Hannah (continued)

The other prisoners were released before we were. Their cells were opened one by one and they were told to head up the stairs. When the male prisoners were released and walked by our cell Kevin wasn’t among them; I knew then that the time of our release had come. They came for us about half an hour after the other prisoners had been released. We were reunited with Kevin in the corridor outside our cells. Having not spoken with him since we’d been captured and having feared that something would happen to him when they were detonating explosives in the mine I threw my arms around him and didn’t want to let go. We were left to embrace each other for as long as we wanted, with everything here now at an end there was no need for them to rush anything.

“Are you okay?” I asked him when we let go of each other.

“I’m fine; are you all okay?” He asked, looking from me to the others.

We all nodded and looked at each other with faces that reflected how much we had been changed by our time here.

“There are some people waiting for you on top, they’re all desperate to see you,” Lt. Col Raymond, who had opened our cells, said to us.

We followed him up the stairs that led out of the mine. We got to the top of the stairs and walked out of the cave entrance and straight into the forest. The tarp covered tunnel that led to the Americans’ base was gone, as was the base.

“Keep walking that way and you’ll find them, when you’re done come back this way, I’ll be waiting for you,” he said to us.

We walked over a blind hill to the site where the base was located and there, in the clearing, were our parents. They ran to us and the others ran to them. My mother didn’t run to me, she and I had already had that moment. She and my father remained where they were to the rear of the others and waited for me to come to them.

“I’ve missed you,” my father said, hugging me.

“I’ve missed you too dad.”

“Are you alright? Your mother told me everything.”

“I’m fine, there’s no reason for you to worry about anything.”

“The other prisoners are on their way back home, Lt. Col Raymond stayed behind to drive Cathy back home; what we need to know is are you going back with her?” My mother asked me.

“I can’t come back, not after all this.”

“What about the others?” My father asked.

“They feel the same; we’re all going back together.”

“Is it really better out there than it is in Prospera?” He asked me.

“To us it is. It wouldn’t be to you, you’ve only known Prospera for too long.”

“If ever you decide to come back again you’ll always be able to, but bear in mind that depending on the circumstances it may have to be for good,” my mother said.

“I understand. I’d have to lie about what I’d experienced, tell everybody that what I discovered was a world of destruction and chaos, which, of course, I would never want to return to.”

“You would have made a great administrator, that’s exactly how the situation would have to be handled.”

“Thanks for doing this; I know it cost more than what you were willing to give up.”

“I don’t know what we’re going to do if people from the outside world come here.”

“Meet them; you met Cathy and nothing bad happened to you, all you need is to have a little faith.”

“That’s not so easy for us, just look.”

I turned around and saw Cathy standing alone with all of the other parents looking at her like she was some sort of odd specimen. Kevin, Lisa and Miranda saw the way their parents were looking at her and stood next to them unsure of what to do.

“Everyone, this is Cathy,” I said, walking toward her, “she and her family took care of us, she’s like a sister to us, there’s nothing about her that you need to be wary of.”

I was standing next to Cathy with my arm around her looking at them, and in their faces I saw the unbridgeable divide between Prospera and the outside world that my mother was afraid of. Kevin, Lisa and Miranda walked away from their parents and stood with us. Wearing those looks on their faces and Prospera’s bizarre patterned robes they looked as alien to us as Cathy did to them. Only in blood were our parents still our family. Realizing this we cut our reunion short and said our goodbyes. We hugged our parents and walked away to where Lt. Col Raymond said he’d be waiting for us.

None of us felt melancholy about leaving our families behind again. We were leaving behind people and a way of life that had become foreign and strange to us during our time in the outside world with Cathy and her family.

“I’m sorry you didn’t get to see Prospera,” Kevin said to Cathy while we were walking.

“I did get to see it; Hannah’s mother took the two of us out of prison for a couple of hours so that I could see it. It was more than I was expecting, it looked like paradise.”

“Take it from me, Prospera is no paradise,” I said to Cathy.

Driving out of Eternal Forest with Lt. Col Raymond in his huge Humvee, we were looking forward, to the futures that we had chosen for ourselves.