Who We Are

PART 1

The Start Of It All.

~~~ Chapter 1 ~~~

Screaming. It's all I can hear when I wake up. And I wasn't surprised that it was my own scream. Another horrific dream of the crash not unusual. Since its 5am, according to the clock hanging on the wall directly in front of me, I decide to get up. I walk out onto our balcony, where my Mother and I used to sit when I was much younger. Before the accident. I look out at the sunrise, the exact same one I saw yesterday morning and last week. After standing there, admiring the sunset for a little too long, I walk back inside and set to waking my brother up. As soon as my hands rest on his shoulders, His awake. "What are you doing?", Lake demands.

"I'm waking you up. Just like yesterday and the day before that", I reply. "Whatever just let me sleep", he says as he rolls over and buries his head under a pillow. Well, so much for waking him up.

I get dressed and grab my jacket before writing a note to Lake, telling him where I'm going. I tape it to his bedroom door then I leave the house.

I end up going to Harper's house. I didn't really have anywhere to be but I just needed to get out of my house.

I knock on Harper's door and she almost immediately opens the door. She must have already been awake. Her brother, Nate, is walking down he stairs as I walk into their house. "Hey", I say to him as he passes me. He just ignores me as usual. He continues walking to the kitchen while Harper and I go up to her bedroom. As we walk in, I see the usual stuff. Posters on the wall from before the circle was formed. Practically vintage. We sit down on her bed. Standard bedding, just like everyone else's in the Circle. "Are you okay?", Harper asks me. "Yeah I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be?", I reply. "Because of your parents". Straight to the point like always. She's never been any different. "I think Lake will cope worse than I am", I say. Partial lie. I'm kind of fine but not always. "If you ever need anything just remember that Nate and I are always here for you", Harper replies. I'm sure she would be here for me but not Nate. Never Nate. "I don't think Nate would help me he barely even looked at me when I walked past him". "You know why he doesn't talk to you", Harper says. I nod. I do. He's never been able to talk to me. Not after what we saw.

I decide to leave after we sit there, not really doing anything.

I end up going back home because there really isn't much else to do in The Circle at 7am. When I get home I see that Lake isn't even awake yet so I peel the note off of his door. I go to the kitchen and find some cereal amongst the other food. While I'm eating it, Lake stumbles out of his bedroom, finally awake. "Morning", He says, coming over to where I sit at the table. "Morning."

"Whatcha eating?", Lake asks. "Cereal", I reply back plainly. "Is there any more of it?" "Nup." Typical conversation between Lake and myself. We don't really ever have anything to talk about. Sometimes it's too painful to talk about stuff we both know of. Like outside of the Circle.....

At school, they always told us that we were the only survivors. But they didn't tell us what we had survived. Ever. We were always instructed to never go outside the Circle, not that you could, what with all the concrete walls encircling our concrete jungle that we call a city of sorts. We're practically encased by concrete.

Lake ends up leaving the house around 8, leaving me at home, forever alone.

I don't really do much for the rest of the day. It's not until Lake comes home late in the afternoon that I realize I wasted a whole day doing nothing.

***

I end up only getting 4 hours of sleep. I guess that's what happens when you have nightmares continuously about your parent's deaths.

Lake and I make our way to school after it takes me an hour to get him up.

We go our own ways at school. I find Harper and he finds whoever he hangs out with. "Have you seen Nate?", she says with urgency. "No. Why?" "He didn't come home last night after he went out and he wasn't there this morning", she says. I don't know what goes on in Nate's mind but I do know that this isn't like him at all. "What happened before he left?" "Not much. You came over and then left. Then he left without saying anything. What if something's happened to him, Tora?", Harper asks me, nearly on the verge of tears now. He's all she got. Everyone in the Circle once had parents, but when at least one of their kids turns 14, all kids move out to the select part of the Circle. Harper and Nate didn't have any other siblings. "We'll find him, I promise. It's too safe here for anything to have happened to him. Think about it".

Let alone did we know, that Nate being missing was exactly what ended everything we knew.