The Burn of a Thousand Suns by Jillian Webster

Author:Jillian Webster [Webster, Jillian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jillian Webster

After spending the entire morning shoveling, Maia, Lucas, and Miguel have a quick break in the warm winter sun. The guards have left them each two cheese and onion sandwiches and a small portion of mixed fruit from a jar. Maia peels back the bread and pulls out the cheese. She’s never tasted cheese before. Nibbling on the edge, her eyes widen.

Miguel watches her, smiling for the first time since they’ve arrived. “So good, yes? I’d shovel all day long for more of this cheese.”

Lucas and Maia respond with grunts and nods, tearing into their sandwiches like savages.

In the afternoon, their next assignment is to work on the sewage lines. Some of the village’s older pipes need replacing. The three put their heads down and work, hoping that by the end of the week, it will all be worth it.

Later that night, after a dinner of rice and beans, they relax on their bunks. Their cabin doesn’t have electricity like the rest of the village, so a few lit candles flicker around the room. The temperature has dipped with the sun, so despite their brief break, they keep a small fire going to help warm their weary bones. Since there is always the possibility of someone watching, they start the fire the old-fashioned way—with an old set of flint and steel left behind on the mantel.

The deadbolt clicks and the front door swings open, banging loudly against the wall. Three guards with torches stand on the other side. One is to accompany Maia, and the other two will take Lucas and Miguel to the factory. But first, they need to head down to the shoemaker’s shop on Main Street to get measurements of their feet. The group walks down the dark country road in silence.

Turning onto Main Street, Maia gasps, her hand clutching at her chest.

The street is … glowing.

The lamps lining the side of the road are now ablaze in gleaming orbs of white. The strands of Christmas lights draping between them are aglow in a dazzling display of color. The dark storefronts, donned with evergreen wreaths, are glittering with twinkling white lights.

Maia blinks back her tears. She must be dreaming. This has to be a dream.

Ever since she can remember, Maia has had to navigate her way through the darkness. All those years wandering deserted cities, she was always so transfixed by the useless poles of metal lining the streets. She told Lucas about it while they drifted on their raft in the middle of the ocean. She’s always wondered what it would be like to see them alight.

Never once could she ever have imagined she’d actually see them.

Never once.

“Maia,” Miguel whispers into her ear. “We have to keep moving.”

He gently pulls at her arm, and she stumbles forward. Her mouth still agape, she rejoins the three guards and Lucas, who’ve stopped to wait for her.

Walking down the center of Main Street, Maia clutches Miguel’s arm and keeps her head to the sky as they pass beneath the continual crisscrossing lights of green, red, yellow, and blue.

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