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Mission of a Lifetime

By: Diamond Elliott

By Diamond ElliottPublished 3 years ago 10 min read
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Photo by NY Times

Have you ever watched smoke dance? I have. I saw it in slow motion. It moved effortlessly like a jellyfish’s tentacles dancing in the deep blue sea. It rode the wind, as it soared into the atmosphere. It sucked all the color out of my hometown – well what used to be Miami. Now Miami is an awkward stranger that I cannot seem to get away from. It was 15 years ago to the day. It was the first time I had been trapped by smoke. I used to choke on it. My lungs have adjusted now. Two years ago the war seemed to dissipate. A racial war brought the world to it’s knees. Governments fell. Regimes toppled. As quickly as pacts were made, they were broken.

It all started with the murder of George Floyd. It seemed like no matter how much love the world showed each other, more hate was right behind it. At first, there were multiple protests, then came the riots. That is when the military got involved. The war started when the governments declared war on the rioters. It was unfortunate but inevitable; everyone had to stand with the people who looked like themselves, in order to survive. No one won. So many dead, in my opinion, for no good reason. Fear is why they are dead. People were forced to betray friends who did not look like them out of fear. The fear of not knowing if they would get to you before you had another chance to get to them was crippling. You were safe among your own camp or race, until opposing opinions made us internal savages. The war never formally ended; it just became survival of the fittest. Natural selection took its place among humans, as if we were jaguars – not needing a herd or family. We chose reclusiveness because it was the only way to survive and preserve ourselves long enough to find if our families were still alive. Well, at least that is what I am trying to do. I had family in Broward county, which is the county on top of Miami, but I have not seen them in 15 years. Honestly, I am not sure they are even still alive.

I was living in Miami, when bombs rained from the heavens as if God had tipped over his box labeled “chaos” onto my city. Miami used to be a vibrant assimilation of diversity. Now, it is divided by race. South Beach is no longer an American party capital. South Beach, in particular, is called Sobe now. It is where anyone who could not pick sides because they were of mixed races went to hide out. Black Americans claimed OT, the former Over-town. Haitians claimed Port-au-Prince or PTP for short, formerly Little Haiti. Cubans claimed Havana, formerly Hialeah. Homestead belongs to all other Hispanic descendants, I think. White Americans retreated to southern Broward county. For safety reasons, we do not leave our claimed land. You are considered a spy, if you cross over into another race’s territory. The sad part is the world is split like this. Even in your own territory, you have to watch your back.

We have found Dominican and Haitian spies in OT before. Information was extracted, and the spies were disposed of. I am living in a racial purge. I fought in the war against the government, but this purge of races I refuse to take part in.

“Mya! Did you get it?”, Donovan asked.

“I couldn’t find it. Are you sure these even exist?”

“I am positive. I remember learning about them, in a construction job I did before the war.”

Donovan is an above average height Black American who is also half Dominican, but he is seen as an asset when spies come into OT. He speaks Spanish fluently, but you would never catch him saying anything. Only interpreting so we know who to steer clear of. He has black 3c bouncy curls, hazelnut eyes, and two teeth missing on the top right side of his mouth that you can only see when he smiles, which he does not do much of. The two of us are paranoid introverts, which is how we have survived this long.

We started watching each other’s backs in the fourth year of the war. I don’t know if it was love or survival instincts, but we never left each other’s side after we made it out of a PTP camp. We had been stabbed repeatedly and starved, but he put my nearly lifeless 5’2 body over his shoulder and carried me to safety, after I passed out from all the blood loss. I gave him my mother’s heart shaped locket to remind him I owe him my life, and as payment, he will always have my heart. I do not know if he is my soulmate, but I know he is a true ally, and that is like finding a unicorn nowadays.

We had been sifting through the rubble and crumbled remains of former Downtown Miami for hours, but still have not found the entrance. “It’s gonna be dark soon. We can’t stay the night here. God only knows what happens here at night”, he said worriedly with his hands on his slim waist. Sweat was pouring down us, as only the Miami sun can make a body work that hard to attempt to cool down. I felt that last drop of moisture my hair had left run down the side of my face. My eyebrows touched ever so slightly. My lips cracked from dehydration. My leg hairs were at full length but fortunately had been bleached by the sun; therefore, they were hidden to the untrained eye. My shoes had traces of this morning’s vomit on them. I could tell the sole of his shoe had been penetrated and his foot cut, from the way he was carefully dodging ruins. I was ready to make the four mile trek back, when I found it.

“Donovan! This is it!”

