Unbroken

Family and Friends

How can the world be like this, now? My parents can't be pleased, not with what I was doing. No, you're doing the right thing. Am I? I sighed as my parents and my memories of them flashed before me.

"Mother! Look, a butterfly!" My mother smiled, resting a hand on my shoulder. "Yes, dear. It looks like a blue one. Those are rare." An idea popped into my head. "Katie says that if you wish for something, it might grant it." I told my mother. She smiled down on me. "Yes, love. Make a wish."
Wishes are child's folly. There isn't any point to them. But when I was merely a few months shy of nine, what else could I think?

"Claire!" My father picked me up and swing me around a few times. "You've returned safely." I said gleefully. "Yes, you should know that a mere two years fighting can't stop me." He told me, lighting a cigarette. "Dear, not in the house." Mother said, coming in from the kitchen. He smiled and winked at me, but not taking the small white stick out of his mouth. Mother gave him a scolding look. "If you have to, do it outside." She finally said. "And who says so?" He retorted. "House rules." He cocked and eyebrow. She teased up more. "Fine, then. My rules!"
Rules didn't matter anymore. The only rules were survive, by not dying, live, by surviving, and fight, for living. Some sorry set of rules. And who made these rules? It certainly wasn't a policy, or my mother's. No, more like an instinct.

"Father, why do you fight?" I asked him later in my twelfth year, sitting at my desk. He sighed and set down his glass. He then turned on the television to the news channel. "Because of them." He said simply, and I saw hundred of people fighting in streets, protesting. And killing. "I have to fight them every day, every day so I can live and let others live. All should be able to live, at the least." I sighed and looked at my father, sorrow he expressed on his face. He must've killed before. He must've been fighting and killing for a while now.
Fighting and killing. Killing and fighting. The order doesn't matter. What matters is that I did it every day, sometimes with the rifle I carried, or the dagger on my belt. I fight and kill for the very thing my father had died trying to protect others from.

"So, Claire..." I looked up from my studies. Why did Mother lets Annmarie in? "Let's talk about something, seeing as I've come to visit you." I sighed and set down my pen. "So, Richard and I are getting along famously." She said once hidden in the darkness of my room. "Have you met someone special yet?" I sighed and looked at my fellow fourteen year old. Boys were never my best subject. "No. I do not like anyone."
"Well that's a shame. I was hoping you'd at least consider one of them, like-"
"Ann, that's enough." I interrupted strictly. "Please, I have studies to attend to." I then walked back down to the desk.
Friends. I had new friends now, not like Ann, but more like real friends. And there was no one that I liked. Not as in a boyfriend like anyways.

"Yumi. Yumi!" I awoke to Jiro shaking me. "Come on, it's time to unload." He said and exited the truck seat where I had been sleeping. I slept through the entire ride? I thought to myself. I shrugged it off and helped him unload the supplies, thinking back on my dreams. I've lost a lot, friends, family, rules.... The list is endless. But I have to do this, or else Pandora will just keep taking from me and everyone else.