The Escape

Sage wiped the splattered black blood from her eyes as she frantically felt around in the sand searching for the heart-shaped locket. It was the key to her escape; she could not move on without it.

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The Earth has been decaying for 183 years ever since the first bombs of poison were dropped in all of the continents by a group of Americans who no longer thought that Earth was worth trying to save. From the stories that Sage has been told, she gathered that the group thought that it would be easier to wipe everyone out instead of watching them slowly destroy themselves and the planet. They obviously failed to wipe everyone out as they had planned. Their poison was not as strong as they believed so it only reached three-fourths of the surface area it was expected to reach. This left those who were in the untouched areas as the ones left to deal with this new world. A world where the poison is strong enough to remain dangerous in the areas where it lives, but somehow not spread to other areas. A world where the poison is strong enough to turn the blood of those who have inhaled it black, but not kill them unless they get too much exposure.

Because the infected areas touched each other in some parts, this created separate societies that resided in the untouched areas. The different groups found their own ways of surviving depending on their location. Those near the water were able to survive on whatever food they had in that area until they found fish that were safe to eat, after waiting for any potentially poisoned fish to die out. Those near woods found plants that had remained untouched and still were edible. There were some remaining animals that they could live off of as well. Those in desert areas have mostly died out due to there not being any decent source of food left. Those still living in the desert areas will be completely wiped out soon because no one is willing to help them anymore. There has been a group called The Helpers who took the risk to travel across the poisoned areas to bring food to those in the desert. Now, too many have died from inhaling the poison as they traveled, and they are running out of materials to make masks for The Helpers to wear to prevent the poison from being 100% inhaled. The other societies voted that they do not want anyone else becoming a Helper because they don't want to lose more people. Sage is from a desert society, and she is determined to get out before she too dies.

Sage and her other society members were doing their daily activities when they heard someone crying out to them from the distance. It was from the direction of an infected area that was connected to a river area. Everyone glanced at each other in shock because the last Helper that visited said no one would ever be coming back here. This meant that whoever this was had either snuck out of their area or been banned (something that was common for rule breakers who threatened their society). Both possibilities meant this stranger could be a threat to Sage's society as well, so people went to gather the elders immediately. However, Sage, who wasn't a rule breaker - but also not necessarily a rule follower, could not hold back her curiosity to who it could be and went out to meet them by herself.

She sprints towards the voice before anyone can stop her. As she gets closer and the desert sand being blown around by wind becomes clearer, she sees a man lying on the ground before her grasping for air while clutching something tightly in his right hand. Sage can confirm the man came from the river area due to his clothing, but he must not have ever been a Helper because she does not recognize him.

"What are you doing here? And why were you in the poisoned land without any type of mask to protect yourself?" Sage asks the man whose skin is starting to boil from the amount of poison in his system.

"What is your name?"

"Sage...but why does that matter?"

With a weak and trembling voice, he says, "There is an island across the sea where the poisoned area has deteriorated enough to detach itself from the rest of the island. It is completely safe there and the land is thriving."

"Then why are you here and not there?" Sage asked with a puzzled look on her face and an attitude in her tone.

"Because there is someone who wants you to go there with him and I volunteered to come find you." This time when he answered, tears began to form in his eyes.

"Who is it? And why on earth would you volunteer for this?"

"He's a Helper who has talked to you about how you want to get out of the desert, and he wants to take you away from here. I volunteered because I was already sick, and I knew I did not have a lot of time left. This man is a good man and my closest friend, please... you have to go with him."

The man begins to cough up blood and the life is slipping from his eyes.

Seeing that the man is getting worse and will rupture soon Sage asks, "How am I to find this man? How will I get through the poison area by myself, I've never left the desert!"

He opens up his right hand to reveal the item he has held onto so tightly. It is a rusty, scuffed up, heart-shaped locket. "This is how."

Sage is handed the locket and sees there is a compass inside of it. Compasses are not allowed these days because societies do not want their members straying and making a mess of things. She assumes whoever made this had to shape the compass down to fit into the locket so it would be inconspicuous.

With his tired voice he says, "Follow the compass North until you reach the water, it should not take more than a day if you run as fast as you can. He will be waiting for you. The covering you have to keep the sand out of your face should be enough to save you from the poison as long as you move quickly enough."

He stretches out his hand to her and wishes her good luck. She begins to open her mouth to express gratitude for his sacrifice, but as she does, his eyes roll back into his head as his body goes limp. Sage knows what is about to happen but is too in shock to move quickly enough.

His eyes violently burst, and his black blood is splattered all over Sage's face. Blood begins to pour effortlessly from his ears, mouth, and nose.

As an automatic response, she jolts backwards which results in her dropping the locket. It seems as if the wind-blown sand absorbed the locket immediately.

Sage wiped the splattered black blood from her eyes as she frantically felt around in the sand searching for the heart-shaped locket. It was the key to her escape; she could not move on without it. She starts digging through the sand more aggressively than any animal she had ever seen.

At last, she feels the chain to the locket and pulls it from the sand. She turns around and sees that the elders and others are approaching her rapidly. She has no time to collect any of her belongings. She knows she must leave now.

She covers the bottom half of her face and begins to run towards the edge of the desert area, the only area she has ever known, and soon disappears into the poison area.

The poison area looks nothing like Sage had imagined it to be in her mind. From the outrageous stories she had been told, she thought that everything just looked like black rubble and nothingness. But Sage found the destruction beautiful. The way the poison had eaten away at the Earth and turned it into something completely different enticed her. Her whole life she had hoped for something to transform her so extremely.

However, the way that the Earth has been destroyed here does not make it easy to travel through. Sage is doing her best to continuously run, but following North is not a simple straight line as she had hoped. She races across the uneven ground as she begins to worry about who is waiting for her. The man never gave her a name and she has talked to several Helpers about wanting to get out of the desert. Her nervousness is luckily being overpowered by excitement.

Sage runs without ceasing for more than a few moments for what seems to be an eternity... in reality it was close to 18 hours. The pure adrenaline kept her body going for that long. She sees water in the distance and starts smiling bigger than she has in her whole life. She gets to the top of the last hill and sees who is waiting for her.

Matthew. Matthew was the Helper who came on almost every trip to Sage's society and would not leave without talking to her. "I should've known it was Matthew" she thinks to herself. He sees her on the hill and as she calls out to him, her body realizes that she has stopped running and all at once she feels how exhausted she has become. She falls to the ground and her eyes begin to close. She sees him running to her as she passes out.

Sage slowly wakes up and finds herself on a boat with Matthew by her side. She can only keep her eyes open for a few seconds at a time. The sounds of water and the rocking feeling of the boat are so foreign to her. She is soaking in all the new smells and sounds when she hears Matthew say, "Don't worry, we'll be there soon. Just rest and I'll wake you when we get there." She feels safe with him, but scared of what life will be like on the island.

"Will we be able to make it on our own... or are others going to be joining us?" she thinks to herself as she drifts back to sleep.