Sickness

~Part 15~

A loud snore from Gale yanked me out of my freezing slumber. My head shot up and immediently connected with something. ''Ouch!'' I hear Gale yell. I turn my head to see him snuggled up against me, keeping me warm. ''What are you doing?'' I ask sleepily. 

''You shivering so bad last night that your foot kept kicking the fire and burning me." he said crankily.

''Sorry.'' I gave a shy smile.

There was a few seconds of silence before Gale said, "Let's go."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

Gales face grew into a troubled frown. “What’s wrong?’’ I ask, looking at the ground as my dirty sandals scuff the ground.

‘’This doesn’t make any sense.’’ He admits. ‘’I mean, why would Vivien tell us to go and escape, when there IS no where to go?’’ 

‘’I don’t know Gale.’’ I whisper. ‘’But I feel like it’s important.’’

Gale looks up at me and lets a slight grin appear on his face. Only for a second though, then it was gone. He looks up and yells, ‘’Look!’’ he points to a large gray wall that goes for awhile then stops. It was probably 5 miles away, so even at the small size it looked from here showed it was huge.

‘’What is it?’’ I ask quietly.

‘’I think it’s.. a wall.’’ A glimmer of hope crossed his face. ‘’Another colony!’’ he shouts as a grin grows on his tired face.

‘’Oh my gosh. Is it?’’ I silently ask myself as Gale takes off running through the barren land.

‘’Wait for me!’’ I shout following him across the dirt. 

~ ~ ~

Oddly, we made it to the wall without even stopping for a break. I guess the excitement had just gotten the best of me.

Gale ran up to the wall at slammed his hands on it. ‘’This is a colony wall!’’ he shouted jogging along it.

‘’Oh my gosh.’’ I lightly touch it. ‘’It is a colony wall.’’

‘’Yes!’’ he yells.

‘’Wait.’’ I stop looking up at the wall. ‘’Is this… our colony?’’

Gales smile faded as he walked over to where I was standing and looked down by my knees where a small baseball sized hole in the wall broke through. Three tall blades of grass grew directly under it, just tall enough to reach if someone were to reach their hand through.

I reach down and touch the blades of grass. ‘’Wait a second.’’ I say. ‘’These are… plastic.’’ I reach down to yank out the grass, then find that I have to pull with all my might just to remove the fake greenery from the ground.

‘’Fake?’’ Gale asks confused.

‘’Yeah. Fake. Why would there be fake grass out here?’’ I ask myself.

''I don't know...'' Gale said looking around. ''Hey! Look!'' 

"What is it?'' I ask kneeling down to where he was looking on the deep gray wall. Scribbled small and carefully in black ink read the words 'Colony 04.' "Oh my gosh.'' I say putting my hand over my mouth. "This is colony four.''

Gale stood up and ran his hand against the wall. ''I thought colony four was extinct.'' he said slowly.

Actually… everyone thought colony 4 was extinct. It was said that their entire city was killed in an explosion when Asia attempted to exterminate all of the sickly people and take our continent. Their plan backfired though. They dropped a poisonous bomb on the unsuspecting colony 4 thinking it was full of sick people, and the gas affected them too, sending their helicopter down about 20 miles from where the colony once stood. I was surprised the walls were even still standing considering rumors said that the gas burned right through anything it came in contact with. The walls included. ‘’Should we go in and check it out?’’ Gale suggested.

“Umm, yea. I guess that’s a good idea.’’ I admit unenthusiastically. I didn’t know what was behind these walls! And I didn’t want to find out! But I knew that Vivien had sent us toward something. We didn’t know what, but we knew there was something. Something promising that could save us from this wasteland. ‘’Let’s go.’’ I say smoothly walking the perimeter looking for a front gate like ours has. 

As I expected, OF COURSE the gate had to be on the last side we checked. It had taken almost all day just to walk the four sides of the giant city. Gale was tired, but was sticking it out, but I had thrown up 3 times already and wanted nothing more than to huddle up in a bed and cry for no reason. ‘’Here it is.’’ Gale said slowly as we noticed the huge indent around the side of the wall.

We had no idea if the gate would work or not. We had no idea how it worked or how to open it. I felt like I had just walked across the entire ocean, so seeing that gate made me want to weep from happiness. I threw my arms up in the air. “Yes!”

Gale looked over at me and smiled. I smiled back at him and slowly jogged to the gate. I mean, if you could jog in slow motion, that’s what I was doing. It’s a little faster than walking and a little slower than jogging, and got me to the gate in 5 minutes flat.

Gale walked up to the gate and examined it. It was JUST like ours. Accept they didn’t prick hands. I walked up and looked along the huge concrete gate. There was in indent in the wall in the shape of a hand. I walked over and lightly placed my palm in it, only slightly smaller that it. An orange light went up and down under my hand twice, then I felt a series of pricks happening all at once. I went to pull my hand away to check what it was, but I barely took one finger off and an alarm started blaring tell me to put my hand back on.

I felt a pressure on the center of my hand, then the orange light stopped and Gale stepped into my place. He mimicked my motions, he even pulled his hand away for a second, but quickly got scolded by the loud siren. I noticed sunset approaching as Gale stepped back from the pricker thing. “So, uh, now what?” Gale asked.

The gate replied to Gale with the loud sound of concrete against concrete. The gate opened just enough for us to step through into Colony 4. Gale and my mouth dropped open with we saw the condition of the city.