Far Away

Chapter 33

Bella's POV

    The sun was shining and many of it's bright rays filled the hut. I open my eyes and see the beautiful body of water outside, caressing the sand. I try to sit up but I am immediately brought back down by an arm around my waist. I look to see who the arm is connected to and it was Drew.

     Drew slept peacefully with only small snores coming out of him. I turn my body, so that I am facing him, and begin to poke him. His once peaceful face began to scrunch up. His arms pulled me closer to him and he pulled me up on top of him. His face returned to a calm state as he continued to sleep.

      So now, here I am, straddling him as he sleeps and I have no clue how to get out of this situation without waking him up. But here's the thing . . . Do I even want to get out of this situation? Before I can do anything, the governor walks in. As soon as he sees us, he immediately turns beer red and leaves the hut. He just noped  the situation.

   "Sorry!" He yelled, effectively waking up Drew. Drew blinks his eyes as he realizes that I am on top of him.

   "Hi," He says, shyly. His voice sounded deeper and more gruff in the morning.

   "Good morning." I say, blushing softly. "I think the governor is waiting for us outside."

  "Oh. Well, okay." He says but he doesn't remove his arms from my waist. I wiggle around a bit but I stop as soon as I feel something poking my stomach. My eyes widen. Oh god! Please tell me that is not what I think it is?! Pretty please?! And why does it feel big?!

   He releases me from his hold as I look at him. His cheeks are a dark red shade. A few seconds pass by and he clears his throat out. Oh yeah! I should probably get off of him. I stand up and adjust my clothing while Drew gets up and fixes his "little problem." Even though, I must say, it didn't feel little to me. I walk out the door and see that the governor is standing a few feet away facing the water. Well, at least he didn't see that. A few minutes later, Drew walks out. He was still blushing as he looked at me and then to the governor.

     "Uhhhhh . . . It's not what it looks like. I'm sorry." Drew mumbled.

    "Nope, it's ok. It's none of my business what you guys do." The governor says with a small blush and his hands raised in a non-threatening position. "Shall we go on with the tour?"

Drew and I nod our heads, both blushing as we walk across the beach.

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    We walked all over the place. We saw the beach which stretched for what seemed like miles, tiki bars and a few restaurants that lined the beach, a few neighborhoods filled with one story houses, a school, a jail, a couple of parks that lead into a patch of woods, and a cornfield. The governor lead us to a few tall buildings that looked like they could be apartment buildings. Around the tall buildings, a bunch of multi-colored tents lined the street.

    "So this is the main square," The governor says, gesturing to the small shops and trees that surrounded us. By little shops, I'm referring to the set up tents linjng the street that are filled with trinkets, food, and clothing. It kind of reminded me of the fall festival my town had back on Earth. My family and I would always go to them. It was a lot of fun.

    As we walked through the square, I noticed the people staring at Drew and I. Almost instantly, I got closer to Drew. He looked down at me and smiled as he reached for my hand.

    "Hey, it's ok." Drew whispered for only me to hear. His thumb rubbed my hand lightly in a circular motion. I have him a tight-lipped smile, telling him that I was still uncomfortable by the staring. He leaned down and pressed his lips on the top of my head before standing at his full height once again.

   "You are in luck because we are celebrating our 4th year of being in the zoo but you can come back here after I show you where you will be staying." The governor said.

     I'm sorry, in a zoo?! Drew must have read my mind because that is exactly what he yelled.

     "Uh, yeah. You don't know?" The governor asks, looking back at us.

    "No?! What the fuck happened?" I said, incredulously. We stopped walking and the governor turned around to face us.

     "Look around you. Look in every direction and pay special attention to every single detail. Look at the trees, see the pattern of their bark? What about the sky? Anything off about it?" I look around and as I pay more attention, I begin to see what he is talking about.

The sky looked like it was blue and it looked pretty normal if you weren't paying attention to it. But as I look closer, I can see parts of the blue swirling slowly with a darker shade of blue and there were very thin, almost invisble, streaks of white in a grid pattern. The pattern kind of reminded me of contrails or the airplanes exhaust that made cloud lines in the sky back home. Instead of there not being a lot of lines, there were multiple.

Next, I got close to a tree and looked at the bark. The trees looked more metallic and were shinier. Besides the usual color of bark, it also had golden and silver flecks. How did I not notice this before? I looked over at Drew and saw the same level of shock that must be on my face. We both look at the governor and he just nodded solemnly at us.

"After the Great War, only the rich and those who were captured were able to escape. But now is no time for a history lesson. We have places to be and sights to see. Come on, we'll discuss this later." The governor leads us out of the main square and down a dirt road path towards a two-story house.

The two story house had white paneling on the outside of the house. The windows had black, old and tiny western doors on each side. It also had a wrap around porch with a porch swing hanging from the ceiling.

"Woah . . ." Drew says, wrapping an arm around me.

"It's beautiful." I say in awe.

"You like it?" The governor beams.

"Of course." We both say.

"Good because it's yours," he says, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a shiny key. "Of course, you will have to share it with a couple of other people. We don't have a whole lot of room here."

"Ok, that shouldn't be a problem," Drew says.

"I should lay down some ground rules though. First, keep your doors locked at night and turn off all of the lights. Don't ask why, if you want to live just do it. Second, after you settle in, you are expected to get a job and earn your keep. Each person has a purpose here, you will find yours. Third, no fighting or murdering. We have a standard set of laws here and you will be expected to know them. I will bring you the list tomorrow. Remember there are consequences for your actions and you will be held accountable for them. Lastly, don't feed the pigeons. They are monsters and will stack if you even have a crumb on you. The hungry bastards." He says, chuckling and shaking his head. "Any questions?"

Drew looks at me and I shake my head. He looks back at the governor and tells him that we don't. The governor hands us the keys to the house.

"Oh, and by the way, I will give you the list tomorrow at 10:00. Just to let you know so we don't have a repeat of this morning. See ya!" He says, walking away. A blush makes its way to my face as he refers to what happened.

Drew and I walk up to the house and look at each other. He shoves the key into the lock and holds his hand there.

"Ready?" He asks, nervously.

"Ready." I say, confidently.

And with that, he turns the key and pushes the door open.

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And another one . . . Yeah ok I'll go home.

How are y'all? This was a longer chapter but I feel like a lot happened. Have a happy thanksgiving!!!! 🦃🍁 get yourself some turkey boi and some pumpkin pie if that's what you like.