City of Ember-my way

The dead

For the next week, more and more Emberites were getting ill. Some were still just recovering from the weed and ant palarva and it's because they were ill so recently that their immune systems are very weak. This meant that they were the first to get drastically ill from the contaminated water that everyone had so joyously drank up and bottled to keep for themselves as who knew how long it would be until civilisation. Doon and Lina were weakened but not enough to make stop them from hunting for food for the ill. Lina was becoming increasingly worried about Poppy - she was coughing a lot and when she did, it sounded horrific, as if she was in a lot of pain. But Poppy didn't seem to notice how dangerous it was. The adults who had heard her coughing were becoming worried for her health too. And that's when it happened. The first death. Lizzie had been thin - she wanted to be thin and the cost was a weakened immune system and the liability to death. Suppose it shouldn't have been a surprise that she left first. She was lay to rest with Lina being one of the few witnesses to say goodbye to the girl. She had been Lina's best friend that she was mourning her loss to the extent that she hardly spoke to Doon in the days when Lina held Poppy on her lap, crying for both of the females in her life that she loved. Now everyone was suspecting more deaths. And sure enough they all came. There was a couple of days when the only food that went around were fruit and vegetables and this caused digestion problems for almost everybody. And it's because of the lack of food that many more just suddenly passed away in their sleep. It was tragic. Very much so. People were so thin, so obviously pale which could be seen better in the light of the day time. Doon hugs Lina every night when it gets cold - he couldn't bare to loose her. Lina holds Poppy - she couldn't bare to loose her. The fire is easy to get going - and it was easy to work out that trees would provide fire when they established the Sun was penetrating the wood to the extent that it would sometimes burn during the day. Of course, the were still immensely ignorant to literally everything on Earth. They avoided birds like the infectious plague of whooping cough that they had back in Ember. If only they knew they could eat them. Perhaps they thought that eating birds was like eating a human because it could talk in it's own unique way. But these birds would have been a bad choice to eat. Tara knows.

I'm glad they didn't eat the birds. The blue ones light up at night. They're the most common one's around here and no one can survive eating them. Not even me probably. Me whose already affected by the radiation. I'm special because of it. Supposedly autistic at first. But no. Mother said it must be radiation. And Ben ordered me out afterwards. I remember. It's hard to cling onto memories of the past. But I have to. To know everything. Otherwise, How will I live? Some of the more rare birds, such as the red ones, they're alright. I've had some of them when I got desperate. They must be from far away - must have come from the places that weren't so close to the site of the bombs going off. Oh no. Nowadays I can see the past all most as clearly as I can see the future. I hate it. All the innocent people going about their normal lives and - caboom. Dead. The dead who never got to see the destruction left behind in their 'city'. But another vision. These people here who won't eat the birds. These people will see the city. The destruction. I can't let them see that place. They'll give up hope. They will. And then there'll be more suicides in future than there already will be in the next week. There must be more deaths. I can't see the deaths. But then, I sort of am seeing this city from behind the girl and boy. I join them! I must do. Okay Tara - you got this.