It usually took a few minutes to get the next person into the room, but this time it took almost half an hour. Phoebe was the first one to go after they finished processing Peter’s. He was in and out within a matter of seconds. Nobody waiting could understand why it took so long to call her in. She couldn’t stop thinking about what Peter said on his way out, either. She was terrified that once she got in there, it would be the first thing on her mind. She carefully climbed into the chair and tilted her chin up to the ceiling. Phoebe could smell the rubbing alcohol, so she knew it had been wiped down. She hated hospitals because of the bacteria and illness everywhere, but it was clean here. The chemicals almost started burning her nose as she took a deep breath. Tabitha spoke minimally, which made her feel a little more awkward. She looked around, avoiding eye contact as Tabitha stuck her with IVs, offering no warning. Phoebe just stared up at the ceiling instead, a bead of sweat dripping down her forehead. Tabitha disappeared, then came walking up with the purple injection. “Miss, I’m allergic to a lot of things,” Phoebe glanced over at her.

  “Don’t worry, we ran an allergy screening on you,” Tabitha injected her. Phoebe looked back at the ceiling and took a few deep breaths. “Just stay calm, you won’t have to do much work. Relax,” Phoebe closed her eyes. She felt normal for a little while until her eyelids got heavier. She realized she couldn’t open them after that, but she felt very peaceful. She had problems falling asleep at night since her mind was so active, which made it harder for her to relax throughout the day. It had been like this ever since elementary school. She felt great now, though. Her whole body was lighter. She wanted to stay here forever. “Where is your hometown?” Her heart skipped a beat at the sudden change in color in front of her. She had seen nothing but darkness, but it quickly lit up upon Tabitha’s request. In front of her was a long road going through the middle of Hartland. She was walking on the sidewalk. To her right were old buildings from the 1900s, some of them still in use, like the post office. The door was holding onto the frame by a thread. The left side of the street was small, random buildings. There was a Break-Time gas station, and next to it was a daycare, then next to that was an autoparts shop. There was no rhyme or reason to this town. People built wherever, and businesses popped up in random places.

  She walked up to the four-way and peered into the glass window of a brick building placed on the corner. It had a for-sale sign on it that never went away. It used to be the best pizza place in town, but the landlords raised the rent to a higher price. The place was bought out, and their pizza oven was stolen from the next incoming restaurant. That specific owner faced a lot of backlash. They had little to no customers, and soon they had to move out, too. There had been at least eight restaurants moving in and out within the span of every other month following. Nobody could afford it since the business wasn’t that good, and the rent continued to rise. A lot of the business plots were always placed at ridiculous prices since it was the same man who owned them all. An evil, evil man. Successful, top-of-the-line businesses had tried to come to Hartland before, like a Sonic---and places like these would have a boom in business since the town had nowhere else to go---but the man refused to sell the land to them. The town was never going to grow at this rate.

  Phoebe looked down the right side of the street at the middle school and high school built across from each other, and then turned to the left to see the tattoo shop directly on the other side. Someone waved her forward, and she walked to the other side, then took a right past the police station and into the large library. Paper cranes hung from the ceiling, each a different color. Computers lined the walls, and in the middle were multiple bookcases. The carpet was rainbow-flecked all the way across. Everyone had at least one memory here, but barely anyone had a library card. In middle school, since nobody could drive, they would walk behind the school building to the library for their parents to pick them up. Here, people would hang out with their friends right by the doors. The elementary school and primary school were across town, which meant traffic at these times would be backed up all the way down the main road. Compared to every other town across the general area, Hartland had the smallest school, but compared to the tiny schools like Windland, it was huge. Hartland was big enough to have three to four grades per school, but not small enough to combine the grades six through twelve.

  “Show me your family,” Phoebe’s eyes shifted into a new memory. She stepped up the front, gray steps, and into the mudroom, typing in the code to the door and walking inside. She took off her shoes and put them on the shelf, greeting the dog as she walked in, then walked into the kitchen. The floor was white and black tiled, and the cabinets were white and black to match. Greeting the fish as she walked by into the living room, she threw her hands up in the air as she saw a girl sitting on the couch. Her legs were crossed, and she was picking a guitar

  “Amelita!” She yelled. The girl looked up with a smile, then placed the guitar down next to her. “I am here!”

  “Welcome!” She smiled. “It’s about time. We were about to start a movie. Conner’s making sliders outside. Dude, he won this grill from his work party, and trust me, this thing ishuge.” Phoebe sat down criss-crossed on the couch and looked out of the glass that made up the back porch’s doors. In the yard was a man and a woman throwing sticks into a pile. Phoebe watched them for a moment, her heart warming. Her head turned again when the back door opened, and in came a six-foot-five man, holding sliders on his plate.

