I took one long last look around after ushering the last of the children inside the craft. Looking down at the tiles at my feet I tried to memorize every crack, every pattern, every fault, but even as I stared I knew I would not be able to. For just as my now so little town, my memories too were fading. I sighed as I glanced at the wash of grey the, once bright little town had taken on. The bright red roofs now dark as blood, the trustworthy street lamps now only flicker and where the fresh meadows used to stretch now lays a think blanket of mould. The quaint roads and avenues now cluttered with grey suited workers "preparing" the town, and even though my eyes can't stretch as far as it. I know my perfect blue house has suffered the same fate. Everything I used to know, simply washed out, just as a child's painting being scribbled over. The only life left was the blindingly white shuttles waiting behind my back and the hot, red and blue fire burning right at the heart of all the chipped memories. Like a heart beat with every flicker of the flame, beating harder and harder, trying to escape a great burning plague. Slowly but surely it will have no choice to give in and then fall to the ground as nothing more than ash. That was it I knew as soon as we left there would be no more hesitation, and everything would burn. I took a deep breath and filled my lungs past the brim and kept inhaling as it burned, this would be all I had left forever.
I was one of the last standing in the courtyard. I knew I should board soon or loose my community as well as my home, but just as I was about to turn my back and commit to my loss the doors on the malfeasant shuttle broke open. Out stumble two men, one goon like with big hairy limbs and very buff, the other meagre and week, his detention shirt done up to the last button and smashed wire frames just hanging off his left ear. What could be going on they never let the prisoners out until everything is gone, non-the less everyone! I had to calm down. They were probably just trying to scare the last of us on to the shuttle make it seem like they really were saving us, it was all just an act. I didn't believe it. Somewhere there was or had been a mishap.
Before I could think any more I felt a warm embrace wrap around my waist. I looked down and saw a child, a young girl, probably about 7 or 8 by the old standard. She had frizzy white hair, had skin as pale as the moon and wore a tattered plain white dress with a thick black trench coat. I picked her up and held her again my chest. I felt her trembling, her perfect little heart racing against mine and her body fixed to me as she held on like a little chimp to it's mama. I wanted to know what was wrong. I wanted to ask who she was. I wanted to comfort her and save her from this "new life" the shuttle would carry us to. Then with a start she stopped shivering, she loosened her grip around my neck and sat back into my arms staring at me with wide frightened eyes.
"Come pray with me" she urgently boasted.
Although I herd the words they did not sink in, all I did was stare blankly into her eyes, wide with fear, flickering like a million fireflies hiding the truth.
"Come pray with me" she repeated more as a demand than a request.
In a trance I followed her to a little park bench, barely retaining it's natural brick red hue, at the edge of the tilled courtyard. As I sat down I did not take in the passenger shuttle for the first time but saw it in more reality. Earlier it almost seemed like a dream and that once I woke up it would be gone, but it was a lie. The shuttle was so painfully real, however the worst part wasn't the shuttle it's self but the fact that I depended on it.
I focused on the young, fair, girl sitting beside me on the bench and opened my mouth in preparation of explaining that "we have to get on the shuttle now for it's getting to chilly out here", but I stopped when I saw the back of her head turned to me and the outburst of the two men just past her shivering body.
"We have to get inside..." I told her though I knew what I said wouldn't matter to her. "It's too dangerous out here."
She turned her head abruptly, facing the shuttle as if she had registered what I had whispered, but I could tell there was much more going on in her mind for her eyes had changed... Before I could tell anymore she flicked them shut and hung her head solemnly but determined. She pressed her hands together firmly and whispered a small prayer, her filthy fingertips pressed against her cracked lips. After a few moments of intense concentration, she slid her hand around the base of her pointer finger until only he thumbs were interlocked and the palm of her right hand touched her left pointer finger. Then, very quickly slid them back into their original position, proceeding to repeat the strange act. On the second draw back, a cloud of dust went up over by the brawl triggering my common sense, we needed to get on the shuttle whether she was going to walk or I was going to carry her.
I leaned in close to her; my frosted breathe billowing around her hair, to try one last time at convincing her, but I was cut off by her whisper:
"I'm sorry papa" she spoke the words with great care and passion.
Then stronger than the other times she slide her hands against each other and then much like flicking the light switch in a dark room she awoke. Grabbed my hand and said something I'll never forget.
"RUN"
That is exactly what we did, hand in hand, straight for the shuttle it wasn't until we reached the shuttle I knew something was off. For when I looked back for the real last glance, I heard screams. Then out of the corner of my eye I saw the two escapees from the malfeasant shuttle burning. Flames licking at there entangled shadows. I was so confused, I wanted to stop. The momentum kept me going. Up the steps, down the crowded shuttle hallway and into one of the specialized children cars, closing the door. All the while the girl holding my hand, all the while the picture of the two burning men engraving into my scull.
Then seeing her amongst the other children I knew she didn't belong. I had made a mistake, a bloody horrible mistake, but the shuttle's motors roared and the next second I knew there was no going back.
