After Dark (On Hold)

Leaving Lock and Key

I was in complete darkness. I crouched down, dragging my hand across the ground, trying to feel my surroundings. The ground was tough, and it smelled like ash. Wait. There was a dim light in the distance. My vision was clearing up. It was a man. He was dressed in a black overcoat with coal colored buttons, and black boots. His eyes looked grim, and he made the air surrounding him feel like ice. Just then he began to reach down towards his belt. Was he lifting a gun? I don't know, the room was spinning now. Faster and faster. Someone was calling my name. Katya.. Katya. It was my mothers voice! I called out to her, but why wasn't she answering? Crack. It was the sound of a gun. I heard a shrill scream only before everything went black again.

Suddenly I jolted straight up. I wiped my forehead. It was wet and hot from sweat. My first good night of sleep for as long as I can remember and I was woken by a nightmare?

"You okay?" Elise had just woken up. She wiped her arm across her tired eyes.

"Uh," I stood up from the cracking bed, picking my fallen blanket off the floor. "Yea, I'm fine." I wasn't about to tell her about my dream, not then anyway.

I had apparently been convincing, because she moved right on. "Mmm," she said, after yawning. "Smells good. Is it possible your dad made us breakfast?" Elise stretched as she began to get used to the bright morning light shining into the room.

It was only then that I noticed the warm smell of breakfast that seemed to be coming from just below the staircase. My dad wasn't one to do something like that. "It's probably just the neighbors." I said, laughing at the possibility of my dad cooking us a warm morning meal.

She groaned. "Well we might as well check, now that my hopes are crushed."

I slipped on a pair of socks before heading to the kitchen with Elise. Sure enough when we got there, my dad was holding a frying pan in his hands. Unless my eyes were deceiving me, there also seemed to be freshly buttered bread on the table. My dad grinned. "Hi girls."

"Impressive," I remarked, and I truly was impressed.

"Have a seat, the eggs are ready to dish up."

We each took our seats at the table and helped ourselves to the first warm breakfast I had seen in a long time.

"I stopped at the store this morning and bought some bread," he continued. "I talked to Mrs. Reed and she offered us some of the eggs from her hens." Mrs. Reed was our neighbor, and had been a good friend to our family for as long as I could remember.

"Oh, that was nice of her." I wasn't really listening to our discussion. He was trying to make up for last night, or the past several years rather. I should have been more grateful, but I wasn't. I grabbed one last price of bread and started for the door.

"Thanks Mr. Rosa!" said Elise as she followed me out the door. I mumbled in agreement.

"See you soon?" He was always a little worried when we went out on our own, but since we did it all the time, he had been forced to get used to it.

"Yes, Dad, don't worry," I assured him.

~~~

There were no soldiers in sight. There never were as many during the day. It seemed like most had become sort of nocturnal, either that or they were still recovering from their hangovers. They may have been ordered to keep an eye on everyone, but that didn't stop them from having their parties every other night. "I don't see any, what about you?"

Elise smirked, "The coast is clear."

I ran behind a large oak tree and waved for her to follow. The ten foot fence that surrounded the town was buzzing with electricity. Over the years we had found the perfect unnoticed hole in the fence, meaning we could leave the town. Even if it was only for a few hours at a time, while attempting to not be noticed. Nobody had ever questioned why, but after the soldiers came, they wrapped a fence around our town. It was just another way of the government restricting us. And it seemed to work, because it wasn't very easy to do much harm in a small fenced-in town in Delaware. Except what we were doing, probably wasn't doing any harm. We had our secret waterhole behind the fence and the trees, and it was a perfect day to swim.