  “Amelia, Fuck you,” he didn’t look up as he spoke. His steps were heavy as he walked across the dining room and into the kitchen.

  “Alright.” She replied. Phoebe and her got up and followed him.

  “Oh shit, Fi, I didn’t see you,” Conner gave her a fist bump before going back to cutting the sliders. She heard someone walking down the stairs and sat on the couch in the living room. Seconds later, a banjo started playing. Amelia grabbed a slider and put it on a plate, handed it to Phoebe, then grabbed her own and sat in front of the dining table. “Fi, go tell Gunner and Mom the food’s ready.”

  “Si!” She stood up from the table and walked onto the front porch. “Gunneria, Madre, food is ready!” She closed the door and turned towards Barrett. He had been picking the banjo. “Time to eat,” She told him. She sat back down at the table next to Amelia. As she started to eat, Amelia slid over a cup of sweet tea for her. Conner joined them at the table, then Barret, and afterwards followed Gunner and Mom, who walked in seconds later.

  “Dude, I had a twelve-hour shift a couple days ago,” Amelia said between bites. “This guy’s appendix burst after he got impaled by afencepole. A fence! it was beautiful,” She took another bite.

  “I thought you were at the station a couple of days ago? I saw your car across the street when I woke up,” Phoebe put her slider down and got up to fill her water bottle up with ice.

  “I was late that night. Doing SCBA drills in the bay,” She opened the bottom of the fridge and shunted up some ice. “It was brutal. Fire academy graduation didn’t tell me I’d have to do that after running such a long shift.” Phoebe sat back down at the table.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “Welcome to the real world.” Conner grabbed a French fry from Amelia’s plate. She smacked his hand away.

  “Shut it. You work less consecutive hours than I do, so you don’t get to say nothin’.” Amelia snapped back at him.

  “Hey, be nice. Is this how you treat your brother when he’s been gone for two weeks?” Mom looked betweent he two of them. Phoebe pursed her lips, knowing they had just gotten in a little bit of trouble. It amused her. She comically shrugged her shoulders and took a sip of water.

  “Yeah,” Amelia muttered. “It is.”

  “Are you related to Jacob?” She heard Tabitha’s voice pierce her ears. Phoebe had been so caught up in the memory she had forgotten it wasn’t even real.

  “No,” she replied. The memory slowed down and came to a stop. “This is my family,” She looked around the table. It had been so long since she sat down with all of these people. The people she loved. They loved her, too.

  “What was your home life like?” The memory started to fade, and she ended up back in her house in the middle of town. She was sitting in her bed, listening to her mom yelling at her from the doorway for not doing the dishes. She got up and walked downstairs, passing by her little brother and little sisters’ rooms. They were glued to their screens and throwing chips into their mouths, leaving crumbs all over the floor. There was dust gathered in every corner. The house was always dirty, no matter how much she tried to clean it. She went into the kitchen, turned the water on hot, and started to scrub every dish three times. Immediately upon completeion she ran back up the stairs. She passed by her mom as she went by, their shoulder’s lightly grazing each other. Neither of them said anything. Her mom ended up in the living room and started to argue with her dad. Phoebe stopped at the top step, listening in. Her mom was always yelling at her dad, but it was because of the way they treated Phoebe. They would get mad at her for addressing them to her friends as ‘him’. They had chosen a new way of identification a few years ago, but she didn’t want anyone to know that. To her, it was just Dad. No matter what. Phoebe took the last step up and went into her room. When she stepped inside, she spotted her little sister digging through her stuff. She was defeated, though, and didn’t fight back as her sister ran out of her room. She shut the door and lay back down in her bed, rubbing her face with her hands and taking a deep breath before praying. She didn’t have much to comfort her, but Jesus was always there. No matter how alone she felt, she knew he was just a call away. She closed her eyes, thinking about her family again. The last time she had seen each one of them, they were sick or dead. When she opened her eyes again, the lights that had been on were off. The room was significantly colder, too. She sat up and looked at her changed clothes, then at her hands covered in dirt. She was in a new memory. She got up and went to the sink downstairs to pour a bottle of water over her hands until they were clean again. The house was quiet and empty, and the clock on the wall wasn’t working anymore. She went to the backyard and saw the four piles of dirt, some of them with grass over them, and some of them fresh. She had spent a long time trying to make it presentable. Phoebe wanted her family to have the respect they deserved. She pulled the curtain over the window and sat at the table, her hands over her face. A couple of tears slid out as she listened to the silence, but then the doorbell rang. She wiped her face off and walked to the window. Peering through it, she clutched the gun in her hand. It was two familiar faces. Slowly, she took out each and every lock in order to open the door. On the other side stood Breelyn and Emma, holding cookies in their hands.

