A New World #Wattys2016

Chapter 3

    She was dead. My mom was dead. And my dad is dead too. Where is my sister? I don't even know where my sister is! I feel to the ground and started crying. I didn't care that this cute boy was standing beside me as I cried. Wait, I think he is cute now? How is this important!? My mother just died! Why am I so selfish?

I finally worked up the courage to stop crying and get up. I wiped my face off so the boy couldn't see my ugly face after crying.

"I'm sorry." Is all the boy had to say to me. I felt bad for him. He must not know how to deal with girls when they cry. "I will come with you." The boy said. "Thank you." I replied.

"By the way, my name is Zach." The boy said. "My name is Alex. I respond.

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I pull the paper that my mother gave me out of my pocket. It shows a map, in one spot a big red x. I search the map of where we are and find it. It will take a while to get there. Zach leans over my shoulder and looks at the map. "Darn! Thats far away! It will take us days to get there!" He says. "We can do it" I reply. He smiles at me. I blush.

Zach and I empty our backpacks of our school supplies and fills them with food, water, money, clothes, and some other needed things. I don't know how long the food will last, but I have money to buy more food just in case.

    When we have the backpacks on our backs, we run out of my house and start to where the cure is.

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"How much money do you have?" Zach asked. "I just grabbed all of my parents money since they're dead anyway." I paused. My eyes started watering at the thought but I held it in. "There is probably like, a couple of hundred bucks in here. I wouldn't be able to get more money from their account, but we will probably find the cure by the time we run out of money. Maybe." I said. "Ok." Zach agreed. "I got like twenty bucks in here but I guess that won't help compared to the hundreds of dollars." He admitted. "No, it's ok, it will help." I say.

    "We could probably get on a bus part of the way, or even a plane." I suggest. "We would need IDs to get on a plane, and I think you need to be a certain age." Zach explained. "Oh, right." I laughed. "Let's just take the bus for now.

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"Yeah that'll be one hundred dollars." The bus driver says. "One hundred dollars!?" I argued. "That's ridiculous!" "Hey, fifty for you, fifty for your boyfriend." She says. I blush at the word. I look over at Zach. He is blushing to. Maybe he likes me. That's not important now! I tell my self, but I can't help not to get distracted. "Umm she's not my..." Zach gets cut off. "You know, it costs a lot of money for gas, to get all the way to..." The bus driver rants on. "Okay! Okay! Here take the money!" I say as I jab the money at her chest. She sneers at me as she says with a hateful tone, "you kids better watch out, I can report you. Kids aren't supposed to be running around without adult supervision." She lets us pass. Oh please, this lady is nuts! We're 16 years old!

"We'd better watch out for her." Zach commands. "Yeah, I was thinking the same thing." I reply. We sit down in seats next to each other. "Zach, what about your parents? Why did you leave them?" I ask. "Won't they be worried about you?"

Zach hesitates. This was a bad idea. What if his parents died? That's probably the reason.

"My mom... she died when I was little." Zach starts. "Then it was just... Me and my dad." He takes pauses every once in a while. It must be really hard for him to be telling me all this. I think. Maybe he really does like me. I mean, if he's telling me all this, then it must mean... "My dad never paid attention to me... He never cared." My thoughts get interrupted. But I don't mind. I want to learn more about him. "He got sick. I was scared I was gonna get the disease from him." Zach continues. I immediately pull up my face mask even more. Wait! Did he catch the disease from his dad? I think. No, he looks fine. Everything is going to be ok, Zach is not sick. He will not infect me. I relax and turn to him to show him I'm listening. "And then that's when I saw you today, and we left. My dad... He is probably gonna... Die anyway." Zach finishes. "I'm sorry." I say. "It's ok, your parents died too." He says. This is awkward but at the same time cute. The conversation ends and Zach looks out the bus window.