Finding Hope In A World That Has Little

3: A Mothers Will

It had been a rather uncomfortable night sleeping on the old coffee shop floor where all the dust sat. There was a room in the back with a very old couch, but it was the best Lorelei could find for her two older kids to rest on. She sat in an office chair that could recline backwards, so it wasn't that bad.

She pushed the old recliner into the main room, keeping that door open so she could see her kids. She sat in it and reclined it back. Thankfully the baby would sleep soundly wherever she was, and the spot that made the most sense was right on Lorelei, swaddled up for security.

The woman laid there, the coffee shop in full silence, slightly rocking to keep Hope comfortable. Everyone was safe and asleep, but here she was.

She couldn't rest knowing that outside would be more dangerous. She knew that door would hold until the morning, and they would have to be on the road again. More bad stuff was always around the corner.

Honestly, she was terrified to think about going back out there. They barely made it inside as it was, with force of course. She was paranoid and exhausted about it all.

She needed to keep them safe. That was her utmost responsibility as their mother, to help raise them so they grew up into amazing adults. But now add survival in the mix?

Whatever confidence she had in herself was slim and she couldn't be confident that she could do this. 3 kids, an infant and two young children. She was way in over her head here. This would be too much.

The aching in her shoulders and back consisted, thanking her with the slightly comfortable position she was in now. She drew a long, heavy breath like she could still feel the weight of that backpack she was forced to carry. If you tripled that weight, that was the pressure and fear she felt at the moment.

She thought about John and how his phone cut out seconds before everything else in the world went dark. How he was supposed to take the kids for a whole week. If he had, would they be alive? Did John ever have what it took to take care of them in a world like this?

Yeah, he was scrawny and tall, but she wasn't talking about physical strength. She meant more mentally. Willpower. The determination of a mother to do anything to keep her babies alive.

Maybe in a way it was good that she ended up here with them instead of John. He would've surely had a mental breakdown.

She wished he were here with her. And not somewhere unknown where he could be dead or alive. Sure, they had differences and it drove them apart before. And all she wanted was to be held by him and told everything would be alright.

His deep, gravelly voice rang in her ear from when they would wake up together and have coffee and just talk. About life, everything in between. She missed that.

Now all she had were memories, hopes, dreams to remember him. And sadly, for now, that had to be enough for now. His memory, her willpower.

⇢ ˗ˏˋ Then the morning came.... ࿐ྂ

Lorelei had to wake the kids up as dawn was breaking through the cardboard covers on the windows ever so slightly. She wanted them to get rest since so much happened yesterday, but sleeping too long would mean not getting a head start.

A head start to where? She couldn't figure that out quite yet, but one goal she had in mind was getting out of the city. Finding somewhere to stay that didn't have dead people knocking on the doors. That seemed like a pretty good plan.

One by one she got the kiddos up, and opened up a can of SpaghettiOs for each, that would have to be their breakfast. She used the kitchen knife she grabbed from the apartment before she left, pretty luck to have grabbed that.