#ln3 alone

THE BABIES!!!!!

"Did it work?" asked the little girl with straight black hair and a white dress. She looked up and opened her eyes to snoop around.

"Shh," her brother squealed, lowering his head back to the ground with the gentleness only a child can offer. The girl obeyed. The uneven bleating of the sheep around them distracted them, but that was the point. The four children clenched their fists, summoning the courage that escaped their bodies, expelled in the form of teeth grinding and the struggle to resist the pain.

"I can't," said one of them, the one with the bandaged head. He threw the broken glass aside and pressed his palm to his chest. He swallowed the pain and curled up into himself. The other children stopped when they saw him give in. The girl stood up, confused.

The wounds on the others were still oozing, but as soon as the ritual was called off, they had to bandage their hands. "What a waste of time," the girl with the pointed hood on her head whispered to herself. When it was all over, the masks were removed, and their faces were revealed to their companions. Pale, with sunken features and glasses made of sleeplessness. Five children lost in the world. The girl moved over to the one distressed by his cowardice and comforted him. She placed her small hand on his back and stroked it, careful not to be rough with her touch. "It's okay… it's okay."

"We have to go now," said the girl's younger brother, taking off his hood made from a potato sack. "The bombs will arrive soon, and there's nowhere to take shelter." No one objected; they just nodded and moved heavily to the van. The vehicle was faded, and the yellowish and light blue colors already showed the rust corrosion in irregular patterns. None of the children really knew how to drive, but they had an idea. They put the gearshift in the lowest possible gear, a brick on the accelerator pedal, and one of them would move the steering wheel depending on where they were going. There were no doors for the driver, so they just leaned out to make sure they weren't going to crash into anything.

They accelerated, leaving behind the farmhouse where they had been staying for several weeks. There was a communal feeling of relief and unease when they could no longer see the wooden building in the distance, hidden behind the hills of barren, bombed-out land. Soon it would be worse. The girl with a wound on her hand took out a map, and everyone who wasn't in the driver's seat—that is, everyone except the siblings—analyzed the next route. They had an idea, but they didn't quite know how to execute it.

"We have to get as far away from the north as possible," said the fattest one of them all.

"We have to get as far away from the north as possible," said the fattest one. "We could go further toward the equator. No bombs have reached there," replied the only one without a cut on his hand.

"We'd have to go across the sea," said the brother, who was gripping the steering wheel with delicate firmness. "And unless you find a way to swim in open water without triggering mines, I'm not going there."

"Mines?" asked the girl with the map. "Are there mines in the sea?"

"More or less," said the sister. "They're like… a metal ball with spikes. You press one of the spikes and BOOM!" That didn't reassure anyone.

A hand, they didn't know whose it was, scratched across half the map, dismissing the possibilities they had discussed. "Maybe we could go to another country," suggested the older sister. "How?" asked the one with the bandages.

"Maybe we can go to a country where things aren't so bad. The bombs wouldn't reach us, and we could live in peace. Maybe even have our own house!"

"Doesn't sound bad," said the chubby one. "Why run from the hurricane when you can be in the center and avoid the surrounding areas?"

"No way!" replied the driver. "If it's already hard enough to escape that, going into a battlefield would be suicide."

"Oh, please," his co-pilot downplayed the situation. "We'd just have to go around it."

"Go around what?" he objected. "It's not like there are trenches with signs that say ENEMY TERRITORY, DO NOT CROSS! There's no way to even tell who's on your side or not. Snipers are shooting at anything that moves, tanks are destroying everything in sight, and—and there are just tunnels and more… and more…"

He had to stop; his breathing made it hard to keep his hands on the wheel. The other children knew what it meant, so they kept a safe distance in case they were needed. But as always, it wouldn't be necessary. His sister was always there for him. With the gentleness of a rabbit, she took his hands and placed them against her chest. Her thumb slowly stroked the calluses on his thumbs, formed by the inefficient reloading system of a rifle twice his size. The car kept moving until the wheels lost traction, the engine roaring loudly, but all the boy heard was his sister whispering to him like a mother to her baby.

"Shh… Shh… It's okay. You'll be fine… We don't have to go through it. We could go around it. Maybe follow one of the rivers to the riverbeds. They must have a system of pipes, right? If they do, it must be connected to a river, and that river to the ocean."

"Maybe it's not necessary," added the bandaged boy. "I heard that the carnival…" "Wasn't it a circus?" interrupted the girl in the back of the truck.

"It's the same. The point is, the carnival moves from country to country, and I heard they have some leeway with permits. We could sneak in and travel as stowaways."

"That… doesn't sound bad," replied the brother. "It doesn't sound bad at all."

"Yeah, we could go to the capital and settle in the surrounding area. In a little wooden house, just farming and going to the market now and then…" "How would we buy things?" the bandaged boy asked the girl in the pointed hood.

"How would we buy things?" "Working, obviously!" interrupted the oldest, who wore a bucket as a mask during the ritual. "There are so many opportunities there, more than there were at home. The children can work at anything, from mail carriers and cooks to assistants and delivery drivers… Each of us could find a job that suits us!"

"I'd like to work at a train station," said the hooded girl, with the innocence of a child trying to dream like an adult but failing miserably.

"I'd like to work at a lighthouse!" said the bandaged one, falling into the same trap. "It would just be illuminating the surrounding area, reporting ships, and having the seagulls for company."

"That sounds really boring," replied the one with the bucket for a mask. "I'd like something simpler. Being a janitor doesn't sound bad. Just mopping and sweeping all day…" None of them were measuring their aspirations against reality, but the sister was even more detached, her focus entirely on her little brother, attentive to every micro-expression he made as he imagined a life of peace and tranquility. She believed he had died, that his spirit and energy had vanished and he would only be an empty shell of the person he once was, but it seemed that wasn't the case… He just needed confidence, confidence in the future. However, he preferred to place it in something more tangible and easier to control.

"Yeah… sounds good… I'd like to do a ritual before we leave. So it brings us good fortune and luck on the trip…" "That sounds good to me," the sister replied to the younger boy's request. Even if she didn't see the point of it all, it made her happy that he was happy doing something that brought him peace. The other children simply nodded in agreement. They were enthralled by their fantasies.

"Very well…" said the brother. "It's decided. Let me find a good place to get everything ready. After that, we'll leave for Pale City."

All the children cheered with joy.

Dawn illuminated the grayish mist with the faint orange fireballs that the bombers and battleships fired at each other; none of the children knew who was on which side. Dawn came earlier that morning, for sporadic sunlight awakens anyone. The birds moved in their migratory direction, worried, for they sensed that the air would change and no one could stop the change.

At this point in their lives, the future was uncertain, and even if ash flew up into their nostrils and lodged in their lungs, their bones were coated with asbestos, and their muscles calcified, no one cared. In any case, the bombs were too far away.