Ember Burning by Jennifer Alsever

Author:Jennifer Alsever [Alsever, Jennifer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sawatch Publishing

25

The sky grows lighter now, but the sun is not fully up yet. The house is quiet. Now is the time. A rush of adrenaline flows through me, and I smile. Home.

I stop to scavenge food on the kitchen countertop. Muffins, bananas, oranges, nuts—they all go into my backpack. As I fill up my hydration pack under the faucet in the stainless steel sink, a thought occurs to me: it makes no sense that they can have this house, this running water, and have no way to get out.

I slink out the back door of the kitchen, sure any minute someone will stop me. No surveillance cameras in any of the corners of the rooms, yet still, my shoulders tense.

Outside, there’s no movement, no sound beyond the honey-yellow rhythmic chirping of birds and the breeze swishing through the long grass and trees. Quickly, I hike down the hill and away from the house, trying to keep my breath quiet despite my nerves. My heart pounds so loud in my head, it surely echoes through the canyon.

The open meadow welcomes me with red, purple, and yellow flowers and the smell of sage. It appears larger than when I came here that first day—even bigger than it did just yesterday. After a hundred yards, my fast-paced walk speeds up to a run. Then a sprint.

When I get home, enough time will have passed that they’ll have found an antidote to the virus. The town will be healthy, and everything will be fine. I’ll walk up to the buckling walk of Gram’s house, and she’ll be hunched over in her flannel, digging in her garden. She’ll shake her head, wipe her brow, and say, “Finally. Where the hell have you been?” Then I’ll text Maddie and apologize. She’ll fly down 7th Street in her blue Honda Accord and throw a bag of licorice at me out the window. “Emby! Are you finally back from the dead?” I’ll laugh and we’ll listen to music on my bed and talk about all the summer concerts we’ll hit. I’ll go get my diploma. Maybe I’ll live with Jared in Boulder for a while. At first, I’ll probably have to sleep on the floor of his apartment, which would be super disgusting because he’s Jared. But I’ll get a job at a coffee shop while I apply for school, and we’ll share a bigger apartment then, and we’ll have cool posters on the walls. We’ll throw big parties and we’ll have Taco Bar Tuesdays. I’ll go to school for writing or music. I’ll work on lyrics to songs. I’ll learn how to play the banjo. I’ll travel the world. I’ll climb in Nepal and Bhutan and start a nonprofit. I’ll write about those adventures. I feel like I’m awake for the first time in years.

At the edge of the meadow, the gate is still gone, and a steep mountainside looms like a wall, the top half of it covered in jagged rock cliffs. They stand ridiculously high, but I can climb them.

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