The Apocalypse of Plants

Tally

After a few minutes of walking with Laina in comfortable silence, I drop back and let her walk ahead. She gives me a nervous look but I smile at her and nod reassuringly.

The moment she is gone, I feel empty. Cold, lonely, hollow. I want to curl up and cry. I want to go back to Before, where everything was right and Sawyer was alive and I was happy. Life wasn't easy, but it's preferable to this. Suddenly, I miss everything from Before. I'd do anything, I'd give anything, to go back.

Kenzie suddenly stops and Preston runs into her, sending them tumbling to the ground. Morgan laughs and I push past him and Laina and gasp. I put Scout down, who sits beside me.

In the distance, there's a city. Well, it used to be a city. Now, it's devoured by plants, but I can still see the outline of where the buildings used to be. And off in the distance, there's water. I take a sharp inhale of air. Are we here?

I spin around to Laina, whose come to the same conclusion as I have.

"Miami?" I ask. She shrugs, but I can tell that she believes it is. Morgan smiles and nods. "How can you tell?"

"I've been here before. And, you know, I can't be certain because I can't actually see what the buildings look like, but yeah. I'm pretty sure it's Miami." A grin slides onto my face. We made it. We actually made it.

"Did you say this was Miami?" Preston says, standing up. Kenzie gets up and brushes herself off daintily. It takes a lot of strength not to roll my eyes. She acts like such a princess sometimes.

"I think so," Morgan replies. "But don't get your hopes up. I might be wrong."

"No, I don't think you are," Laina says. Morgan beams at her, but she starts walking toward the plant-infested city. I pick up Scout and we follow her on the road, which we can barely see because it's covered in grass.

She stops when she comes to a sign at the entrance to a parking lot for a big building. It's either a hotel or an office.

Laina looks expectantly at me and I raise my eyebrow. What does she want?

"Can I have your knife, please?" she asks like it should be obvious. Like, duh, why wouldn't she want my knife?

"Yeah, sure," I say and pull it out and offer the hilt to her. She takes it, walks up to the sign which is covered in vines, and slashes through the plants. They fall to the ground and Laina points the knife at them like she's expecting them to attack her. They don't, and Laina turns her attention back to the sign, which has revealed the letter "A". An excited feeling rises inside me.

"Keep going," Kenzie urges. Laina looks at her.

"No, I was just planning on stopping right now," Laina retorts. Kenzie sighs heavily and I chuckle.

Laina keeps cutting and soon the letters "M", "A", and "I" are visible. Laina grunts with effort as she hacks at the vines, and soon we can see the word "MIAMI". Laina steps back, awe written all over her face.

"We did it," I whisper.

~~~

We celebrate by breaking into a store and stealing bags of candy and bottles of water. But it is really breaking in if the town is deserted and there's no one around? And is it really stealing? What's the worst that could happen? The police are going to come through us in jail? Ha. Yeah right.

The moment the Sour Patch Kids touch my tongue, it feels like my taste buds are going to explode. I have never tasted anything so heavenly. Scout laps up water. Laina moans as she throws jellybeans into her mouth, Morgan practically inhales a whole bag of skittles, Preston contently munches on gummy bears, and Kenzie eats handful after handful of candy corns. Seriously, who eats candy corns in February?