5 Days

Day 3

Waking up the next morning to only one little body instead of two really set the reality of the situation.

I have no clue how I slept last night but grief wears you out I guess.

The second Avani woke up I made her eat as much as she could before we started again, she needs as much strength as possible, we have hundreds of miles to cover.

We walked as far as we could last night, even if it was selfish, I refused to rest until we were a good distance away from that park.

So here I sit, with my daughter inhaling her sisters' rations, which is next to nothing, and me staring blankly at a wall.

"Mama."

I close my eyes and inhale deeply, before coming out of my safe little bubble and back into the real world.

I turn towards my child.

Ani holds up the empty can, "I finished it all."

I surprise myself with a smile, "good girl Ani, is your tummy all full now?"

She nods her head, "yup!"

"You all rested up and ready to go? We still have a really long time to walk."

She nods again and grabs her backpack.

I stand, "Alrighty, lets go then, we have to make some stops to look for food later, ok? You know what to look for right?"

We make our way out of the house we took shelter in; she starts counting off on her fingers, "yup, look for anything in a can. Always make sure that its closed, same thing with jars. Look for unopened water bottles, look for unopened rations, they all have the same U.S printed sign thing on them... I think? "

"Good, but what else, what if you're not where houses are, what do you look for?"

"Nuts and flowers first, berries are dangerous because poison berries can look like regular ones."

I want to keep her talking, it keeps both our minds off of the walk and other darker subjects.

"Name some flowers you can eat."

Avani groans, "mamaaaa, you always quiz me! I know them all already, I promise!"

"I just want to make sure in case we ever get lost from each other, ok?"

She huffs, " wild onions, you can smell them, hibiscus, lavender, umm, the ones with the faces..."

I tilt my head a little, " you mean pansies? You can remember hibiscus but not pansies?"

She pouts, " hibiscus are the Hawaiian flower, they both start with H!"

I laughed a little, "you can also eat roses, sage, and violets." I finish off the list.

"You forgot marigold..." she mumbled so I almost missed it, unfortunately I didn't.

Silence immediately surrounds us; Ani doesn't continue and neither do I.

Yes, for just a moment, I did forget.

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Sweat makes my shirt stick to my back and my breathing has become more labored.

"Ok, I think its time for a break." I huff out.

An exhausted Ani simply nods.

Good thing we happen to be outside a neighborhood, we can look for supplies while we rest here.