All Hope Is Not Lost

Governments have fallen. No one cares to provide or maintain civilian order anymore. All those people that were apparently in power? Gone. Everything that once provided us a sense of safety is now obsolete – money, healthcare, laws. It’s all been destroyed. I can’t even remember the last time I saw a physical dollar bill. All our money was converted into virtual currency years ago. We’ve been relying on technology for almost everything ever since. And now even that, too, is gone.

My mom, my two brothers and I have found refuge in a cave-like tunnel in the forest. Mom says it’s too dangerous, that a shelter like ours is high value and that the first person to come across it may very well kill us for it. But my older brother, Viktor, says we have no choice. It’s either stay in our shelter and risk getting killed, or venture out into the marshlands and get attacked with almost near certainty.

A family like ours wouldn’t last a day outside the shelter. A widowed mother with her teenage daughter and toddler son? We’d practically get eaten alive. It barely matters if Viktor, a muscular twenty-two-year-old with enough facial hair to make him look ten years older on a good day, is with us. They’d probably just take him out first so they could get to the rest of us.

Since nowhere is safe, we developed a system to minimize our chance of attack. We only go out in search of food and supplies during the day – except in emergency situations, which is why we try our best to prepare for those in advance. We follow a very specific route and only deal with people we know and trust. And the final most important rule, only Viktor and I are allowed to leave the shelter. Mom and my younger brother, Adon, stay home at all times. With the amount of children that have gone missing since the downfall of the government, we can’t risk Adon being seen by the wrong person.

My days to leave the house are Monday to Wednesday, while Viktor takes on the other four days. It’s only fair to give Viktor the bulk of the most dangerous days of the week, considering young women are still the most prone to attack. I guess that fact remains true no matter what society or state of the world you are living in.

Today is a Monday, which means my schedule has just begun. Our water will soon run out, so that will be my priority for the day. I grab the water jug we use to fill up at the stream.

Mom comes up to me and wraps around my neck what she calls the protection scarf. It is her little ritual before one of us leaves the shelter. Viktor and I have survived all this time with the protection scarf, so it must really work.

Mom adjusts the scarf tightly around my face so that everything below my nose is completely covered. “OK, remember what I always say…”

“Stay in the village as much as possible and don’t talk to anyone I don’t recognize,” I finish Mom’s parting words for her.

She looks at me with a mixture of pride and worry. Even though we do this every week, it’s moments like these where you wonder if it has all been enough. If I never make it back home again, did I at least do everything in my power to protect my family?

As a final touch, Mom places Viktor’s hat on top of my head. I always leave the house in Viktor’s clothing so that at first glace, one might assume I am a young man. Also, his clothes are equipped with a ton more pockets than mine.

After checking that the coast is clear, we give each other a long hug goodbye. Here it is again, the familiar feeling of my stomach dropping as I leave behind the only sense of safety that I know. I hear the clicks of Mom locking up behind me as I step foot outside. I will never get used to that sound.

By the way the sun barely grazes the horizon, I know it must be somewhere between four and five o’clock in the morning. All our neighbors appear to be asleep. However, I know for a fact that most of them are also utilizing this hour for supply hunting. We like to say hello when we cross paths. It’s nice to have casual chit chat sometimes in a world that feels anything but.

With my water jug filled to the rim, I stand up and exit the stream. On my way out, I see another teenage girl about my age collecting herbs from a nearby bush. She’s also in men’s clothing, but it is still obvious she is a girl. I guess our disguises aren’t exactly fooling anyone.

Just as she lifts her head and is about to turn away, I see it. I know that face.

“Molly?” I whisper as loudly as possible, dropping my scarf so she can recognize me, too.

Her face is more angular now and she seems to have lost quite a bit of weight, but I could never forget those emerald eyes of hers. They’re like daggers shooting through your soul.

“Gia? Is that really you?” She approaches me slowly, as if I’m some sort of mirage she doesn’t believe is real. I can’t tell if her expression is that of shock or terror.

I haven’t seen Molly in forever. She used to come around my house a lot in the summer when we were kids. I hate to think I’ve forgotten about her after all these years, but honestly, I’ve barely had time to even think about the welfare of old friends. You never imagine in an end-of-the-world type of situation that it will come to this, but it does.

