He grabs my arms, pulls me into him. I’m squirming and clawing and bucking…and then I hear it.

A strange sound, low and guttural. A groan. I stop moving, listen to the slightly disturbing noise.

“Adele,” Father says, hugging me, crushing my face into his chest. “It’s going to be okay.” That’s when I realize: the strange sound is me. Grunting and groaning and protesting the truth.

“Nothing’s okay,” I manage to wheeze out, breathless. A hot tear spills down my cheek and I wipe it away angrily. “Nothing.”

Father’s eyes are sad, and this time they match his lips, which couldn’t form a smile if we were suddenly rich and living in the Sun Realm. “Be strong, Adele,” he says. “For your mother, for your sister, for me, for yourself.”

“No,” I say, even though I know I will. It’s the only way I can be. It’s the way he’s built me.

“No matter what,” he reminds gently.

I push away and go to bed early, eating my pathetically unfulfilling supper alone in the room I share with my sister and parents, wishing I was oblivious the world that’s about to end.

And times races on and on and on, shattering stone and bones and lives, twisting fate into a blind whirlwind of grief and splintered moments.

I awake to the sound of our front door slamming open.

~THE END~

The Runaway

Tawni’s Story

Originally posted in Furthermore: an Anthology.

Even when you know it’s the right thing to do, running away from home is never easy.

Although my small bag is packed and dangling from my shoulder, my nondescript black boots are laced, and the door is open, I linger on the threshold for a moment, and gaze back at the house I’ve called home for as long as I can remember. Everything I see—from the flat-screen telebox, to the sturdy stone table, to the photos of my parents and me hanging on the wall—should be familiar, but it’s not. It’s as if I’ve never seen any of it before. Ever since I overheard my parents talking last week, my entire world feels foreign.

I cannot wait any longer or I know I might change my mind. Swiping a long lock of straight, blond hair away from my face, I take a deep breath, close my eyes, and try to muster what little courage I can.

It’s such a normal thing, stepping through the door, something I’ve done a million times. But this time it feels so unnormal, like it’s not me, not my legs—someone else. Not me. When I close it behind me I feel an errant rush of wind through the cave; it washes over my face, my arms, through my hair, as if the unlikely breeze is cleansing me, washing away the sins that are mine by association. Having left the house in which my parents are still sleeping, I feel cleaner already.

They’re not good people. I can’t stay here anymore.

With practiced steps I zigzag through the rock garden in our front yard. Most moon dwellers can’t afford to waste perfectly good stones for decoration—but my parents are not most moon dwellers. Now that I know why my family is so wealthy amongst such poverty, seeing the polished and shiny stones makes me sick to my stomach.

It’s still too early for the broad overhead cavern lights to be on, but I don’t risk illuminating my flashlight for fear of drawing the attention of one of the Enforcers that roam our subchapter at all times. This deep below the earth’s surface, we don’t get much electricity anyway, so I’m used to seeing in the dark. But still, I take extra caution with each step, being careful not to stub my toe or kick a loose stone.

As I exit our walled-in property, I feel the pace of my heartbeat pick up. Although I’m walking slowly, my heart is racing. I might be walking, but in my heart I’m running away.

I’m running away.

I’m.

Running.

Away.

The words feel prickly in my mind and I wince as the dull throb of a headache starts in my left temple. I feel a trickle of sweat slide intimately down my back beneath my gray tunic. Ignoring the sweat, my racing heart, and the icy stab of the truest words I’ve ever thought in my head, I take another deep breath, reposition my shoulder satchel, and walk faster, stepping on the tips of my feet to remain as quiet as possible.

The night is quiet.

The neighborhood I grew up in, played in, made friends in, disappears beneath the soles of my boots, like the cool night air vanishes in the wake of the wings of a bat. With each step I gain strength in both my legs and my heart. Another suburban block slides away behind me.

My goal is to make it to the train station before the morning rush. Then, when the mass exodus of workers seeking work begins from our faltering subchapter, I might be able to blend into the crowds and escape the roving eyes of intra-Realm security. I bought my ticket in advance, which doesn’t require an intra-Realm travel authorization; however, when I go through security I’ll be required to provide my pass. Unfortunately, there’s no way a sixteen-year-old girl would be granted such authorization, so I was forced to hurriedly purchase a cheap fake from a shady guy at school.

I hope it’ll pass the scrutiny of the security guards.

Travelling intra-Realm without authorization is a serious offense that automatically requires time in the Pen, our local branch of the Moon Realm juvenile detention system. A lot of kids that go in there don’t come out alive. My best friend, Cole, got sent there three months ago when an Enforcer tried to rape his sister. Cole killed the guy, but then his buddies killed Cole’s sister and parents. They sent him to the Pen for life.

I still cry for him sometimes at night, especially after I get one of his letters and I miss him all over again. If I do end up in the Pen, at least I’ll get to see him.

I’m not sure what I’ll do if I get out of subchapter 14. I guess I’ll just keep running, moving from underground city to underground city, until things cool off and my parents and the authorities forget all about me. Then I’ll try to make things right with the girl named Adele Rose.

My thoughts are running amok and I know it, but I can’t seem to turn them off as I turn a corner, cutting a path through the back roads that will eventually get me to the heart of the city, where the train station lies. The strange route will add twenty minutes to my trip, but might protect me from the Enforcers.

In the darkness of a rarely travelled street, I feel somewhat safe, which is the first lesson I’ll learn out on my own: you’re never safe.

Feeling safe, I pass right by a stone stoop that sits just off the road at the front of a small house. There’s a flash of red in my peripheral vision and I jerk my head to see what caused it. That’s when I smell the bitter smoke from a freshly lit cigarette. My eyes zero in on the scene before me, taking in every awful detail before my brain can put it all together. Two men, both smoking, gazing off to the side, away from me, smoke curling around their heads. One of them is an Enforcer, dressed in bright sun dweller red, a gun and a sword hanging awkwardly from his belt as he sits on the steps, one knee raised higher than the other. An open door revealing the soft glow of candlelight.

Engrossed in their own thoughts, they haven’t seen me yet, staring absently out onto the small front patio.

You’re never safe.

But I do have half a chance because they’re oblivious to my presence. My heart pounding in my chest, I back away slowly, retracing my steps in reverse, holding my breath as I move further and further from their field of vision.

Three steps from safety.

The non-Enforcer—a moon dweller who likely owns the house and trades cigarettes to the Enforcer in exchange for freedom from persecution—can no longer see me, as I move behind a wall.