A Light That Never Fades

𝟭𝟮

Day 66

As Amina writes the date on her sketchbook paper like usual, she overhears her friends and the others discussing the new scavenging plan that would soon occur today. It had to have been at least nine in the morning. Amina yawned as her eyes were still feeling a bit tired. She thought back to the previous night, the way Nettie had gently held her in her arms. Amina's cheeks grew warm as she remembered burying her face in Nettie's neck to keep herself warm throughout the night.

She reminisced about the sleepovers the two girls once had a long time ago. Nettie often showed a side to Amina that no one really knew about when she'd stay over at her house over the weekends. Nettie held such great charisma that was undeniably enticing. Amina recalled a memory when the two girls had gone shopping on a Saturday, Amina had laid her eyes on a lovely lilac dress. The price for it however was too high for Amina to even afford. She suggested they both continued searching for other options, but Nettie insisted on buying the dress for her dear friend. Amina had never let that memory wash away from her mind ever since, it made her heart skip a beat to think of how Nettie was always so considerate in trying to give the girl everything she needed. It had made Amina feel strongly captivated by her.

Amina flips back a few pages to her drawings and stops at a certain one that caught her attention. Day 41, revealed to be a refined drawing of her best friend Nettie. Her eyes traced at every detail of the divine girl, Amina felt proud of the way it had turned out. Behind Nettie, Amina had drawn a dragonfly, which is the hair clip that the clever girl always wore to keep her hair tidy in place. Amina smiles thoughtfully as she admires the drawing one final time before closing her sketchbook shut. She stands up from the bleachers and heads over to her friends where the discussion continues to take place.

"You don't have to keep risking your life out there Samy, for once just sit this one out", Maia pleads to Samy, to which Samy disagreed like the stubborn girl she is. Winston was in terms to go out like always, Aston and Fabian would be venturing outside as well. Tommy, who felt unsure of wanting to leave the school, decided to stay behind as his fear started to creep up on him. Scavenging within the school perimeter was one thing, outside their school fence however was a potential fatal risk to whatever they could possibly encounter.

It takes Fabian a while before noticing Lauren's lack of presence in the group's discussion. He turns his head all over the place in search of his friend, but is unable to detect her from anywhere within the group of teens who are huddled together as they continue chattering about this scavenging plan. Fabian decides to focus on Lauren's missing presence later as he begins to assume that the girl could potentially have gone to the restroom.

Talia looks around the gym as well, she lets her ears drown out the noise of her peers relentlessly speaking in regards to who else can volunteer. Her green eyes scanned for the vitiligo boy, he was nowhere in sight though to which Talia found strange. She wondered about him maybe being at the locker rooms, so she decided to go search for him, walking away from the teens now bickering. Talia had noticed recently that some of the older teens were often getting irritated by every single thing that didn't go their way. She surmised it to be their hunger talking for them as it is common for it to leave people on edge when all of their minds are unable to think about anything other than the savoring food they all desperately wished to consume.

Talia walks into the locker room that had belonged to the boys, she quietly walks around and searches for Ricky. The locker room felt awfully quiet as the only sound she heard were her own footsteps.

"Ricky? Are you in here?", Talia called out.

No answer.

She continued to walk on ahead, passing by the rows of lockers that stood on each side of the room. Talia began to feel uncomfortable as she had not gotten a response, she began to assume now that maybe Ricky hadn't gone to the locker rooms after all. Right as she was about to turn around and leave, Talia hears a cough echoing from afar where the restrooms were located. Her heart drops, not wanting to believe that it was Ricky coughing again. She quickly runs over to the noise and runs up to a restroom stall.