Australia Under Attack: Unbroken

Part 1

I'm bleeding again.

I can taste the blood. The cut on my bottom lip has split. I trace my tongue over it, wincing when my saliva makes it sting. It's swollen, the skin around my mouth sore and probably bruised. I touch my fingers to my right eye; it's swollen and tender too. I sit up on an elbow and turn to face Erin. She's still asleep, but the sun is coming up and we need to keep moving, so I nudge her shoulder.

She scrunches her nose and groans before opening her eyes. "What?"

"We gotta move."

She groans again before rolling over. I nudge her again.

"Hey," I say. "Do I have a black eye?"

She turns around and squints at me, her eyes widening when she sees my face. "Yep. It really is. Does it hurt?"

I nod. "Yep. It really does."

I glance down to inspect the rest of my aching body, seeing matching bruises down my arms and along my collarbone from where they grabbed me and dragged me along the dirt.

And now we're alone. Bleeding and bruised and afraid. Sleeping in the bush, using the daylight to find the road. Any road that will lead us away from where we were. For two days we've been wandering like this. I thought we'd be out by now. And we were angry when we left. Too angry to care to bring enough supplies. I'm still angry, but now I'm starving, exhausted and dehydrated too. If we don't find a road or a house or something soon, we're both going to die. And it's all their fault.

I climb to my feet and dust the dirt and leaves off of my clothes. "We need to find something today," I say as I reach down and help Erin up off the dry earth. "A road. A house. Anything."

"We will."

I look up at the clear blue sky, framed by the branches of the tall trees that surround us.

Six months ago, looking up at the sky relaxed me. It was something I did when I needed to find some peace. When I needed to be reminded that the universe was much bigger than my tiny little human problems.

I don't need to contemplate the clouds or the stars to know that now.

I don't need to be reminded that I am a tiny little speck living on a slightly bigger speck-but still just a speck-in a big, menacing universe.

Star gazing isn't relaxing anymore. It's stressful. Panic inducing. Suffocating.

Now, stars are the enemy.

Now, what you're looking at might not be a star at all. It could be your worst nightmare.

The stars are at war with us.

And they're winning.

Five Months Earlier

Erin is waiting for us on the front porch when we pull into the driveway. She gives me a warm, but nervous, smile as Mum and I get out of the car. She's scared.

"How did it go?" she asks as we walk up the steps. She pulls anxiously on her plait of long brown hair.

I look at Mum, who smiles as happy tears fill her eyes, making them even bluer. She'd been crying the whole hour-long drive back from Sydney, since before we even left the hospital. "Go on."

I turn to my sister and grin. "I'm in remission!"

Erin leaps into my arms, and Mum wraps her arms around both of us. We stand on the porch and laugh and cry for what feels like an eternity.