Amari

Aug. 29, 003

Late

I won’t speak to Mema. I can’t even look at her.

She used the family honor against me. The last thing I had that still felt like mine.

And now I’m married.

The paper is already damp from my hands. My tears. I'm holding the book open with my wrist, biting my knuckle to keep the sobs locked in my throat. If anyone hears, if even one person hears, the whole camp will know by sunrise. The girl who cried because she got a ticket out.

David. That’s his name. My husband.

No—he’s not my husband. He’s E22. That’s what I’ve always called him. That’s what he is. A number. A problem. A thorn.

He’s the one who guards the food tent in the mornings. The one who told me I’d “set a bad example” when I slipped extra bread into my bag for Mema. Like morality still matters in a world like this. Like anyone here gets to talk about what’s fair.

He’s the one who shouted “Stop!” when I tried to move Mema past the crowd this afternoon. The one who grabbed my arm like he had the right to touch me. His hands were rough. Callused. Hot from anger or the sun or maybe just being a man.

And now he’s the one who knelt beside me while I was still in shock, still reeling from the announcement, from Mema’s betrayal. I saw the smirk in his eyes—not his mouth, no, he was too smart for that—but his eyes were smug. That vile green, like they were dipped in acid. Sharp and bright and unnatural in this ash-colored world. They shone when everything else is dead. And somehow, I hate him more for it.

He said, “It’s not real. We don’t have to—” and a dozen other lies men tell when they want something but are pretending to be kind. He said he’d take care of me. He said it like he expected me to be grateful.

But I could see him calculating. His eyes roamed over my face, my hair, my body. And I knew what he was thinking. What they all think.

No.

I will not write those thoughts. I will not give them space on this page.

I will not cry again.

But I am.

I am crying.

Let me back up.

The announcement came just after sundown, when the wind turns and brings the copper stink from the acid flats. The crowd gathered fast—nearly a hundred refugees crammed into the main square between the broken warehouse and the communications tower. They built a makeshift platform out of sheet metal and rusted scaffolding, probably taken from the West Barracks.

The official—new face, unknown to me—stood on the platform with a battered clipboard and a voice like gravel. He wasn’t any healthier than the rest of us. Sunken cheeks. Dirty uniform. Eyes like he’d stopped believing anything he was told to say a long time ago.

Still, the words came out like gospel: a sanctuary in the west. A real place. Quartz-lined. Safe from the Plagues. A controlled environment, clean food, running water, security.

Life.

That word passed from mouth to mouth like fire on dry brush. Even before I made it back to Mema, people were tearing through their pockets for identification, digging in satchels and waistbands. One man held up a crumbling family photo like it was a passport. I saw two women run for the tent city, shouting the names of their children.

And Mema?

Mema was glowing.

“Is it true?” she asked when I got back. Her hands were shaking, her lips chapped from the dry air.

“They’re taking a few people,” I said. “On a journey to somewhere we’ve never seen.”

“But it’s real?”

“It’s a story,” I told her. “No more real than the ones Mama told me to help me sleep.”

Look where it got us.

Mema squeezed my arm so tight the skin turned white. “It sounds like a chance to live.”

And then I saw it.

Not madness.

Not desperation.

Hope.

Mema still remembers what living felt like. She remembers community gardens and choir practice and a stove that worked. She remembers a world that didn’t reek of rot and fear. She remembers peace. And she wants to find it again before she dies.

So I said, “We need our papers.”

And of course, she had them. Folded flat in her jacket lining. Always ready. Always prepared.

I took her hand. We moved through the bodies, weaving between mothers with tired toddlers and men with old wounds they couldn’t afford to treat. I pulled us toward the front. That instinct kicked in—faster than any prayer or plan. Get to the front. Be first. Survive.

We nearly made it.

And then him. E22. David.

Same smug boy from the breakfast line.

Same arms folded across his chest like he runs this place.

He tried to stop me again. Like always. Like it’s a game to him, and he enjoys trying to pin me down.

We argued. He barked something about order, about fairness, about protocol.

I ignored him. I got Mema in.

And it should’ve ended there.

But it didn’t.

He had his own reasons. I saw her standing behind him with those oversized eyes and threadbare coat. He held her out like an offering when they denied him, and something in my chest twisted. Not for him. Never for him. But for her.

And maybe… maybe Mema saw that moment too. Saw my face. Saw an opportunity. Because the next thing I knew, she was speaking to someone, making an exchange, offering our names. Hers and mine. And his.

And now I’m married.

I keep staring at this ring. It’s nothing but scrap metal hammered into a circle, too wide for my finger. But it means everything. It means I belong to him.

No.

It means I am his price of admission.

His ticket to safety.

Maybe one day I’ll burn this book.

Maybe I’ll burn the world.

But not yet.

Not until I make it out.

And not until I make him suffer.