Kiani’s Journey- Mayhem Read online

  Kiani’s Journey

  Mayhem

  Raqurra Ishmar

  Contents

  Prologue

  1. Kiani

  2. Kiani

  3. Kiani

  4. Kiani

  5. Kiani

  6. Kiani

  7. Kiani

  8. Kiani

  9. Derrick

  10. Kiani

  11. Derrick

  12. Kiani

  13. Derrick

  14. Kiani

  15. Derrick

  16. Kiani

  17. Kiani

  18. Derrick

  19. Kiani

  20. Kiani

  21. Kiani

  22. Kiani

  23. Kiani

  24. Kiani

  25. Kiani

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  To my amazing little brother, Rakeen, you have always been my reason to keep going. I love you.

  Prologue

  I run down the alleyway, looking left and right for my best friend. The threat of running into a Bandit increases with every step I take, but I can’t bring myself to care too much. My heart is thumping with dread and I can’t seem to catch a breath no matter how hard I inhale.

  “Derrick?!” This cannot be happening. Not when we’re so close. Not when we’ve come so far. “Derrick?! You better not be messing with me! If I find you, I’m going to kick your ass!”

  Empty threats, that’s all they are. Using violence to cover the fact that my stomach feels like a bottomless pit. Emotions, so rare to me, climb up my throat and makes the already difficult to breathe air, more difficult. There’s not many of us left, not many of us left to make the journey.

  “Christine are you sure you saw him come this way?” I desperately ask.

  “I’m almost positive I did,” she says. “He said that he wasn’t feeling too well and that he needed to rest. He knows we’re almost there, and he didn’t want to slow us down once we got to the hard parts.”

  “Hard parts?” I scoff. “Like any of this has been easy.” At that moment, a thunderous boom echoed throughout the sky, followed by a dangerous display of lightning. My group screams out in fear; eyes wide and chests heaving. “Come on,” I say. “We’re in for another lightning storm, let’s find shelter before one of us gets hit.”

  It’s hard, overseeing six people. At one point it was just me and Derrick. But over the years, my group grew. All of us on the quest to a better planet. All of us forgotten. I guess that’s the price to pay when you’re labeled an Expendable. I’m afraid we’re playing a game that we won’t be able to win.

  1

  Kiani

  I quickly run over to the coffee table and snatch up the remote. Even though I’m loving the cartoons that are playing, there are more important things that need my attention.

  “Kiani, there’s no need to watch that mess, you already know way more than you should at your age,” my mama tells me. I can tell she’s not really upset with me, but she can’t protect me from this.

  “Mama, I have to watch this or I’ll be caught off guard, and I can’t have that,” I say as I turn the TV to the news. A very serious looking news anchor pops on the screen. I can see the tension in his eyes and the stiffness of his shoulders. The news that he’s about to break won’t be good at all, I can already tell.

  “The Arctic has lost 50% of its ice. The damage that we, as a people, have done to our planet has finally hit its climax. Sea levels are rising at a dangerous rate. We’ve already lost Miami, New Orleans, and the Netherlands to the sea. The Mediterranean Sea is beginning to merge with the Black and Caspian Sea, slowly engulfing Odessa and Istanbul in its wake. Barcelona and Marseille are slowly becoming the victim of the ever-hungry Mediterranean. Stockholm, Copenhagen, and Amsterdam are about to become a distant memory. Millions of people are migrating inland, as their homes are being swallowed by the sea. The damage is done. All we can do is pray. God Bless.”

  “Turn that mess off, Kiani! You are too young to be stressing about things outside of your control,” Mom says. We’re sitting in our living room, watching the news. I love watching the news. It’s much livelier than reading the newspapers, even though I do that as well. The sun is beaming through our large windows, bouncing off the blue walls and lighting up the entire room. Mama is sitting on our large grey couch, while I sprawl out on our black rug. I absolutely love this rug. It protects me from the cold, dark wooden floors and it’s so soft.

  “Mama, I’m not too young to worry about my planet,” I mumble. “Things are happening. Things we must be prepared for. Lucky for us we’re in the dead center of the country, but soon we’re going to have to have a plan for when everything goes down.”

  “And what exactly is it that’s going to ‘go down’?” she asks as she leans forward to get a better look at me. She’s so beautiful. Dark brown skin, light brown eyes and salt and pepper hair surrounding her head like a crown of honor. She’s aged slowly and gracefully. Wearing her favorite pair of flannel pajamas with cats on them saying “Want Meow?” I don’t know why she likes it so much, she said only adults will get the joke. We don’t even have cats.

  “Mama, when the ocean is completely free of ice, the sea level will rise to almost 200ft, if not more! Do you know what that means?!” I holler.

  “No, but I’m sure you’re going to tell me.” She’s so used to me when I get like this. Ever since my father passed away in a car accident when I was just a year old, she’s been entertaining all of my antics and encouraging me to grow intelligently. She watches the news with me, even though she doesn’t believe in stressing over things we don’t have any control over. She buys the newspaper every day to make sure that I stay up on everything that is current. She’s my absolute best friend.

