Hestia

Prologue.

Danae had never seen a man cry. She had seen men yell, throw things, squeeze their fists so tight their fingers turned white, but she had never seen a man cry. Part of her hoped that today would be the day she saw a man cry, that when Kane saw her walking along the dusty land with chains hanging from her wrists, his eyes would fill even if only with a drop. He didn't. He never once in the 158 steps it took for her to walk from the hub to the boat, even looked at her. If he had, one tear, one look, showed anything, she would have forgiven him.

Perhaps it was a good thing he didn't.

The boat was dark when she entered and stumbled along rows and rows of legs to find an empty seat. The doors closed before she had even made it fully into her plastic chair, the chains wrapped around her making it harder to position herself. The 49 faces around her looked at each other wide eyed and trembling. Of course, they didn't know what she knew. That in the next 24 hours their families would be told that an infection had spread throughout their education sector, or cell, wherever they were stolen from. They would be told that their children were in quarantine, being cared for, unable to have visitors due to the advancing illness. 48 hours later just before the parents and loved ones would get restless they would be told they had died. It was a quick death, peaceful, probably for the best considering the aggressive illness. A funeral would be held, one to remember all 50 of them, a funeral where no one would see a body, but it would be believed that they were there. No one would question the emotion, especially because Danae was one of the dead. The councilman's son's girlfriend, a necessary sacrifice to make the story believable.

While the story spread, and families grieved, the children would be sailing across an unforgiving ocean. Being guided by an unmanned boat that had not been used in over a century, following directions given by an artificial intelligence that is the only survivor from the time before Armageddon.

Now the little bit of land that they were surviving on was running out of resources, there was no soil, no clean water, nothing to help them survive. Cerberus, the artificial intelligence, had found an island, an island it thought could be survivable. The official statistic was 50% survivable, but it was the only other piece of land left on earth, the council decided it was worth the risk, humanity needed to survive, 50 young adults were chosen to be sent to the island, sent to see whether they could survive.

The people around Danae started to panic when gas started to leak through the vents in the walls. Part of her wanted to scream loud enough that the council would hear her, she wanted to scream how they didn't have the right to decide who people lived or died, scream that they should have told the people on the ship with her where they were going. The other part of her thought it was a clever idea to use sleeping gas, 24 hours is a long time to worry about whether you'll survive. Another part of her wished that she could be as naïve as the other people on the ship. They didn't know they wouldn't see their families again, their families didn't agree to put them on this ship, they had no idea. She unfortunately knew exactly what was happening, she knew that her boyfriend, the only family she had, allowed her to be sent on the ship. She knew that even if the island was habitable they would most likely die from starvation or thirst, they didn't know the terrain of the island, the wildlife. Her mind was on over drive as the voices around whispered questions, she welcomed the sleep the gas provided.

Hestia, they had named the island Hestia, after the goddess of hearth and home. Danae sent up a small prayer before the gas took over.

Please, please let this be home.