Indigo (the second second edit)

*Family

Before the reapings began, what used to be the United States, had been reduced to, for the first time, since horrible men had come to ravage, and rebrand, like so many cattle, a ruined third world. The plague left us with, after 3 months, only 30% of humanity "Estimated living," If you could even call it that. Because 29 out of that 30% had turned themselves from brutal, conniving, and hungry monsters of violence, into just blindly and numbly seeing to the necessary to survive. This was Because of the easily accessible drug called blue that was made so quickly available for human consumption right before the outbreak. Marketed as a 'cure-all' for the human condition,( general mental well-being,) so that humanity could stop focusing on the real physical causes.

And yet, from the few who did not turn into glazed over husks from the drug and its effects, the recipe for your licentious, numb, and cold-blooded new populace was born. In the months before this, when the roads and shitty dilapidated bridges started to bend and break, the fields were overrun by your everyday, run-of-the-mill crazies, the kind that got lonely and looked to the old fashioned cures for discontent, instead of blue, were now, the majority of the 'Reaping Fields,' live-in sculptors of the nightmares of crossing alone. What would now be considered a bad dream, was a simple drive through nowhere once. Still, there were rules held shakily in place by the natives of this area, and luckily enough, our Jana and her kin were still considered just that. Back in The days where Jana's biggest worries were still trying to get to work on time from their farmhouse, and thinking of the most efficient way not to have to hold a conversation with the customers that were "just passing through," for she vividly felt the burn of them staring at her mouth or her nose as she voiced a once over on the wine list, just before heading back to collect the intestine bucket in the big fridge. She dreaded sausage duty, and the machine it came with. Her less mature, more attractive co-workers, (including fucking Jed) proceeded to laugh and joke, making fun of the slow, unsettled way Jana's hands moved and pulled the reams of soft intestinal tissue through the nozzle of ever dispersing seasoned meat and fennel to become what would be the next set of ten sausage links in the bucket. If there was ever a time to contend this sort of circumstantial déjà vu, it seemed silly that it would be now, but now it was. That same type of time-sensitive fear made it impossible to breathe. Jana's sister would be, in all probability, dead or wishing. Because everyone knew what happened if one of the reaping field hands or loiterers caught you alone. If time and statistical merit held their weight, that would mean being stored and given antibiotics in an area alarmingly similar to one walk-in freezer at Jana's old place of employment shortly before the riots ensued. Now, ironically, it came down to Jana, and fucking Jed to make the big decisions, not just for Emmy and Sam's life, but for their own.

Ten days ago, they had to decide if They were to pass through what was now known as 'The Reaping fields' without any sort of safety passage spoke of on their behalf now that Jonathan was injured. And though knowing this came at a great expense to Jana's already dwindling sanity, she chose to act on the fast-spreading infection in her dad's leg when his strange gait had turned to a full-blown shuffle that would've never gone unnoticed in the field's entry/exit points. It seemed like fate when they met, then traded a younger couple a week's ration's for a small, cold glass vial of penicillin that read "Mary white rabbit" in smudged pen ink.

*Emerald

Emmy was only 13, and the only one allowed to call 22-year-old Jana 'Banana' beside Jon. Her mother, Jon's wife, Astrid, and the only mother Jana had known, had died at the beginning of the end of everything, leaving Emmy in a state of shock, to onlookers and friends, when in reality, it was more of a glazed over peace she had been given, one of the many strange and unsettling gifts left to Emerald by her mother that no one else beside Jana had come to fully understand. For all anyone else knew, the silver chain around Emmy's neck containing a silver cherubic angel, and a silver heart-shaped locket must've just been a carrier of something more sentimental that had to do with Astrid.

Jed's younger brother, 11 yr old Sam, had found one passed out Emmy a mere 15 feet away from the group after announcing she had to pee. At the time, her period was the last thing Emerald had thought about happening to her. Also, now that dads leg had a slow, pulsing growth of green veins going up and down the length of the wound, Jonathan's green spider veins branching off of the insidious gangrene made Emmy think of the Ivy-Esque morning glory's that grew to the insides of her window in mid-summer as if they wanted to infect her too, she reminisced. Emerald had ruined her library credit on one book multiple times. Unexceptional, except for something fascinatingly illustrated inside it. 'Hanahaki Disease' they had called it. Though it wasn't the main storyline, but merely a sort of tiny bridge to describe one man's suffering, and was briefly mentioned before the bewitching illustration. It touched something deep inside of her. Once her eyes met that beautiful picture of that madly intoxicated suffering man, she understood a little more what was coming to the world and why. Hanahaki was simply a beautiful metaphor. Jana had always seen Emerald see this. The relationship between the world and humanity had always been a one-sided love story, and the world, with its immaculate capacity for ferocity, though be it usually only seen as a demonstration amongst humans killing themselves or their planet, or in animals proving their rank in the food chain. Yet if you only looked, Emmy thought, you could see the same one-sided suffering, and yes, even love in this display.

