Hannah

It was nostalgic, packing and getting ready for the trip. It reminded us of when we’d been gathering supplies and packing a bag for Kevin when we thought he’d be leaving Prospera on his own. We packed clothes, three bars of soap, toothpaste, our toothbrushes, sleeping bags, a cooler of meat, eggs, vegetables, rice, utensils to prepare meals and a tarp with which we could construct a tent. Kevin and Lisa used the money from their jobs to buy the sleeping bags and the backpacks. We were exceedingly well prepared; our trip to Prospera was going to be much more comfortable than our trip from Prospera almost a year ago.

We left before dawn, at 2 a.m., to avoid Frank, Kristin and Cathy seeing us leaving. It was dark outside and it would be for hours; the first days of autumn had arrived and the nights had become longer. There were no streetlights on the farm roads; we had to make do with the light from the half moon. We trudged on in silence, not really having anything to say to each other. It took us over an hour to walk to the convenience store where we’d first met Cathy, walking through the city centre then along the highway. While walking through the city centre we were careful to avoid the clinic and the church house where we could have been spotted by one of the doctors or one of the sisters working the night shift. Needing to engage in such avoidance reminded me of all that I was leaving behind and a wave of melancholy washed over me. I was determined to return to Prospera but I was doing so angry about what they’d done to me there. I had no doubt that when I returned to Prospera it wouldn’t be long before I started missing the outside world just like I’d missed Prospera when I’d been in the outside world. I was always going to be torn between the two, debating which one was better and wondering where I’d be happier. My mind was not my own, taken from me by my mother as part of the process of turning me into the ideal Prospera administrator.

At the convenience store we stopped for a quick break at the bus stop before we set off into the woods in the direction of the cabin where we’d spent the winter.

“We need to be in the woods before the sun comes up so we can’t stay here too long,” Kevin said to us.

His words were the first that had been spoken since we’d left the farm and they helped to alleviate some of the tension between us that had been created by the palpability of Miranda and Lisa’s less than enthusiastic participation in the journey.

“Who’s going to take over from you at the butchery when you take over the running of the farm?” Lisa asked Kevin.

“We’ve already started training someone to take over from me, a refugee.”

Silence reasserted itself following this brief exchange between Kevin and Lisa and continuing on to the cabin felt like the best thing to do. The vehicle tracks that led off the road and into the woods in the direction of the cabin were more overgrown than they’d been when we’d followed them on the final leg of our journey to the outside world, meaning the cabin had probably remained deserted since we’d last been there. When we were far off the road and safely in the woods Kevin got the solar powered lantern we’d bought out of his bag and activated it to light our way through the darkness. Dawn was breaking when we finally reached the cabin. It was 5:30 a.m., three and a half hours since we’d left the farm. As we expected nobody had been to the cabin in all the months that we’d been away. Inside the place was exactly as we’d left it, with a layer of dust having collected on everything. We were only going to be staying there for a day, planning to leave for Prospera the next morning, but we made an effort to clean the place anyway; it was one of three homes that we had known in our lives and we couldn’t just leave it in a state. Our cleaning effort was minimal; we focused only on wiping the surfaces, dusting the sofas and the beds and rinsing out the bathtub. We worked assiduously with an eye on finishing everything and eating breakfast by six o’clock, until our work was interrupted by a visitor.

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“What are you guys doing here?” I heard being asked in the living room.

I left the bathroom in a panic to see who it was and there was Cathy staring at Kevin with an intense look of curiosity on her face. I didn’t feel all that relieved when I saw that it was Cathy that had discovered us. It was meant to be just the four of us; the fact that it was Cathy didn’t make her any less of an intruder.

“Hey!” Miranda said when she saw her before she went over to her and gave her a big hug.

Lisa, Kevin and I stood back as we tried to make sense of Cathy’s sudden, unexpected appearance.

“What are you doing here?” I asked her, more angrily than I’d intended.

“I followed you from the farm; I knew you’d try to leave without being seen so nobody would know where you were going. You’re going back to Prospera; that is where you’re from, isn’t it?”

“No…”

“Yes, it is,” Miranda interrupted me and said.

“Miranda!”

“Oh give it up Hannah! She knows,” Lisa shouted at me.

“I don’t believe this! Prospera’s actually real?”

“Yes; if you want to see it you can keep coming with us but be warned, the journey’s not easy,” Kevin said to her.

“Why are you going back? Haven’t you been happy with us?”

“Hannah wants to go back; we’re going to help her get there then the three of us are going to come back,” Kevin said.

“What are you going back for?” Cathy faced me and asked.

“To see my mother, and to get answers.”

“Answers to what?”

“First tell us if you’re coming the rest of the way with us or going back home.”

“Of course I’m coming with you.”

“Then I’ll tell you on the way, until then we’ve got work to do so start pitching in.”

Cathy joining our travelling party complicated things. Like Kevin had said, we had a duty to return her safely to her parents, we couldn’t allow any harm to come to her and that was going to slow us down. None of the others shared my concerns. They all looked like they had no problem with Cathy being there, in fact after it had been decided that she would be coming along with us Kevin and Lisa actually looked happy to have her with us.

My separation from my friends was greater than I thought. I really was alone.