  “That means that we won’t have the ice in the ocean to deflect the sun rays! That means that the ocean is going to get hotter and hotter, and we’re going to get plagued by freakishly, terrifying storms! You think Hurricane Katrina was bad, that won’t be anything compared to what we could get if we continue neglecting our planet,” I exclaim.

  “Anything else?” Mama asks, exasperatedly.

  “Anything else?! Anything else?! Are you insane woman?! Of course, there’s more!” I’m all worked up and I know this was her plan all along. “With the ice completely melting, that means that we have reached a monumental amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere! Shorter winters, longer summers. Everything is going to get outta whack and then we’re all screwed,” I huff.

  My mama smiles at me, pride in her eyes. “You’re so smart, baby. Just like your father. You’re going to make a difference one day. I can feel it in my bones.” Before she can say anything else, she starts coughing. And coughing. And after each cough came an even stronger one.

  “Mama?! Are you ok?” I frantically ask while running over to her. Mama has been getting sicker and sicker recently. She tries to hide it, but I can hear her coughing in the middle of the night. Our house isn’t small, so I know she’s coughing from the pit of her soul. It’s hard, because my Mama is a superhero to me. And superheroes don’t get sick.

  It takes her a moment to catch her breath before she’s able to answer. “Yes, baby. I’m fine.”

  “Do we need to go to the hospital?”

  “No, baby, I'll be fine,” she responds.

  Before I could make a demand for her to go to the hospital, something flies by the window. “Mama, what's that?”

  “I don't know. But it's turnin’ around.” And as she finishes her sentence, a red beam infiltrates our living room. “Kiani! Get down!”

  “MAMA!”

  I wake up with a start, slightly disorie
nted to where I am. As I look around, I see several bodies sprawled out around me. The dark room is occasionally illuminated by lightning every thirty seconds. I lie back down, trying to get my breathing under control. It was just a nightmare; a day that happened almost ten years ago. I check my watch and see that it’s almost seven in the morning, despite the utter darkness outside. It’ll be risky moving through this storm, but it’ll be even more of a risk staying here.

  “Everybody wake up,” I yell. “We need to gather what little supplies that we have and prepare to walk through this storm. It hasn’t rained yet, so we should be fairly safe for the time being.” As I finish what I’m saying, everyone around me is slowly stirring to consciousness. I know they’re exhausted, but we’re running out of time.

  I get up and start walking around the abandoned shop, looking for anything that will be useful on our journey. Water is a must, food is a plus. The building has been ransacked, but it hasn’t been destroyed or completely gutted. It was the best place for us to sleep. I pass by a mirror on my way to the back of the store. I look a mess. My fro is pointing in all directions. My skin looks darker than it actually is, thanks to the dirt decorating it. I have bags and my eyes are so haunted, even though I’m only seventeen; I can’t bear to look into them for a second longer. I gather up a box of expired granola bars and one, lone bottle of water. I selfishly want to drink it all, but I, more than anybody, understand how hard water is to come by. Almost all of the freshwater on Earth has been contaminated by salt water and other unknowns. We can’t get our hands on a purifier, because we can’t really afford it; although there isn’t anyone around to sell it.

  “Guys, I found a bottle of water. Huddle around so we can share it,” I say.

  I give the first sip of water to the youngest in our group, Isaiah. He’s only ten, and just like the rest of us, he was orphaned due to a horrible turn of events. Next is Ashton and his twin sister Ashlynn, Christine, Brian, and Derrick. Derrick and I knew each other before all of this happened. We found Isaiah about six months into our journey, then Brian, after him came the twins, and then finally, Christine.

  “Kiani, we should head out soon,” Derrick says. “We’re about a few days journey from Missouri. It could be longer than that if we come across any complications.”

  “I understand. We need to scrounge the area for anything that floats. Canoes, Kayaks, life vests, anything. It’s going to be hard carrying all of those things, but we have to be ready. We can’t have what happened last time happen again.”

  The last time we were heading towards our destination, we came across a body of water where Iowa used to be. We had to double back through Nebraska and cut down to the heart of Kansas. We can never be sure what is what anymore; what succumbed to the ocean and what’s still land. We’re hoping that by going to the bottom of Kansas, we can avoid any water that may have bled into the top of Missouri.

  When the world finally realized that we messed up, the government started freaking out. People started rioting, bills were trying to be passed. The government launched drones throughout the country to “monitor” everyone's behavior, making sure we didn't cause any more damage. But it was too late. The damage was done.

  In the year 2162, NASA launched its first fleet of robots into space to explore the closest planet to Earth. Once they realized that one of them was habitable, they started preparing for massive amounts of people to be relocated there. The problem was, there are so many people in this world, but not enough time.

