect some into a bucket and take it to the richest province of all –Orimasi –then she could charge enough money for each to set her for life. A year's work would support her. A few more would buy her a house big enough for her entire family.

She debated whether she would want them.

Kalani looked toward the sky to admire the stars. These were probably the same stars that watched humanity fight and kill itself over the past thousands of years. Some must have felt helpless enough to extinguish their own flame from years of worry. The few that continued to look down on them but have been the strongest.

After all, only the strongest survive.

It ensured the survival of the fittest like it had with humans.

Disease, war, mental illness, and natural disasters had done the same. It was the reason the world's population fell to nearly half its size over the last thousand years.

Disease and war no longer occurred. Mental illnesses weren't acknowledged and so, according to world leaders, no longer existed. They'd "miraculously wiped out their existence through exquisite leadership;" Kalani rolled her eyes at the stupidity of the statement. And... natural disasters?

Whatever happened to those?

When Kalani looked back toward her house, there wasn't a single source of light. She carefully jumped down from her branch. Nobody was in the street as she crossed it, so nobody was around to see her sit on the floor and dig her small hole. Like every time, Kalani placed the apple's center deep into the ground and covered it.

Maybe she would wake up to a beautiful apple tree tomorrow.

Nobody came to her room to question where she'd been and, for that, Kalani was partially grateful. She didn't want anybody to see her as the mess she was now.

She took a shower and climbed into bed as the province clock struck midnight. Still, she pulled the book from beneath her bed and shone her flashlight to read in the darkness of her home until sleep weighed her eyelids down and slowed her thoughts.

The next day, Kalani went about her day normally. Ellie didn't come over that morning, but both girls still met by the junkyard and made their way to their class together.

"He pushed you into the mud?" Ellie gasped, just as surprised by the boy's actions as Kalani had been the day before. She still had trouble processing it. Bennie had never been the type to use physical violence on her and, to see such an aggressive side of him explode so unexpectedly, would leave anybody shocked.

Kalani nodded. "And he told me I'd regret it," she lowered her voice to whisper as they both stepped into the shop. "Like he was threatening me or something."

"Threatening you for not wanting to sleep with him?"

Ellie flinched when Kalani slapped her arm, quickly shushing her to keep anybody from hearing the word. It was almost like it was cursed –bound to bring nothing more than problems to anyone who muttered it.