𝒃𝒖𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒐𝒍𝒇 𝒔𝒖𝒓𝒗𝒊𝒗𝒆𝒔 ➪ «𝑑𝑎𝑟𝑦𝑙 𝑑𝑖𝑥𝑜𝑛»

ch. VIII - 《one hell of a speech》

oOo

"We should talk about it." The silence that had reigned over them lasted all of five minutes before Irene broke it.

Diana looked up from the unfocused, unblinking, one-sided staring contest she'd been holding with a particular mud stain on the side of the motorcycle that shared their traveling space.

She blinked at her mother, eyes stinging and immediately filling with tears. She rubbed them with her unhurt hand until stars and random swirls flickered in and out of her field of vision. Her heart fluttered nervously, hoping she didn't mean what had happened to her while she'd been gone.

She didn't want to talk about that. Hopefully, she would never have to talk about that.

Sam eyed his wife in silence, naturally furrowed brow knitting closer together until they almost merged, until Felix voiced the thoughts apparent on the man's face.

"'Bout what?" the boy asked, shortly mimicking his father's expression and pushing a loc away that the wind had blown in his face, "There's so much shit going on, mãe, you gotta be specific."

"Sobre todo." Irene gestured around them with her arms, almost hitting her husband due to the close quarters. "We haven't really actually talked about how all this affects us. I mean, it's the end of the world, for Christ's sake."

"It affects us like it affects everyone else," Alice stated, unapologetic, and shrugged. "We're being fucked with. That simple."

Sam gave a warning look at the swear, but there was no real meaning behind it. Who cared about cussing at this point?

"We were supposed to leave today," Diana chimed in, and turned her gaze to the skies, imagining the airplane they were meant to be on drawing white lines against the great blue expanse. "Now we're stuck here. No plane, no boat, no way of going back home. And what would we even be going back to?"

Irene nodded. "I know it's hard, God knows it's very hard, everything we busted our backs for just... but...we have to name the facts and face them," her voice was melancholic, but she inhaled deeply and carried on, "There are things going on we don't or can't understand. Things we- we know nothing about. I mean, zombies? Jesus Cristo, I'd sooner expect aliens! But this is the new truth, we can't avoid it. This, this is everywhere."

Everyone agreed with wistful hums and small, dejected nods.

Irene continued with a shuddering breath and emotion in her voice, "We'll never go back home. That's what we know, that's a fact. But we have each other – you're my family, we're each other's family - and it's sad, devastating, that we will never see the others again-" She stopped to take a deep breath. "The truth is, even if we end up all alone, Dios nos ayude, we will make it through."

The woman looked each member of her family deep in the eye, fierce and dauntless, and spoke her next words with conviction, "If we have to adapt to survive, we will. We don't know how long this might go on, God might have our work cut out for us, but what we do know is that this world is different from everything we've experienced; it will change us; I have no doubt of that. Maybe more than we expect, maybe not.

In six months, one year, two years, we won't be the same people sitting here, not entirely. It will happen, it will, we can't fool ourselves otherwise. And because of that, we need to stay true to our fundamentals. Only so do we stay grounded, only then do we remain human."

Diana's jaw slackened with a loud pop of her lips, and it brought the others out of their amazed stares. Diana cleared her throat. "Well- well said, mami."