  People started scrambling to get a seat. The wealthiest people bribed their ways onto the first official fleet. The same government that didn't believe Earth was dying were the first to leave. The crafts started taking off five at a time, and as time progressed and technology advanced, they increased to thirty. It takes three years to get to the new planet and three years to get back. It’s been five years since the last fleet left. And I am determined to get off this planet.

  Russia is one of the only countries that isn’t tragically affected by the sea level rising. That’s where the next ship will be. We just have to get there, survive the unknowns, and try not to go insane by the lack of structure around us. We’ve survived on our own for this long.

  “Kiani! Let’s go,” Derrick yells.

  “Coming!”

  2

  Kiani

  “Do you think it’s going to rain today?” asked Isaiah.

  “There’s a high chance we’re going to get hit by a lot today. Acid rain should be the least of our worries. What if we get hit with another tornado?” Brian asked.

  “Y’all relax. Stressing out over things outside of our control is a waste of energy. What we need to focus on is collecting supplies along the way. So far, we only have two small inflatable rafts that can fit into our packs and that won’t do us any good if, and when, we come across another body of water,” I say.

  We’ve been traveling for only six hours today, and everyone is already starting to feel on edge. We’re all hungry and more than a little thirsty. But worst of all is that we’re traveling down a highway with little to no shelter. If we were to get hit by a storm, the rain would eat away at our skin. It wouldn’t be immediately, but it will get increasingly irritating after a while, and the last thing we all need is a nasty rash. Worse yet, we’re sitting ducks if a drone flies by.

  Even though it’s cloudy and a storm is still brewing, it’s dangerously hot out. The ozone is pretty much nonexistent, and the sun has still found a way to have a field day on our skin. I haven’t had bacon in a long time, but I’m pretty sure my skin is smelling like it. Sizzling and popping away.

  “I think I see an old truck stop up ahead!” exclaimed Christine.

  “Be on the lookout,” Derrick says. “We might be in a Bandit’s territory. If you find anything to eat or drink, do not take it unless we’re sure that we’re the only ones here.”

  “We’ll split up in groups,” I say. “Ashton, Ashlynn, and Brian, you three are one group. Head to the far side of the truck stop and work your way back over here. Derrick, Christine, Isaiah, and I are another. If you see someone and they don’t see you, do not engage with them. Find us and we’ll figure it out from there.”

  “We know the drill already,” mumbles Ashlynn. “We’re not six.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know that I was the one that tracked you down and begged you to join my team.”

  “Ease it, Kiani,” snaps Derrick.

  “You need to tell her to ease it. She came at me. And the whole time she’s been a part of this group, all she’s had was an attitude. We’re already dealing with a lot of shit without having to add her dark cloud to the equation.”

  “Ashton, Ashlynn and Brian, just go. Meet us back here at this street light in twenty minutes. If none of us find anyone, we’ll scrounge the place for supplies,” Derrick says.

  Ashlynn turns away, but first she gives me a dark, parting look. Ashlynn and her brother are obviously fraternal twins, but they could pass as identical if it wasn’t for them being different genders. Straight black hair and piercing green eyes accompany a straight nose and long black eyelashes. They are both tall and slender, even though Ashton has been bulking up lately.

  I don’t know what her problem is, but she better solve it. I reach out to grab Isaiah’s hand, just to make sure he’s near me in case anything happens.

  “You have to pull back from the snarky remarks when you’re dealing with Ashlynn,” Derrick says as he heads towards the back of the building. “You know she’s still having a hard time coping with what her life has turned into.”

  “And I’m not? And we all aren’t?” I ask, incredulously. “She’s not the only one that was left alone. She’s not the only one that has to trek to the other side of the planet on foot. Hell, her twin brother is dealing with it, too!”

  “We’re not all built the same… What was that?”

  “What was-.”

  “Shh! I hear something,” he whispers.

  As
I listen for any sounds, I slowly pull Isaiah into my side. We all move a little closer to each other, with Christine and Isaiah on my sides and Derrick in the front. Derrick motions for us to draw our weapons, which is a gun for he and I, and knives for Isaiah and Christine.

  With the world pretty much ending, there are some people who don’t have the desire to leave; they see this as their time to rise to the top of the food chain. We call them the Bandits. Only a little over half of the population was chosen to go to the new planet, with the hopes that they won’t make the same mistakes that were made on Earth; the Bandits are the ones that volunteered to stay behind. They pretty much claim their territory after the area is abandoned. Hopefully we didn’t just walk into one of their territories; they’re not the most reasonable bunch of people.

  “Isaiah, get behind me,” I say. “Christine be ready. Derrick, what is it that you hear?”

  “I hear… an argument?”

  “An argument?”

  “Yeah, an argument.” He motions for us to follow behind him closely. The sound of the argument leads us down a poorly lit hallway. We slowly creep up to the corner of the wall and peep our heads around it. Derrick holds his hand up, signaling for us to stop until he tells us otherwise. There's a room right in the middle of this hallway.

  “I saw them walking here! We need to call the boss,” Bandit One says.

  “It's seven kids. You think we can't take them?” replies Bandit Two.