around my shoulder and gives me a hearty squeeze. “It’s our best option, Mary.”
I don’t know this man, or any of the other faces staring at me in the glow of the fire, but for some reason I trust him.
###
In the morning, Lillian and Rags join the group at the campfire. I hold back a chuckle, watching Lillian take her first sip of coffee and pretending to be unfazed. My stoic little survivor. She’s talking to John’s son, Aaron. I’m grateful there’s someone close to her in age. They take Rags for a walk, while I stay by the fire, praying for continued strength.
Before we leave for the next leg of our journey, John calls everyone over.
“We’ve lost much. We’ve made huge sacrifices.” He’s right about that. Everyone nods, tears in their eyes. We’ll never forget. “And there will be more ahead. Many tests to endure. While many have given up faith, this group is still alive. That must be for a reason. We must stick together to fulfill this calling. Fight against this corruption and restore humanity. They may have taken our loved ones, our property and our material belongings, but they can never take away our faith. That’s how we’ll win this battle. Everyone, please bow your heads. Father, we ask that you watch over us and guide us on this journey. We look to you for comfort and trust, to be shown the way even when it looks like all paths are closed. Amen.”
###
Along the hike, I stick with John and stay out of Lillian’s way, so she can talk her new friend, Aaron. It’s the first time I’ve seen her happy in almost a year. I listen to the others share stories about what they lost in the Repatterning. I get a better understanding about the elites’ rollout plan for their sickening New Agenda. Anger buries deep in the pit of my soul hearing about their plan to wipe out the population and start over by breeding new and improved humans inside various city centers across the country. The elites want to build a robot society to control for their own means.
The air is getting heavy with smoke, and I tie a scarf around my face and put on my sunglasses to keep out the ash. I turn around to see Los Angeles on fire. If anyone stayed behind, they’re gone now. I stand on the mountain peak, watching the entire city getting swallowed by flames. I think about all of the innocent lives lost, which makes me more disgusted by the elites. What gave them the right to destroy everything? And why didn’t we stop them before it got to this point?
John taps my shoulder. “Don’t look back, Mary. We gotta keep moving forward now.”
And that’s what we do. We trek through the woods until we reach a red bus parked between the trees. The side of the bus reads, “Hollywood Tours.” We climb inside and sit down just like the tourist used to do; only this time nobody is smiling or taking photos. We’re quiet. John drives the bus down a bumpy trail; the branches scrape the sides and poke at us through the open windows. After a short drive, he turns down another trail into the thickest part of the woods.
He pulls over to a grouping of trees near a hillside, gets up, and exits the bus. Everyone follows in silence.
“This is headquarters,” he tells us. “This is where we’ll store everything we have with us today. Your weapons, ammo, personal belongings all stay behind. Eventually, this is where we’ll start storing the supplies and seeds we take from the plantation. This is also our designated meeting place. If we get separated, we meet here six months to the day.”
I glance at Lillian. She’s staring at me with tears in her eyes. I know she’s worried about getting separated. We’re all we have left. The thought of losing her makes me think of things far worse than Los Angeles on fire. We look through our personal belongings one last time before we throw our backpacks into the hole in the ground. I hold a family photo that was taken about four years back. The light in our eyes seems