Chapter 56 : Hunger

THEO. My heart freezes inside my chest. I look at the girl down in the underground bunk, and something strikes me. Something familiar. Not because of her exactly, but because her age and her terror remind me of something I might have buried deep in my mind. “Hold on, I will go down,” I say, but my head is already not in the game, even when I start to climb down the trapdoor using the flimsy metal bars as a ladder. “Everything will be alright.” Maxine looks down at me encouragingly, and that familiar feeling strikes me back one more time. Before I can even reach the last step, a fuzzy memory starts to blossom. Suddenly, I remember a warm night in the flat lands, far away from the terrains and the mountains of California. The night when I escaped and accidentally hurt the guards because I heard a call for help so strong that I felt the need to travel fast and far. I remember reaching a road that had a broken fence. A car swerved right off the track and crashed into a tree. A girl was