Prologue:
Arial looked out her window which covered the entire wall. Pride was swelling within her, the kind of pride, she assumed, a mother would feel watching her child grow and flourish. The road to this point had been a bumpy one, filled with heart breaking tragedy, drama, and triumph. But no matter how depressing her story was, it was a good one, one she hopped would be worth telling generations after. If they even got that far.
“Arial…?” Lina said, walking into her room.
“Hmm?” Arial hummed, turning her attention to the petite, shy girl who was fiddling her thumbs.
“They want you… Their getting restless.”
“Already?”
“Yeah, better make it quick, they’re already chanting for you, they’re probably going to get a little wild soon.” Arial look at Lina again. She could see concern in her eyes, but also hope. Hope for the future, for her new life. She now stood with some confidence, talked with it too. She was proud of her. Today, she seemed as if she was about to burst with pride.
“Okay, let’s go.” Lina sighed with relief and nodded. She turned to the door and inhaled deeply, bracing herself. Lina trailed behind her like an obedient puppy. Arial placed a palm on the smooth door and put her head down with her eyes closed.
She put on a smile and pushed open the door to the balcony. She sure heard the crowd now. They cheered and screamed for five minutes straight. Lina stood to her side, smiling sweetly as Arial waved and grinned. After three minutes, Arial stopped waving and started nodding slightly. Finally, Arial held up her hand. The crowd went silent in an eerie quickness.
“Let’s start, shall we?” ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Arial fluttered in and out of a dream, one where planes flew low to the ground dropping boxes. The boxes seeped magenta smoke as they fell to the ground. Things happened in slow motion, the curious expressions of the people on the street changing to fear as others started to faint. One by one, everyone dropped. Their eyes rolled back in their head, their hair flew up around their face, and they shuddered as their limp bodies hit the ground. Arial was one of the last to faint, so she caught a glimpse of the smoke enveloping buildings around her, making them crumble and fall to the ground in pieces the size of a pebble.
Arial opened her eyes finally as her dream turned to black. She blinked and focused in on the thing right in front of her. A pair of clear blue eyes. They were glazed over. They belonged to her mother. Still groggy, Arial sat up and rubbed her eyes to make sure what she was seeing wasn’t real. It was real. Everything was real, from her mom, dead, impaled by a large shard of glass through the back, to the hundreds of adults laying on the ground, seemingly dead, and the children sitting up, some crying. The buildings around her were reduced to pebbles like in her dream. Also following up on her dream were crashed planes lying on the ground, the kind that could fly low and drop bombs on people. Arial didn’t understand though, the world had been at peace for over a hundred years now! Why would anyone bomb them?
Arial looked back to her mom. Her dad sat right next her, hording her hand. He was saved from the trouble of being stabbed by a shard of glass, which Arial assumed came from one of the fallen planes. Despite their death and the situation they were thrust into, they looked at piece.
What a way to die, Arial thought, walking down the street, no pain, in the arms of your loved one… Arial’s vision began to swim as her eyes filled with tears. She scooted over so she was sitting right next to her dad, ignoring the sharp pain of small shards of glass and sharp pebbles piercing bare flesh.
Her stomach felt hollow and woozy as tears began to leak out of her eyes like a faulty faucet. She held her knees close to her chest and gently rocked back and forth. She had never been so close to such harsh death. Her grandfather had died, and his funeral was an open casket, but even then he had been made up to look pretty in death. The rude slap of death all around her in such an honest way was shocking and frightening, a scene straight out of a horror film.
Eventually, after most of the children close to her stopped crying and were just wallowing in their own field of pity, Arial stood up. She pulled at the hem of her short-shorts and straightened her tank top straps. With a sigh she surveyed her surroundings closely once more. Around fourteen red-eyed, snuffling children sat alone or with a sibling by one or two of the at least forty dead adults. The dead people ranged from around sixteen and up; there was even a lady who looked to be eighty. Probably out on a stroll to the grocery store. There were two older looking kids, close to her age of thirteen, a girl and a boy.
The girl Arial recognized from her school. She was shy and quiet, with mesmerizing grey eyes and long lashes. Her figure lacked in the hips and chest area, but her face was one of a model. Her hair was long and blonde, falling flat on her thin face. She sat with puffy eyes, holding the hands of who Arial assumed was her mom and dad. She brought her gaze up to Arial’s and locked it there. By an unspoken agreement, the girl stood up, placed her parents hands on the ground gently, one on top of the other, and walked over to Arial. People all around were watching curiously, if they weren’t still crying or trying to wake their ‘sleeping’ parents.
“What the hell just happened?” Arial asked as soon as she was close enough to hear her whisper-shout. The girl shrugged, fear showing in her eyes.
“I’m Arial,” Amusement crossed her face and a hint of a smile tugged at her lips. “Yes, like the princess and I know, how ironic! Red hair, blue eyes… Just don’t expect me to jump into the ocean and sing.”
“Marcalina. Or Lina,” she replied, casting her gaze down. Arial cleared her throat.
“What do we do?” Lina asked.
“We wait. People will come rescue us soon enough. We’ll all be put in foster care… Be shipped all over the world… You know, what normally happens when planes drop bombs that only kill adults.”
