The Prophet's Daughter by Kilayla Pilon

Cobalt.
    “So, this community we’re going to, how far is it?” I asked as I finish ed zipping up a backpack filled with food. We’d packed all the food and water we could carry – we decided to leave behind any clothing we had, making room for more necessities like medical supplies and weapons. We didn’t have many bullets left, and I was running out of arrows, but I was more hopeful that we wouldn’t need to use them.
    “It’s about a four or five day walk from here,” Isaac said, sighing. “It’ll be worth it though, don’t worry.” His voice was soft, as if he wasn’t speaking to me at all.
    “What’s it like up north?” I mused, tilting my head. I had to wonder what it was like – we had never gone far up north because of how cold the winters got. We had bounced between provinces and spent days down south, but we had never really gone too far north – in fact, we had never gone further north than in the house we had been living in.
    “Cold winters, beautiful scenery, but… I don’t know how bad it is up there. It could be crawling with bandits, some infected may even remain, I don’t know. I thought most of those infected were dead by now, but that dog…”
    “We’ll just have to see,” I said and patted his back.
    “I guess so,” he murmured in response, shying away from my touch. He took a side step away from me, beginning to walk towards the path we had taken from the road without me. I jogged after him, making sure I was a few steps behind him.
    “If it makes you feel better, there is one thing we have in common,” I began, deciding that I would try and cheer him up.
    “What’s that?” He said.
    “We’re both parentless!” I sa id, grinning up at him and realizing then that what I had said sounded far better in my head than out loud. “Arin? Can you do something for me?” Isaac asked his voice sweet.
    “Depends, what is it?” I hoped it was something simple.
    “Stuff a sock down your throat,” he said, batting his eyelids at me.
    Good one, idiot, I thought and stared down at my feet, shuffling along beside him.
    Silence succeeded our conversation, a good half hour of walking along the road with nothing but the wind and crunch of our footst eps against the gravel along the roadside. Every sound seemed amplified in the echoing silence around us. After a while, I couldn’t take it anymore.
    “How do you know we're headed in the right direction?” I inquired, shocked at the sound of my own voice – i t sounded, to me, like it could be heard for miles in every direction.
    “I just do,” Isaac said his response not very reassuring.
    “And how did you hear of this place?” I continued, hoping to get some information out of him. I didn’t just want to walk in to some place I had never heard of before with someone I had known for just over a thirty hour period.
    “Word gets around,” he said and gave a slight shrug. “Dad used to have contacts all over.”
    “Have you ever been to it?” I questioned, unable to contain my curiosity.
    “No,” he replied with a sigh. “Trust me, we’ll get there.”
    “Okay,” I murmured in response, chewing on my lip. He’s never seen it, but everything is riding on it being a safe place to stay. What if it doesn’t even exist?
    “You have my word. Maybe I’ ll take you over to one of the lakes on the way, show you some of the beauty left in this damn world.” He gave a little snort, shaking his head. “What very little there is, I mean.”
    “There’s beauty everywhere, Isaac, you just have to look,” I assured, cros sing my arms and glancing up at him.
    “Well,” he laughed. “I don’t see it.”
    “Look up,” I said, grabbing his arm and pointing up to the sky, where a large black bird soared above.
    “I see the sky,” he said, looking up and yanking his arm from my grip.
    “And there’s a bird,” I continued, moving my finger to point at the soaring creature.
    “Oh boy, a bird,” he said, his tone full of