I'm Just A Kid

Chapter 7: Round Two

The walk back to camp felt endless. The sun was sinking behind the trees, turning the sky gold and grey as shadows stretched across the wet ground. Leaves stuck to our boots and branches brushed against our arms, but nobody complained. What we'd seen had drained the energy from everyone.

I stayed near the middle of the group, my hands tucked into my sleeves as I stared at the path. My thoughts kept returning to Atom.

I'd barely known him, and most of the time he'd irritated me. He'd shoved me around, called me little, and acted like being older automatically made him better than me. I'd never expected to care when I saw him lying there.

But I did.

Seeing someone you knew lying completely still made everything else disappear. It didn't matter that Atom had annoyed me or that we'd argued. He'd been alive. He'd talked to us. He'd been part of the group. Now he wasn't.

Before today, Earth had still felt like an adventure. We'd spent our first day running around like we'd been released from prison, laughing, exploring, arguing over tents and complaining about food. Yesterday, I'd been worrying about where I would sleep, fighting with girls, arguing with Bellamy, and getting angry because nobody took me seriously because I was twelve.

Now those things seemed stupid.

I watched my boots crush damp leaves beneath them. It was strange how quickly your priorities could change. Yesterday, getting a decent place to sleep had felt important. Now I couldn't stop thinking about how quickly someone could disappear.

One moment someone could be standing beside you, talking and laughing, and the next they could be gone.

This was supposed to be our second chance. I'd heard those words my entire life whenever people talked about Earth. We'd been told that our ancestors destroyed the planet and that, one day, if humanity survived, we'd return. I'd imagined forests, rivers, animals, oceans, open skies, and the freedom to breathe air that wasn't recycled through machines.

I'd imagined freedom.

I hadn't imagined people dying, being hunted, strange creatures hiding in the forest, poisonous fog, or the possibility that there were things here none of us understood.

Maybe that was the worst part.

We didn't know anything.

On the Ark, at least, we'd known the rules. Where you could go, what you could touch, what you could eat, when you could sleep, who could make decisions, and what happened if you broke those rules. It had been suffocating, but it had also been predictable.

Earth wasn't.

Earth didn't care about our rules or plans. The forest was enormous and unfamiliar, and whatever lived inside it had been here long before us.

I glanced toward the others ahead of me. I wondered if they were thinking the same things. Maybe they were thinking about food, their friends, or how to get a fire started. I almost wished I could think about something that simple.

Instead, my mind went back to the Ark.

The metal walls I'd grown up surrounded by. My mother, who wasn't coming back. My father, who was still somewhere above us, separated from me by thousands of miles and an entire world.

I'd spent so long imagining what he'd think when I finally got to Earth.

Would he be proud of me?

Would he be angry?

Would he be relieved?

I'd believed we'd eventually see each other again, so I hadn't really allowed myself to think about what it meant if we didn't.