I look up as Katheryn walks in, momentarily startled. She hands me a pale of milk and a dozen eggs, which she just collected from our animals, and plops down next to the fire. She didn't look happy, but when I ask her what's wrong she just shrugs. I sit down next to her and look her in the eyes, she looks on the verge of tears. I give her a hug and say, "I know something's wrong, and I bet it'd be easier if you told me."
She hugs me back and begins to cry, "M-my friend was taken a-nd h-h-her dad-daddy says that sh-she isn't e-ever com-ming back." She burst into tears, I pick her up and set her on the bed, covering her with a blanket.
"Hey, it's okay, your friend will be okay." I don't know what else to say. I know what it is like to have someone taken from you, It doesn't feel okay at all.
After a while, Katheryn cries herself to sleep. I wish I could do something for her, but that is not possible. No one can stop the healed.
The healed are a bunch of people who are immune to the water virus, a disease that you get if you drink contaminated water that kills you almost immediately, and live in a huge city which is only immune people. If someone is immune, they will know, I don't know how. They collect anyone who is immune and takes them to their city, to live there forever, with zero contact to the outside world, unless they decide to go collect new immunes.
A couple hundred years ago, an asteroid fell into the pacific ocean, poisoning the water. The poison began to spread, creating contaminated water, now there's hardly any water that isn't contaminated. Some people are immune, some are not. Water is expensive, I've never had any. It sounds amazing.
I glance down at the pot of milk, it's boiling. I add the some dried herbs and a little bit of chicken (one of ours died yesterday) and mushroom. I sit down and wait for the soup to cook.
YOU ARE READING
To be a Hero
ActionWhen William Becket was eight years old, the government took his mother, they took her because she was immune to Vatnist, a disease that is carried through water. When Williams mother was dragged away his father protested and was sent to prison, w...