“Before you say anything, I wanted to give you this.” Molly quickly tilts her head down and unlatches the necklace she’s wearing, then holds it out in front of her as if she is desperate to get rid of it.

It is a stunning gold necklace with a heart-shaped locket. At first, I have no idea why she is giving this to me. It looks valuable. Too valuable for an old childhood friend to give me in a time where everyone is stealing and ensuing chaos on each other for basic necessities.

“What is this?” My voice comes out sounding just as puzzled as I feel.

“You don’t remember?” Molly looks down in shame, as if she is about to explain something she’d rather not.

“That time you invited me to your house and we went swimming… I went inside to use the bathroom and found this sitting on the counter.” She holds up the necklace again. “I thought it was really pretty and I was so jealous of you at the time. I felt like you had everything I didn’t. A nice home, a happy family. But then…”

I know what’s coming next. Shortly after that summer is when the world fell apart and my dad along with it. I never saw Molly again after that.

“I thought taking this necklace would make me feel better. That maybe if I took a piece of what you had, no matter how small, I wouldn’t feel so jealous anymore. But honestly, it just made me feel worse. And then all those things happened to us… to your family… and I couldn’t bear to keep it anymore. I kept telling myself I would return it, but I was too embarrassed to go looking for you. So, I told myself… you know what? Let me wear it around my neck every day, just in case I ever run into her. And the day that I do is the day I’ll give it back.”

I take the pendant out of Molly’s hands, vaguely recognizing the grooves of the locket. By the looks of it, it is real gold and easily worth thousands. In today’s currency, that translates into months’ worth of food and supplies. I know I’m supposed to be feeling betrayed, but I am too consumed with shock that Molly hasn’t traded it in by now.

Not expecting anything to be inside, I open the locket and immediately gasp. There is a picture of mom and dad on one side, and me and Viktor on the other. This is the last gift my dad ever gave my mom before he died.

I look up to see Molly silently weeping. “Now you know why I felt so awful… Holding onto this necklace was eating me up inside. I’m so sorry… I hope you and your family can somehow forgive me.”

It is in this moment that I realize I don’t feel hurt, anger, or any negative emotion towards Molly at all. In fact, I feel… grateful. In a world where we’ve been conditioned to trust no one and take everything for ourselves, where people owning up to their wrongdoings is practically nonexistent, what Molly just did is incredibly rare. Looking back on the time she stole the necklace, I can almost understand why she did it. She was living in a tiny apartment, just her and her mom, while we had a beautiful home with enough land for an underground swimming pool and a trampoline. I wince as I remember the days I used to show off all the things my parents bought me to any friend that came over. Molly was one of those friends. To her, I must’ve looked like a spoiled brat that didn’t realize how good she had it. And I really didn’t.

“No, I… you don’t have to apologize. I get it.”

Molly looks up, confused by my lack of response.

“Maybe I wouldn’t have got it back then… but look around.” I gesture with my hands, drawing our attention back to the present. “We’ve all been through it. What you did as a child, before any of this went down, is completely irrelevant to our lives today. And if I’m being honest, I probably wouldn’t have liked me much either back then...”

“Oh, Gia. I had no idea what was inside the locket, I swear! I didn’t even realize it was a locket until I got home. I’d like to believe I wouldn’t have taken it had I known what it meant to your family, but I’m not going to stand here and make excuses. What I did was wrong, regardless of what you have or haven’t been through… It was never mine to take.”

I breathe out a sigh of relief. Relief for having a piece of my dad back home with us, and relief for having just experienced the sweetest, most unexpected act of kindness. We both know how easy it would have been for Molly to trade this necklace in for endless supplies for her and her mom. I feel the weight of that sit heavily between us as I thank her, giving her one last embrace before parting ways. I truly don’t know if I’ll ever see Molly again. And that alone is enough for me to send her away with nothing but my love.

I walk back home feeling lighter than I have in a long time. Molly may have taken something from my family when we were kids, but what she’s given back to us now is so much more than that. She gave us hope. Hope that forgiveness is still possible with just a little bit of perspective and understanding. Hope that people will continue looking out for each other no matter how high the stakes get. Hope that people can change for the better in a world like this.