4They hugged me and tried to hide their tears as they hustled me off into one of the four space ships headed to the moon. I stumbled and coughed as I climbed up the steps to the spaceship, the toxic air made it irritable to breathe. I saw my parents waving and trying to smile as I walked away and I too began to cry. I knew it would be the last time I'd ever see them. Even at eight years old I knew this...
I walk down the rows; I saw other children crying some of them older than me and some much younger. I saw a young girl holding a small baby in her arms. Was it her sister? Or a favor she was doing for a friend? The child sucked on its thumb. It looked so carefree. More tears began to stream across my cheeks.
In the second bombing in San Francisco, my "onee-chan" was killed when the Trans. Station was bombed on the eastern side of the city two days after the first bombing.
My sister was fifteen years old at the time. Her sixteenth birthday was going to be nine days from today... We were going to put flowers on her grave but all of it is gone now- destroyed.
I found a seat several rows up from the back of the ship. I went up on my tiptoes and slipped my small canvas bag up on the racks above the seats. Then crawled across the seat and sat next to the window.
Outside thick grey smog hung above the runway and engulfed the parents below, but you could still make out them waving good-bye to their children. They're haggard stances showed the depression and that the effects of the poisonous gases from the bombs were already taking effect. I found my parents in the crowd; my fathers hands where draped around my mothers fragile body. He held her close and kissed her head. Love... the love that had carried us through these hard times, World War IV and VI, and the second Holocaust and termination of many of the world's minor races. Love was a dieing feeling in the world of fire and bombs, and war and death. And hope was extinct...
A sudden rush of emotion splurged through my mind and I let my head fall in to my hands. Tears flowed from my eyes and my dark hair stuck to my face. Memories of my family flashed before my eyes. Loving smiles and kind gestures would be a thing of the past from now on but...
"Can I sit with you?" A boy a bit older than me asked leaning on the seat in front of me. I ignored him and continued to cry. "Huh, you okay?" He dropped his bag on the floor and sat down next to me, placing his hand on my shoulder.
I looked up and brushed the hair from my eyes and the tears along with them. Staring out the window I began to speak, "This is last time, isn't it?" I said softly, feeling the cold through the glass of the window. "That we'll ever see them again. Our families..."
"We'll be fine. Everything will be okay." He said nothing to contradict with what I'd said, but some how it made me feel better. "It's okay," he continued gently rubbing my back, "I'll be here to help you. Don't worry..." I turned to face him; his soft blue eyes stood out from under his long brown bangs of hair. They were full of emotion of every kind. They filled me with warmth and reawakened the hope in me, that I thought extinct. Perhaps not all was lost yet, for in his eyes I found the key to success. Hope.
I brushed the last tear from my eye and gently rested my head on his shoulder. It comforted me to know I had someone to hang on to.
Just then an announcement came over the loudspeakers in its robotic monotones voice, "Take off in four minutes. Please remain seated until stated otherwise and buckle your seat belts. A safety video will be in play for the first several minutes of the flight. Afterward you will be free to choose from many digital movie clips on the menu screen. Please be considerate of others and use the headphones provided. Thank you and have a nice flight." And with a short click the loudspeaker was turned off and the informational movie began. The boy handed me a headset.
"What's your name?" he asked.
"Naomi," I said taking the headset from him. "And you?"
"David."
"Shhh," whispered the rude older teen in the seat behind us, through the cracks of the chair, then returning back into his own seat. I smiled lightly, ignoring him, my eyes fixed on the screen. A scrolling message came up from the bottom. PLEASE REMAIN SEATED DURING YOUR FLIGHT. CELLURLAR DEVICES WILL NOT BE PERMITTTED ON THE FLIGHT AND MUST BE TURNED OFF...