“Finally! I knew it. Give me a flashlight.” I could hear the relief in his voice. I passed him the flashlight I stole from another person seeking refuge in OT.

“I will go first, but keep your hand on my shoulder so we don’t lose each other.”

“Go slow. The stairwell is pretty steep”.

The pitch black hallway of stairs had an unsettling feeling to it. We went down six flights of stairs when we finally reached the entrance point to the work tunnels for the Port of Miami.

“This is our safe passage, Mya”, Donovan said proudly.

“Hang”. I meant to say “hang on”, but the vomit came too quickly.

“You’re still gorgeous”, he smirked, as I wiped the spit from my bottom lip.

“Shut up. I’ll be happy when this is over”, I said out of breath.

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

“As sure as I am about the debt I owe you.”

As we continued through the tunnel, we heard the ocean all around us. It was like being in the eye of a hurricane. You know how deadly it can be if you attempt to leave, but there is a calming in the center. This tunnel was the calming of the ocean. It was about a three mile walk that felt like it took hours because we could only see about a foot in front of us. There was surprisingly a lot of air, and we could smell the salt in the ocean and urine. We walked through puddles of water that were not deep enough to soak our sneakers, but I could hear Donovan grunting in pain, from his foot laceration.

We came to a ladder. We were not sure what or who we would find once we came up from the depths of the ocean. I grabbed the bottom of the ladder to hold it steady while Donovan climbed up. I was as quiet as a butterfly. I heard him smell the air to see if anything was burning. Once he got to the top, I heard him yell, “Another tunnel”. My ankles were swollen from walking so much. I do not know how he knew, but when he grabbed my hand to help pull me up, he knew I needed to stop for the night. There were so many concerns with stopping. First, is it really nighttime or are we just that deep under the ocean? It was easy to lose your sense of time in the darkness. Second, is anyone else in this tunnel? Was the urine we smelled old or new? He placed his bag on the floor, along with his left knee. He took out his hunting knife, zipped up the bag, and patted it for me to lay my head down on it. Grateful to be safe for the moment, I laid on my back, with my head resting on his rocklike backpack. “I’ll be first lookout”, he said bravely. I have always wondered where he got all his energy because I knew I was exhausted. As soon as my eyelids fell, my mind went to sleep.

I woke up to Donovan’s head on my breasts, as he laid on his right side with his knife in his left hand. I tapped him on his left shoulder. We stretched, yawned, and gathered our belongings. Our bones hurt, but we were in the best shape of our lives. Our muscles ached. I put my hand on his shoulder, and we marched on. “Stairs ahead”, he said. We climbed about three flights of stairs. When we opened the door, we entered the basement to what is left of Mount Sinai Hospital. This hospital is supposed to be a neutral zone for sick, but I have heard of people being murdered here. The hospital is grey like the rest of the world. We carefully maneuvered around the hospital ruins looking for the pharmacy.

“There it is. Well at least the medicine cabinet for it”, Donovan said.

“Plan B is what we’re looking for.”

“Are you sure you want to do this because I am okay if you don’t”, Donovan said as he hung his head, as he admitted to his true feelings.

“We can’t bring a child into this new world. I don’t even want to be part of this world”, I complained.

“We’ve come this far though.”

“I know you want the baby, but we can barely take care of ourselves. How are we supposed to hide with a crying baby? A baby is just a weakness to our survival.”

“What if we raise the baby here in the neutral zone?”

Just then, four people who did not look like us showed up. We were outnumbered. We stared at the knives and pistols on the sides of each opposing person’s hips. We felt anxiety rise up in us like a rocket heading to the moon.

“We only came for the Plan B”, Donovan calmly explained.

“So did we”, one of the women retorted.

She held her hand out for the medicine. We looked at her hand then looked at each other.

“You’re right. We have made it this far, and if we have this baby, we can seek refuge in Sobe because our baby will be mixed”, I said.

“Really?” Donovan questioned excitedly.

“Let’s do it”. I handed over the last box of Plan B found.



“And that is how you came to be a part of Sobe, D’Angelo.”

“That was a beautiful bedtime story Mya. Too bad he fell asleep during it,” Donovan said.

“Shhh. You’ll wake him up”, I said as I laid my beautiful son’s curly head on his pillow and kissed his forehead; my love and I crept out of our son’s bedroom secretly so we did not disturb his sleep.

Short Story
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About the Creator

Diamond Elliott

Anxiety got me started. Depression kept me going. Creativity peaked my interest. Passion keeps me consistent.

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