Lost Kids

~Gianna~

Now-
        Warm licks on my face wakes me up from my sleep, Willow continues to lick my face. I get up and sit there for a moment, I don't want to get up and start my day by giving myself speeches of why I should still live. The silence within these walls continue to deafen me, even when it has been a year without them. A sudden shatter of glass took me out of my day dream, I quickly get up and run down the stairs. I see pieces of glass everywhere in the kitchen, "sorry Gigi, I was trying my best to not drop it" Jack says while trying to get around the mess. "Don't move, you don't have shoes on let me clean it" I say getting the ragged broom from the closet. Jack is 11 and I took him in since he's not old enough to take care of himself yet. I have at least five other people living in this house that aren't even related or close to where I live. I start to sweep when I notice that the x-box in the living room was on. I finish sweeping the glass and give Jack a plastic cup of water. I go in the living room to see who was playing x-box. The couch was filled with kids all five out of the six, then Jack soon completes it by sitting on the far end of the couch. "So who's playing?" I ask, "I am, and I'm so winning!" The voice was Juan, he's Spanish but he is bilingual. He's 13 and he can't even make a sandwich. It's funny how parents do everything for their kids and don't even realize that it can make them worse. "It's so early, remember at 11 we have running practice" they all nodded and their eyes still glued to the tv.
Then-
       Mom can barely breathe, coughing her lungs out and I can barely see her like that. Father had already passed from the virus, and I'm not letting my mom go. The nurse pulls me back from her and I fight my way back, tears pouring down my face. I'll be alone, I'll be a foster child with no family. "Mom!" I scream, she cant hear me, tears in her eyes blinding her. I touch her pale face and the warmth of her cheek scares me. Gasping for air and wheezing, she can't breathe. "Mom?" I whisper, hoping she'll hear me this time. She spots my eyes and locks eye contact with me. "Gi, I need to see your father and I need you to live without me my princess" her raspy voice makes me shake knowing she can't handle it no longer. Her eyes close slowly and as soon as she says "I love you Gianna" her heart stops.

Now-
At 11 everyone is at the door with their exercise clothes on and they're ready to go. "We're going to jog today since it isn't a good and hot day today" everyone nods. I pull out my phone and call Elle, my best friend. "Elle, me and the kids are going to jog over to the store, wanna come with?" "Me and Elena are ready, meet me at my house?". I say yes and and everyone in a line, oldest to youngest. The oldest was Juan and the youngest was Carrie, she's 6 and she's very smart. We start to jog over to Elle's house, everyone was so cooperative. Once we finally got there Elle and Elena was already outside. Elena is 12 and she's Elle's older sisters daughter. Her older sister didn't survive the virus. Her dark brown skin glows from the sun and she smiles "lets go". We all jog in rhythm and it takes about ten minutes to get to the store. Everyone sweating, huffing for air, "take a breather me and Elle are going to shop for food and we'll be right back". Juan nods and everyone nods with him, once I get into the store it's empty barely food on the shelves. "This is going to be a problem once we run out of food" I say staring at the 14 isles. Since all adults are gone kids get to do whatever they want. And most kids take all the food and it gets old before they even get to it. Before I can get the basket Elle grabs my wrist, warm hand on my face covering my mouth. I look at Elle and she has a concerned face, and I hear it too. The clinking of glass in a distance, Elle and I slowly walk towards the sound. Grabbing anything that can be used for a weapon. I quickly grabbed something and it was a baguette. Elle notices it in my hand "Gianna really" my face goes red. Once we got so close to the sound we began to look for any animal or kid. A whisper behind me, more whispers and I didn't want to turn around. Elle seems to not want to turn around either. "Who are you?!" It was a he, I finally turn around to see his face. First glance and I see brown hair, hazel eyes and light brown skin. "Stupida pendeja puta I said who are you!" He yells holding broken glass in his hand. "I'm Elle, this is Gianna, now who are you?" Elle says with a stutter. He clears his throat, "Antonio, Tony"  he puts on a mask covering half of his face. "I have to go" before we could even say anything he leaves, silence. "Well that was weird" I say dropping the baguette. Elle nods, and after a moment of processing we grabbed all of the food we needed for the rest of the week and off we went. I see all of the kids circling around and I don't know what was going on. I walk outside to see what was up, "Gigi, a boy gave me this!" Jack says running towards me. The bright red color on his leg caught my eye, blood. I kneel down and wipe the blood off with my shirt, "what happened?!" I yell looking at everyone waiting for an answer. "I fell and scraped my shin, I was crying and a boy came up to me and told me I'm going to be ok and then gave me this to cheer me up". He cheerfully shows a mask, the same one Antonio was wearing. "That's great, does it hurt?" He shakes his head. I get everyone up and ready to jog, Antonio where is he going, what was he doing. He's kind towards kids but fearless towards people older or same age. I don't even know how old he is, I knew he was older than Juan but how old. I don't know if he's safe, a world with no adults to protect us. We are lonely, nothing to help us, nothing to live for, we are just Lost kids...