MD: N/A
Time: 1622 hours
Location: MLK Drive and I 85, Atlanta, Georgia
It was still early, but Natalie didn't want to leave the mutant
alone.
In case he did wake up, she wanted to be able to tend to his wounds.
She chose, instead, to pull her notebook out of her bag and start
writing.
As the sky grew darker, there was still no movement from the mutant.
He was still breathing, barely, but still. Natalie would check on him
every ten minutes between writing in her journal about the day's
events. About the men that shot the mutant, about the mutant himself,
about his shelter, about her trouble at the Boy's and Girl's
Club.
She didn't want to write about that last one, but she knew that in
order to better herself, she had to write down the good and the bad
experiences so that she could learn from them.
Natalie's stomach began to grumble and Natalie realized that she
had
not eaten since breakfast. She looked around the makeshift home and
found a small Tupperware box with some raw meat in it. Looking
around, she also found a metal cooking plate to place over the fire.
"If you don't mind," she spoke to the unconscious mutant.
"I was
wondering if you'd allow me to cook some of your meat."
Naturally,
there was no reply.
Natalie stood up and moved to the pile of firewood. Taking a few more
pieces and some blank pieces of paper from her notebook, she started
the fire going again. Natalie placed the metal plate over the fire
and allowed it to heat up. She took a few pieces of the raw meat from
the Tupperware and started to cook it.
Now, Natalie was not a natural cook, but she knew the difference
between cooked food and raw food. Of course, she also didn't
understand the concept of not burning the food. The three pieces of
meat were burnt, but when Natalie looked at the inside of them, having
used her Swiss Army Knife to cut it, it looked edible.
Natalie ate the meat quietly, checking on the beast every now and
then. It had not moved. Natalie figured that he was dead, but the
slow breaths contradicted her. The darkness enveloped the night and
the lights of Atlanta got brighter. The noise above the highway was
noisy for a few hours and Natalie wondered if she should attempt to
talk to someone about what had happened to her today and that the
mutant needed help. She kept standing as if to move toward the sound
of the people, but then, she would look at the mutant, lying there on
the ground and sit back down.
It was getting late. Natalie wasn't sure what time it was, but
she
figured she might as well sleep. She placed one of the sleeping bags
over the mutant to keep him warm overnight. She tucked herself into
the other sleeping bag and fell asleep.
**
Natalie began to dream. She dreamed of a place far away from Atlanta.
She wanted to go away. Get away from the city that had ruined her
life. She dreamed of California. It's beautiful sky and
openness for
dreams to come true. She dreamed of going to the beach and playing in
the water and then building sand castles. She dreamed of being a
child again.
As if Natalie's mind was working against her, her dreams started
to
crumble and turn to nightmares. The child that she was grew to an
adult and was pounced on by a creature of unknown origin.
Natalie's
subconscious self ran away in hopes of getting to a past that could no
longer be reached; the past where she could be a child and not worry
about the real world. But Natalie couldn't run away. She had
run as
much as she could and her legs felt like they would fall off. And
yet, she kept running because the creature continued after her.
She ran until she reached a cliff. She could go not further. She was
unsure what to do. The creature approached her bearing its large
teeth. She didn't want the creature to get her, so she jumped
off of
the cliff. As she fell, she screamed with all of her might.
**
Natalie's eyes opened quickly, but she did not get up at first.
She
noticed that day had broken and that the early morning traffic had
started. "She slowly sat up, but didn't feel any effects of
just
having a nightmare.
"That's weird," she thought to herself. "Usually, I
feel a lot more
tired and I'm breathing heavily after a nightmare." She
pondered her
condition for a moment and then realized that she needed to check on
the mutant.
Natalie turned around and saw that the sleeping bag was tossed aside
and the mutant's clothes were lying on the ground. Natalie
thought
for a moment that perhaps he had gone somewhere to clean himself up.
However, as she looked closer at the clothes, she noticed that his
shoes were with them also. "No one would leave their shoes. Not
in
this weather." Natalie looked down at the ground and realized
that
the mutant must have died and somehow disappeared. Natalie tried not
to think about another person in her life that was gone because it
brought too many memories back.
"Well," she said aloud. "I guess this place is mine,
now." Natalie
stood and started looking through the supplies that were in the area.