The day that Emerald had first begotten the sign of her womanhood, she had felt a kind of immense guilt at the knowledge that the dogs would have a completely new advantage over them now. Blood. It was truly amazing how quickly humans adapted to hunting each other, not just for what even the crazy would deem necessary, but for sport. Upon discovering the blood, Emmy heard a sharp ringing in her ears, then, nothing. Only darkness.

*

Jed had remembered the last day he saw his mother passed out on the couch in their trailer, Dianne was out for that day. Was it strange that 'blue' disgusted him so much, but at the same time he craved the same type of peace that had stripped not only the worry from Dianne's face, but the bare consciousness from her being altogether? Either way, it didn't matter. He had to do things that had become an everyday ritual. Clean up mom, go wake up Sam, feed him, brush teeth, and off to school. Little did Jed know, Sam had a morning ritual of his own, sit behind the broken recliner and watch until it was time to let Jed pretend to wake him up.

The last time they saw Dianne, she had already drifted off into a peaceful sea of something like a slumber so deep, it could've been the very essence of darkness itself. So Jed and Sam took hands, stood there, said nothing, and watched as time melted away. On the 3rd day, they opened the door to leave, expecting to see no one. But there, in the deafening silence across the tracks, they could make out two beautiful red-haired girls and their father.

MRS. MARY

When Emerald awoke, her body hung from her puny wrists on one of many meat hooks from zip ties. Her feet, shackled in rusty wrought Iron. Though foggy, she could still make out certain aspects in the dinginess around her, and that made all of the difference. What looked like horse meat, hung strangely from hooks. The sickening part was in the smell. She wanted to scream or cry, but her body would permit neither, Only vomit. That's when Emmy noticed the rhythmic scraping sound behind her had stopped.

"Why good morning there Chile!" the honey brown-tinted voice came from all around her. The thickness of the accent was what made Em first think of cinnamon trying to escape from honey. It was rich, dark, and lovely like it belonged to a buxom movie star she had seen on the television once. "I spotted that hair of yours a mile off!" She chuckled, "I mean, THAT HAIR! Beautiful, yes, but put a cap on or somethin'! Christ on a cracka', even a lil' mud wouldn't have keeled ya! Surely!" Emerald shrank at the realization that she saw Jana and might already be holding her in another place. "We'd been meaning to cut it, but my father bled out after..." She had puked all over her necklace, she just noticed, as she hung her head in exhaustion and defeat, but only after forcing herself to check the racks for the tiny ivy leaves Jana had tattooed encircling each ankle. "Will you kill me now?" her shaky voice came out smaller every time, this time, more like a mouse. "Oh, you silly thing, I'm no monsta!' You should know, the way we used to slaughter our cattle, before alla' this mess anyway, to make sure they were soothed. Shit girl! They didn't know what was goin' on! Fear makes for bad meat!" The next sound Emerald heard was the clickety-clack that her teacher's shoes would make in the fifth grade. The tall, strangely healthy-looking woman appeared, first in Em's peripheral, this woman wore something like a man's white suit shirt without the tie and what looked like black bikini bottom's underneath it. Or just black underwear. The dirty white rabbit mask and blood-encrusted hunting knife would've shocked her far more as her neck strained to catch a glimpse of her front, but this just added to a strong fascination of the woman's beauty. "My name is Mary. And seein' as to how things are lookin' more and more like you a woman now afta' all," She pointed one long bony finger toward the cursed place Emerald had bled from, "Pretty thing like you is just what we could use 'round here right now. Looks like you came just in time, little ducky. Nice try girl, but I know your daddy is alive and kickin'. Also know that the older gal you was with, who's that? Yo sista? Well, she had her chance, and... 'Just know this Chile, ain't no one comin' to get you. And if you try to run I will kill you, fear or not, tainted meat or not." This was about the time when Emmy had taken advantage of her long arms and legs, slowly crept up behind Ms. Mary, for she'd spent her whole time yakin' with her back turned not even bothering to check sweet Emmy's locket and the razor within for when times got rough. Emerald very sweetly, very slowly, wrapped her right hand around Mary's pretty throat, and with the razor still in the left, did the same, then squeezed. Afterward, Emerald grabbed the keys next to whatever unlucky creature Mary'd been preparing, riffled through the pile of clothes to her right, picked up a heavy-looking soccer bag That had the name 'Miguel' crudely scrawled along the side on a piece of dirty, silver duct tape, and ran. With luck, she would catch up to wherever Jana and Daddy hiding out with Sam, and fucking Jed, by dawn.