After Fate Fell

32 • MARINA

1 year, 3 months, and 16 days after it all
•MARINA•

After a car trip that was in fact short in time but of course seemed to drag on, we're getting very close to Walvis Bay. Five told us we should be hitting the outskirts in about fifteen minutes a few minutes ago. Getting to the town doesn't even mean anything other than the fact that we've hit the coast, but for me, it means a break from driving. I'm exhausted and it'll be nice to rest. We're planning to stay a night in a hotel in town, then hopefully we'll figure out where we're supposed to go by the morning.

Nobody in my car has even taken any type of nap on this four-hour drive, which doesn't surprise me, because it's Nine, Sam, and Adam. If I weren't driving, I'd be sleeping, but that's just me. But they would never miss out on an opportunity to be annoying. In this single trip, I've dealt with fighting over who's going to be the copilot (yes, even after the car started moving). Sam keeps shoving his knees into the back of my seat, even after me constantly telling him to stay in his own space.

All three of them keep getting into intense versions of stupid kids' games, like rock paper scissors games except all of them are screaming and cursing and flailing their arms everywhere. They also have played musical chairs--yes, you heard that right--by blasting the radio to some god-awful rap music and literally jumping from seat to seat, and ordering me to stop the music every once in a while. The stupid thing is, I don't think they really know how to play musical chairs, because they never take out a seat--not that they could--or eliminate anybody, they just play that whoever is in the passenger seat when the music stops wins that round. Then they would start again. After a few rounds of it though, I just about stabbed Nine with an icicle that I didn't even realize had formed in my hand, and then they kind of realized how obnoxious they were being.

I'm glad they're having fun, but I want to kill all of them for how they're acting. I feel like I'm a single mom in a car trying to control my three toddlers.
A couple houses and little buildings begin to appear along the roadside. I can tell we're almost to the town. The boys are all sitting quietly now, probably because of Nine's near-death experience with me, all looking out their windows. Six's car is just ahead of us, leading the way through the empty desert. I wonder if she had just as much trouble as I did with her passengers, and then I remember that she has Ella, Five, and John, and I realize that unless there was alcohol involved, that car was probably so relaxing. Meanwhile, I was here trying to keep this car on the road and in one piece.

"-nce we get there we're going to look for a hotel," Five reminds us. "We should be to the heart of town pretty soon. We've already hit the outskirts of the outskirts," he says.

"Okay thanks Five," Adam responds back. I gave him walkie-talkie duty, because even though they've all been acting wild and honestly insane, he's been slightly less wild and slightly less insane than the other two.

Namibia really is a country mostly devoid of people. I don't know if that makes me feel peaceful that we're away from everything in the world, or scared because nobody is out here to save us. Then again, we're coming up on a town, so of course it isn't completely devoid of people, just mostly. I swear, in my six or so hours in this country, I've probably seen a total of fifty people, not counting the others in our group. And those were all in Windhoek. We were only there for like an hour or less, so I guess that's why. But outside the city, I haven't seen a single person.

It's funny how I found this odd, because just before we started this little adventure, I was up in the Himalayan Mountains, miles and miles from the nearest town, and hundreds of miles from the closest real city. But I guess I just didn't realize how empty certain parts of the world are. The mountains, the deserts, the oceans. People all live in cities or towns, stacked on top of each other, while these parts of the world are left almost completely untouched.
At least untouched by human hands. I wouldn't be surprised to see a plastic grocery bag or a food wrapper floating along with the sand. Our planet was destroyed by outside invaders, the Mogadorians who we knew as our enemies. Earth, though, may just be destroyed by its own inhabitants' ignorance and stupididty. They pollute the ground, the air, the water. They start wars with each other. They may just destroy this place themselves. Although, I have seen a change in things after the war. People seem to be trying to start over, trying to pick this place back up and put it in the right direction. I just hope that works out for them. I won't be sticking around long enough to see it happen.

The houses are getting more frequent along the roadside, the amount of sand still remaining the same, though. Ahead, I can see a huge town stretching out for miles. I didn't picture it like this. I thought it would just be a small town like the way I think of Paradise or any other little suburb with a few little shops and stores. This looks like a full-blown city, well I guess not full-blown, because there aren't any tall buildings and there isn't any crazy traffic or anything. There's just a lot of houses and buildings stretching out, spanning the coast. The coast! I finally can see the water. Through the sand which is whipping up from the streets and the roofs of the buildings, there it is.

We keep driving along the main road, and we hit the sign that welcomes us to Walvis Bay. I tell the boys to keep on the lookout for buildings that look like hotels, might as well make them useful in some way. As they scan the buildings, I look ahead on the road. And it's then that I realize I still haven't seen a single car on this road. Do people rarely come into town this way? Do they not use cars here and instead just walk? Probably. It doesn't seem like a busy time of day either. I guess it is getting into the evening, so most people are probably in their homes, eating dinner, relaxing.

"Where are-?" Adam starts, but he gets cut off by the crackling of the walkie-talkie.

"Marina, something's wrong," Ella says over the walkie-talkie.

I already know what she's going to say, I'm just too confused to say anything.

"Everyone's gone."