The Renegades

Lokahi Island

Lokahi is Hawaiian for "harmony," but I can assure you this place is anything but that. To me at least.

Years ago, when I was just a newborn, long growing tensions between the United States and North Korea finally escalated beyond control. Countries picked sides. Families turned on one another. Nothing was safe anymore in the birth of a third World War. The United Nations decided there wasn't much hope for the world thanks to nuclear threat. But there was a project they had kept hidden for this very situation: an island far off in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with only the safest technology ever created. They secretly picked out several families from a variety of cultures and hid them away as a final attempt at carrying on a somewhat peaceful and functional human race. And wouldn't you know? My Muslim family, the el-Munir's, were lucky enough to be saved.

I grew up hearing the stories of the old outside world- where there was snow and high school and beautiful little cities and wide open fields full of grazing horses and cattle. My American friend, Phoenix Karabell, gave me the most wonderful picture of the old United States. His fathers had told him there you could be whoever you wanted to be and believe whatever you wanted to believe and love whoever you wanted to love. My family was never very accepting of my identity thanks to their Islamic teachings.

I'm not religious, and my parents certainly can't handle that. I've always longed to be independent and fight for what I want. But it's all handed to you here. Your job and your role as a person and where you're living and what you're having for dinner for the next 10 years is pretty much decided for you the minute you take a breath of the island air. People find joy in that, but I can't help but feel differently.

At least I didn't have to have my friends decided for me. I met Ember Hahn, a German girl, at my lunch table in grade 5. She's always been so fascinating. Her long, auburn hair is almost always pulled up into a ponytail. She was always self-conscious of the freckles that dotted her face and parts of her shoulders, but I adore every inch of her. She has a compelling personality that can pull almost anyone in. And it sure worked on me.

   When I finally worked up the courage to tell her how I felt a few months back, everything changed for the worse. Now she rarely talks to me and avoids any physical or eye contact. She toys with me a lot, and of course I let her without any questions. Our friends Scarlette Alagona of Italy and Arabella Hamasaki of Japan are really the only thing keeping us together at this point. Phoenix and Ember just started dating a couple days ago and it's put a strain on all of our relationships, but I'm determined to keep the only things I got to choose.

   I think I'm starting to move on, and I guess that's a good thing because my parents are telling me I'm "on the right track" now and they're glad my "phase is over." But I promised Phoenix I'd stay true to myself, and I plan to continue doing that. I, Farrah el-Munir, am a proud and stubborn girl. And if you'd like to interrupt that, watch your back.