Whispers in the Night

*sensitive content: family triggers, abandoned feelings, post-apocalyptic themes (not explicit but mentions)

I never really sleep well. 

I don’t think I really know what sleeping well is. 

Though, every now and then I will be so tired my body gives out and I crash into the ground Dad has deemed our ‘Base of Operations’ for the night. 

It’s these particular crashes where it seems my mind is so tired I actually get to dream. 

I live for these nights. 

I cherish them. 

Because when I dream. . . I go somewhere else. 

The dreams always begin with me stepping through the entrance of a portal — it’s actually a big, huge gate covered in vines — where I’m immediately transported to another world entirely. 

A world where everything is the greenest green you’ve ever seen. There are flowers everywhere. I've never seen flowers, except for a few here and there that have survived since the Great Fall. 

Mom loves flowers. 

She talks about a time where she had a garden filled with an array of them. Though, I don’t think she meant this many flowers. The flowers here are as far as the eye can see, and the colors are bold, bright, and beautiful.

There are creatures here too — all kinds of creatures. I can’t call them animals because they don’t look like the ones we hunt and eat. 

They are different. 

Friendly. 

I could never kill them for food. 

In fact, here. . . I find my stomach doesn’t ache with hunger pains like it normally does.

My head doesn’t hurt.

My muscles aren’t sore.

This place. . . it seems. . . has no pain and suffering at all. It’s the only time I can remember . . . my body hasn’t ached from all the walking, running, and energy used from the fighting and the killing I’m forced to do to help my family survive. 

When I go to this place in my dreams, there’s no dirt on my face, tangles in my hair, itchy clothes rubbing my skin, or blood on my hands. 

It’s warm there too.

So, so warm. . . 

There are too many reasons to count why I want to go back there—to explore even further beyond the immediate area I find myself wandering in. But no matter how hard I fight to stay behind, I always wake up. 

And the warmth and light are instantly replaced with an overwhelming darkness, and I find myself shivering where I lay from the cold of my world again. 

Sometimes, I promise myself I will find this place I go to in my dreams. 

It feels as real as my life does, so. . . it has to be real. . . or at least, I attempt to convince myself it does. 

But every time I manage to begin to think of the possibility of going in search of it, the reality of survival hits, and I never have the time to go looking. 

Not that I’d really know where to start my search for the gate to take me there. 

I feel important, though, when I tell myself I’m going to happen upon it one day. It’s as if I’m giving myself a secret assignment, fulfilling an inner destiny I don’t quite understand but sometimes think I have.

My older brother, Duncan, laughed at me one time for sharing this with him. 

He called me a baby. 

He said that I needed to “grow up” and face reality — that dreaming about this place was my mind's way of “dealing with” how screwed up everything is. 

I stopped telling him about my plans and dreams after that. 

Deep down, I know he’s probably right. . . but it doesn’t mean I stop hoping. 

I never have. 

Something within me tells me to keep believing.

I hope one day I will get to do more than dream about the place. 

One day, I hope to actually form a plan and start looking. 

I wish tonight was one of those nights where I went away instead of waking up mid-sleep to the burning sensation in my stomach letting me know I had to pee. 

I could just hold it until morning. I’ve done it plenty of times before. But it becomes so painful to hold when I have to go. 

With a heavy sigh, I roll to my side and crawl out from the itchy burlap used to cover me and my younger brother, Miles. We are smaller than Duncan, so we have to share. 

The fire Mom started is dying off now, but the sound of what’s left of its embers burning crackles and acts as a soothing sound to my ears. I love the sounds and smells and the warmth of fire.

I look around before venturing off toward the tree Dad deemed as this campsite's ‘Relieving Station,’ and I immediately stop in my tracks. 

There are only two lumps—people—under the ripped burlap we used to cover ourselves when sleeping. 

Normally, there are four lumps and me. 

Two are missing. 

I can feel my heart pounding and heat instantly rises from my stomach up to my now ringing ears. 

I swallow the lump of bile forming in my throat. It hurts as it goes down, but it’s worth it because it stops the stinging tears in my eyes from forming and takes all my fear and puts it in my chest. 

I prefer the pain aching between my ribcage over allowing tears to form in my eyes. 

I can't appear weak. Dad says, “Criers are vulnerable to attack.” 

So I don’t cry. 

I push down all feelings to survive. 

I want to believe everything is okay, and that two of the five of us missing is nothing to worry about, but after all I’ve been trained for, done, and seen. . . one little thing off in a nightly routine, and— 

I shake my head and begin to assess who is here. 

Focus, Jude, I say to myself.

I see both Duncan and Miles' hair sticking out from where they burrowed beneath the thin burlap. We have to burrow if we want to keep warm. Any exposure to the air and we are instantly shivering from the cool, night breeze. 

Mom and Dad aren’t here. 

I know Dad doesn’t sleep much and often gets up to keep watch, but he usually stays close by—close enough to remain in sight. Mom often switches off with him throughout the night, but never have I seen them go off together and leave us by ourselves.  

My heart pounds a little harder. 

I’m dizzy. 

Something is wrong. 

I can feel it.

This is what Dad has prepared me all my life for. To know danger from a false alarm. The air is still, quiet. That's the start of a storm.

And that’s when I hear something.

“I can’t do this anymore,” my ears catch wind of a whispered voice coming from the treeline.

It sounds like my mother. 

My heart pounds harder against my chest.

Though her voice was a whisper, there’s something in her tone that scares me to death.

I step forward. Quietly, as best I can. 

“You can’t just leave, Anna.” I hear my Dad say in response. He’s whispering too, but his voice is more intense. He sounds desperate, angry. 

