TRIBUS

Chapter 1

I stare at the horizon, at the setting sun. I'm in my favorite place. Sitting at the edge of this forsaken island we call home. We have no choice; this is the only island visible in the face of the earth after the Great Flood. I just wish that somewhere out there is an emerging island. I wish I can leave this place with my family and start a new life without restrictions and with equality among others. I can only sigh. A hopeless dream perhaps but I'm still keeping my fingers crossed.

"Mara! Let's go! It's almost dark. Mother's gonna be looking for us" My sister, Misty, always knows that at this time of the day, I am in my secret place.

"Alright, I'm coming!" I carefully stand up and run towards my sister who is standing just outside the woods. She never goes near the edge because she always thinks that the land there can erode anytime.

"Why do you always sit near the edge? You know that it's dangerous. What if it erodes?" Getting scolded by my sister is like a daily routine for her. Well, I'm quite hard-headed because I always am sitting at the edge of the island which is like every day.

"I know that, MIsty and I know that if it does erode, which I think does not, I will fall thousands of feet into the ocean. Chances are, I will survive the fall and no one will see me so I'll die, or I fall and the maintenance shuttle will see me and rescue me. Whichever it is, I'll accept my fate since I never listened to your everyday sermon"

It's not that I'm mocking my sister. I know she means well and I really appreciate that, but she can never hinder me from going to that special place. It's my place and it has the best view of the ocean, the sun and the horizon.

We walked for about 20 minutes until we reached our encampment. The place we call our house is actually just a tent set up like among the rest of the "house" of the people living there. The tents are actually good. It's big enough to accommodate 5 people and it has a high ceiling so that we can stand up inside. We each have areas for cooking, a small dining area and an area for our bunkers.

Our campsite is situated in a large meadow a mile away from "civilization". People living here are the ones who survived the great flood but didn't have enough money to buy their own place in this island. You'll see a lot of nationalities here. There are Chinese, Koreans, Japanese, Africans, Filipinos and a lot more. I'm Filipino and there are only about 5 families here that have my same ethnicity.

We reach our tent and settle our things in our bunkers. My mother is over the cooking area preparing food.

"Hmmm.. That sure smells good mom. What is that? Meat?" I always joke around when my mother is cooking. I know it's not meat, meat is very expensive and we don't have the money to buy that. But miracles may happen one day and we can have meat over dinner. Dreaming is free, right?

"You wish, Mara." My mother laughingly said. "Someday"

It has always been my mother's words-SOMEDAY. I just hope that someday is sooner than expected.

"Go change clothes because you obviously stink." She says to me.

My mother looks at Jenna and says, "Misty, go look for Mikael. It's getting dark; we don't have much light here"

"Mom, is Kuya Martin home already?" I ask her. I adapted some of the Filipino words that my mother teaches us. Kuya means older brother in our native language.

"Not yet, but he is probably on his way now." She looks out of the window. "I just hope he can still find his way to the camp"

There are 5 of us in the family, originally 6 but my father died when I was little. My Kuya Martin is the eldest, I am the second, Misty is next to me and Mikael is the youngest.

After changing clothes, I immediately go to the dinner table and sit. I'm famished from all the work that we had this morning. I can hear my stomach growling already. A few minutes later Jenna and Arthur arrive and is immediately followed by Kuya Martin. We ate our dinner and settled into our bunkers as the night deepens.