The Lost Ones

13 - Lela

A small funeral was held early in the morning the next day. Gemma placed wild flowers that grew in the back of the house on the pile of red dirt that covered Josephine's body. She wasn't the only fatality, but there was no way we could recover the others' bodies. Everyone stood in silence around the grave; only the birds sang in the trees. Hail hit the ground and left small dents in the soil where it had fallen. It was raining, it was cold, but nobody cared about that. We were united in mourning for a good person who had died too young.

Eventually people broke away from the crowd and continued to pack away their belongings. We needed to be quick; the hospital would likely be on their way pretty damn soon. I can't see where Adrian is, but probably that's a good thing. I just don't think I'm able to talk to him right now. I go down to the basement and saw Riaja bustling around, trying to check people's temperatures. I couldn't see her face properly - her eyes were covered by strands of long black hair - but around her eyes were pink and I think she had been crying.

"Riaja?" I said gently; she jumped even so.

"Oh, hi Lela. Don't worry, I'm packing up as we speak." The healer pushed a lock of hair behind her ear and smiled weakly.

"That's good. Riaja... are you okay? I mean, since Josephine..." I stop. I can finally see the tears trickling down her cheeks; I put my arm around her.

"It's just... her and Mitchell. Both of them: gone. The only fully trained healers we had apart from me, but it's useless now, I suppose." Riaja gestures around the room, to the patients lying in the hospital beds.

"What do you mean?" I ask her, my mouth dry. It sounds too ominous.

"I have to leave them here! They can't sit up, let alone walk, so I have to leave them. The few that are no longer contagious and can walk are in a separate bus with medicinal supplies. The patients say they're fine with it, but-" Riaja runs a hand through her hair, distraught. For the short time I've known her, she's always been so calm and composed.

"How many are coming with us?" I whisper. It's horrible that we have to leave them behind here, left to die.

"Not many. Only the ones that are fit to go on this kind of journey," She shudders, then sees my face. She breathes in sharply, then pats my shoulder. "You had better get in the buses soon. Got all your stuff?"

I nod to her, before going back up the cold stone steps to the ground floor. Adrian is waiting for me at the top. He waves awkwardly when he sees me.

"Hey. Your friend Will says we should get inside the bus now. Shall we..?" He limply waves his arm towards the courtyard.

"We should." I grab his hand and he smiles for the first time in a while. We head outside and it feels almost like old times, back when it was just me and Adrian, until we see the lines of kids piling on to the buses. The girl from the hospital, Maisie, waves to us then climbs into the driver's seat. We are greeted by Drew once we reach the first bus.

"Hey, you two. You guys sit at the same place as last time, okay?" Drew gives up a thumbs-up, then rushes off to help some younger kids get in the bus. I wonder how he feels now that everything is resting on his shoulders, now that everybody is relying on him. Adrian tugs at my sleeve and we step on to the yellow-painted vehicle that since last night's journey, is caked with mud and dust.

Suddenly, I can see a figure in the shape of Gemma slowly get closer to us. She sees me looking at her in the window, and gives a slight nod, barely visible.

"Okay everybody, buckle your seatbelts and grab your bags because we'll be getting out of here fast. Say your last goodbyes, kids, 'cause there isn't a chance of us going back."

And then we left.

It was strange, I thought, how I had only lived in the house for a week but as it sank below the horizon, I had an uncontrollable feeling that I had lost a part of me. I suppose it was because it was the only real home that I ever had, one where I was accepted and treated as a human being and not just an inanimate object that you could perform endless painful tests on. It was like when I was separated from Adrian; I felt... lost.

"Hey, you okay?" Adrian nudges my arm.

"Yeah... it's just.... It's like it's the only place that's ever been close to a true home has been pulled away from us yet again. Everything is slipping away, not just to us, but from everybody else too." I shake my head, unable to talk any more.

He gives me a hug and that's it, I can't take it. I just sit there, crying, and he's crying too. We're crying for all the things that have happened to us; happened to the kids; happened to Josephine and Gemma and all the other kids that died in the hospital. It's just too much to handle now. We're not even legal adults, there's only one person here who is: Riaja.

It's just too much, but we have to go on, because we're all we have.