Leave? 

Why would my mother leave? 

She can’t leave! 

My feet now race forward on their own accord, but I force them to slow down. I can’t afford for my parents to hear the leaves crunch beneath my feet. 

I don’t know if I want to hear this conversation — and I definitely know I’m not supposed to — but I have to. 

The pang against my rib cage only grows the closer I draw myself nearer and nearer. 

“Every breath I take is another reminder I failed at being a mother," Mom continues.

Failed?

The weight of the word hits my heart with emotion.

I don't understand what she's talking about. Mom has taught my brothers and I to bandage wounds, hunt, cook our hunted food, protect ourselves and the goods we need to. She's even taught us "subjects" from the "Old World" — math, science, English — during our fire time chats. She always says that one day the world might go back to what it used to be and these "subjects" — though they can be incredibly boring to learn — may help us get ahead of the others who weren't taught them.

I managed to make it to the nearest tree and hide behind its tall, thick trunk. Mom is looking around frantically. She has her arms crossed over her chest. It’s as if she’s worried one of us will wake up but also as if the entire forest was watching. 

They could be. Dad says with The Emperor in charge and his soldiers lurking everywhere, you never know who is truly around, watching and listening. 

“Look at them!” Mom stops herself and lowers her voice once again, frantically darting her gaze back and forth in between speaking. “—Blood on their hands, killing to survive. I never wanted this for my babies, and I can’t make it better.”

“So that’s just it?” Dad spat back at her in a loud whisper. “You’re leaving us? How do you think I feel, Anna? You think I wanted this—” Dad’s arm gestures all around the forest. “—for our children? Huh?”

Mom looks away. 

She doesn’t reply. 

My heart hurts.

“What are you going to do?” Dad keeps going. “Better yet, where are you going to go?” 

“I haven’t thought that far yet.” Mom’s crossed arms fall to her sides.

“You haven’t thought at all!” Dad’s voice raises an octave. 

Mom instinctively shushes him, gesturing to him with her pointer finger against her lips and looking around toward the direction of our camp. I make sure to hide myself completely behind the tree trunk so she doesn’t see me. 

Dad quietly laughs, but there’s no humor in the sound that leaves his lips. He shakes his head. I’ve never seen him look so disappointed. . . Defeated.

Tears burn my eyes. 

My breathing grows heavier by the minute. 

My head is spinning. 

I don’t understand what is happening. 

I’ve never seen them like this. Ever. They’ve always been a team . . . at least in front of my brothers and me.

“I’m no good to them—” Mom starts again. “I’m no good to any of you!” I hear emotion rising in her voice now, and she looks around once more, and I figure it’s because her voice raised. “Watching them do the things they’ve—” 

She shakes her head. And then I hear a sound like I’ve never heard before. It was the most painful sounding . . . wail I think I’ve ever heard. It's muffled, of course, because her hand comes up to obviously keep us kids from hearing.

But her hand can't stop the clear pain she released. The noise made sounded as if it came from the very depth of my mother’s being.

I’m completely terrified. 

And now. . . 

Is she. . . crying? 

I look harder. I see the tears falling down her cheeks.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen Mom cry.

Dad’s rule about not crying was something we all took very seriously. 

Besides, I’d not seen much emotion in my mother in the last few years. She's never been harsh to us kids or even Dad, but I’ve watched the life in her eyes fade away. I’ve seen it happen in my entire family.

“I don’t know what’s worse—” Mom’s tone quieted down again. She sounded so tired, so. . . defeated (like Dad looked) . . . that it seemed any fight she may have had left in her died out with that sound. “—witnessing the monsters my children have become—” Mom thinks I’m a monster? “—or being powerless to do anything about it.” 

Her words sting. 

The more she talks, the more confused and scared I become. 

Monsters are the soldiers and thieves who come after us. 

Not me. 

I only do what she and Dad tell us to do. 

I’m watching Dad.

He doesn’t seem to know what to say. 

That scares me too. 

Dad always knows what to do. There’s nothing he can’t do. . . or at least, that’s what I believed. . . until now.

Just when I think this situation can’t become any more confusing and painful, mom opens her mouth again. 

“Aaron, I love our kids, but. . .if I could go back. . .” She pauses. Mom crosses her arms over her chest, almost as if she’s protecting herself from something. She looks around one more time. “If I could go back. . . knowing then what I do now. . .” There’s another pause and she’s choking up between the silence and her next words, “I wouldn’t have brought them into this world.”

Time stops.

I don’t realize it but my face is stained with silent tears. My mind is spinning with the words spoken. I’m trying to process what I just heard, but my brain hurts.  

Mom wishes I had never been born.

How can she love me and wish I wasn't alive at the same time?

I don't understand.

My eyes are wide. 

They burn.

I can’t even blink.  

Tears are forming and gearing up for another flood down my cheeks. My entire body is trembling with the emotion I’m trying to hold inside because I’m not allowed to cry, and I can’t make a sound!

My heart pounds violently against my chest, and I feel dizzy from its pain. I actually believe it’s breaking.

I want to run. 

I want to hide.

I want to go far away to the warm and bright place in my dreams. 

But when I try to take a step to move, I’m unable. 

I stay put. I'm completely frozen. 

There’s a burning trickle running down my leg. I don’t have to pee anymore.

I live in a world of darkness, hunger, stealing, and killing all in the name of surviving, and yet. . .I’ve never been so afraid until now. 

And it’s at this very moment I promise myself. . . the moment I can move again, I’m running far away and finding the gate to my happy place.