Daughter of a Dixon {Book Two}

04: Nightfall

Pamela and the two other women (apparently named Luanne and Nancy) escorted me out of the huge hospital building, and into the streets of the community.

To say I was starstruck would be an absolute understatement.

It looked exactly how a large city would have looked back before the world turned. There were cleanly paved roads, new buildings, standing tall and shining in the sunlight, and people walking happily throughout the streets. There were people wearing police uniforms, supervising the foot traffic, people in suits and ties walking with briefcases glued to their hands, kids walking with backpacks and lunch-boxes in tow, possibly walking home from school.

"We've built this place to remodel exactly how the world used to be," Pamela said as we walked. "And that means exactly how it used to be..."

She trailed off as we passed a man sitting on the corner of a sidewalk, wearing rag-clothes, looking like he hadn't bathed in weeks, and with a cardboard box with a limp pillow inside sitting beside him. He appeared homeless.

I gave Pamela a slightly confused look - if they had such a wonderful place, why wasn't everyone allowed the luxury of it?

"I know what you're thinking," she said as we continued walking. "but, if this place is going to mimic the old world, there needs to be social classes as well - the high, the middle, and the low. People work, people earn money, people buy housing. And when they don't... that's none of our concern." She flashed me a cheerful grin, and I returned it shyly. I did not like the looks of this place. Something was off about it - I could just feel it.

"How many people do you have here?" I questioned, looking around and still finding myself amazed. Way up above, I saw a helicopter soaring through the sky, and my jaw almost dropped.

"Approximately fifty-thousand," Pamela charmed, and that time, my mouth did drop slightly. The Kingdom, Hilltop, Alexandria, and Oceanside combined only amounted to several hundred, maybe a thousand on a good day. But fifty-thousand? It was too good to be true. Honestly, it had to be too good to be true.

"So, what do you think?" she asked, and turned around to face me. We stopped walking in the middle of the semi-crowded sidewalk, and people immediately had to walk around us to avoid a collision. I never liked crowded areas - I felt like I couldn't breathe.

"Uh," I said, not knowing where to start, "it's-it's incredible, it truly is, but... I have to get back to my family. My dad, my-... everyone else. Rick has to get back, too."

Pamela's face dropped slightly, and she gave me a sad simper. "Who else do you have besides your dad, back where you came from?"

I knew where she was getting at with her questioning, but I wasn't about to have any of it. "A group, they're like my family," I told her sternly. "It's mostly only ever been my dad and I, but after we found them... we finally had family. And I'm not giving that up for anything, not even-.." I gestured to the community around me with a wide sweep of my hand, "-this."

Pamela eyed me up and down uncertainly before giving an unusually kind smile, followed by a curt nod of her head. "Alright then," she said, seemingly more to herself than me. "We'll gather you your supplies, enough to get you back to your community, a horse, and you can be on your way by nightfall."

Then, Luanne (the brown-haired woman) bit her lip, and shared an uneasy glance with the other, Nancy. The other simply shook her head, a harsh, warning glare in her eyes, and Luanne looked to the ground. She seemed to be apprehensive about something - I didn't like that.