  “How did you get up into Windland?” Tabitha spoke once more. Phoebe blinked, and the memory of Emma and Breelyn morphed into one. Amelia was standing in front of her where the two of them had once been. She felt like she had gone cross-eyed.

  “I’m going up North to see Jacob in Greenwood. I was passing through town, and honestly wanted to see if you would come with me if your mom’s okay with it?” Amelia asked. Phoebe stood, her feet frozen in place. Her heart felt frozen, too.

  “When myhermanos, brother and sister, were sick months ago, they didn’t make it.Esokay, though. I’m still here, and they joined our Father in heaven. Mi madre,mom, joined them too, a little after the last time you saw me. I’m okay, especially knowing that they are too,” She felt a ping in her heart, but she was okay. She had spent a lot of time trying to be okay. With that, she didn’t want to lose the habits she had when she was a child. She liked to speak a little Spanish to keep up with herself, no matter what people had to say about it.

  “God’s plan. I know you don’t need to be reminded, but I’m sure hearing it from another voice makes it better.” She nodded at Amelia’s reassurance. “Come stay with me. We can go visit my cousin, and then come back here and get your things. We still have that guest bedroom you used to stay in all the time during school, you remember that?” Eventually, Amelia came inside as Phoebe went to grab some of her things, then they got into Amelia’s truck to get the rest of their friends. The rest of the memory was a blur as they went through the military wall and made it to Amelia’s Grandma’s house in Greenwood. They walked inside, Amelia in the front, when she suddenly disappeared. They could hear commotion inside and saw her through the glass window getting pinned up against the wall. They all ran in, guns out. This was before they realized it was Jacob. The memory sped up again, jumping from them building the fire, to sleeping, to the football game in Windland. She watched the game, her stomach constantly churning with fear from being in such a large crowd. She knew the disease that wiped out a lot of the world was spread in big places like this. People gathering here was a terrible idea. She kept her hands folded in her lap, refraining from touching anything she didn’t have to. She held her breath too, trying to keep from breathing in any bacteria. She was relieved when Amelia insisted they get up and go out to catch a breath. They went to walk away, but Amelia and Tristan started talking. Phoebe tapped her fingers to her thumb, counting each tap to calm herself. Finally, Amelia led the way down from the stands. As they got closer to the entrance, the first bomb hit, and all four of them fell to the ground. Phoebe threw her hands over her head, her ears pounding as she looked up. The first thing she saw was Amelia, who was clearly out of it, staring at something way behind her. Her eyes were wide with fear as she turned back. She saw Emma behind Amelia, pulling her up by her arm as Breelyn reached over to grab Phoebe. Phoebe looked over at Breelyn, both of them sharing a fearful look. They looked back at Emma and Amelia right as the second bomb hit. Each of them disappeared into the dust, vanishing from their line of sight. Phoebe looked at the ground, pinching her eyes shut and hyperventilating. She needed to calm down. She couldn’t seem to breathe, though. Breelyn tried pulling her up, but she was glued there, her face pressed to the asphalt. Her ears rang, keeping her from focusing on the world around her. She started to remember Peter’s words, telling her, “Amelia died in the bombing”, and for some reason, it started to feel real. Her chest started to hurt. She rolled over to her side and put her hand on her heart.

  “She’s dead,” She wheezed. “She’s gone,” his words echoed in her mind. She looked back through the dust, listening for a sound that she could faintly pick out. It was a beeping noise. It got louder and louder the faster it got, then suddenly her whole body jumped as if it had been shocked. It was like she had fallen asleep too fast and fallen through the floor. She sat up quickly, her hand over her heart. She looked over to Tabitha, who seemed pretty content.

  “You did well!” She unhooked everything from her arms. “Your heart rate got a little quick, but that’s completely expected. Everything went well. You can send Emma behind you,” Phoebe got up, her head a little dizzy from hyperventilating. Tabitha handed her a cup of water, and she walked out, pointing to Emma.

  “You’re next,” Her voice was hoarse. Phoebe then walked out with no further words and stepped into the bunk room. She never wanted to go back into that place again.