Another one.
Another life.
The community looked at us on the ground with sad eyes. It was always a possibility when the men went out on their missions. The only thing a person could hope for was that it wasn’t their turn to lose a loved one.
“Lola? Has anyone seen Lola? Lola,Mija, where are you?” my sister’s voice cried out in fear.
I quickly got to my feet with Lola in my arms and ran toward her. Her face was splotchy and red, her eyes hollow as she made her way through the crowd toward me.
“I got her, Lydia. She’s okay. I got her,” I comforted as she began to sob with her arms wrapped around us both, with Lola in the middle.
“C-Carlos—”
“I know… I know.” I needed to do something. This couldn’t be what was destined for the women of this place. “Where’s Emmanuel?”
My sister had another child, a teenage boy. Where was he while his family grieved below ground?
Lydia covered her face with her hands and choked out another sob. “I-I couldn’t look at him. Not like that. That was not Carlos. The blood on the bandage is enough to haunt me forever. Emmanuel told me he would make sure his Papa was rightfully seen to the afterlife.” She lifted her eyes to me with an expression of pure guilt. What did she have to feel guilty about? “I’m a horrible mother. It should be me out there!”
Her cries of anguish tore at everyone around us. Some of the women turned their faces away, escorting their children to different locations while some of the men looked upon us both with silent pity.
After consoling my sister and Lola for the next thirty minutes, reminding her that she had no control over the situation, I escorted her back to her home.
“It doesn’t even feel real,” she admitted, holding Lola’s little hand tightly in hers. She looked over her shoulder at me and I clenched my jaw. “Maybe this is all just a nightmare and Carlos will be home tomorrow with a big smile on his face.”
Lola sniffled and I cracked some more. I turned and ran out of her home, letting the breeze dry the hot tears on my own cheeks.
Every community member in Black Hollow was subject to post traumatic stress. It naturally came with surviving this world. Emotional scars outweighed the physical ones as we tried our best to carry on after the fallen.
“I’m so sorry, Inés. Please give your sister my condolences,” one of my neighbors softly called out.
I nodded and kept my head down as I made my way from the main living quarters on the southside to the communal marketplace located at the center of our cavern system.
The community had utilized the biggest cavern space for a small trade center where one could buy food, materials collected from topside and anything else their hearts desired. Though we had farms down here available to everyone, not everyone had the skill of cooking and understanding how certain ingredients worked well with one another.
Skills like those were passed down from generation to generation.
Wiping my eyes, I put on a brave face and walked over to one of the food tents.
“Hey, Inés, what are you feeling for today?” Gavin asked as he leaned forward on his forearms. Gavin was a stockier middle aged man with a face full of wrinkles. His friendly aura called everyone to his stands as the scent of his homemade meals called to those who were close enough to smell it.
Small vents were punctured in the ceiling sporadically within the cave system, leading it topside in random locations. It allowed for the heat from the fires to dissipate when the cooks prepared food for the day.
“Hey Gavin. I’ll just take one of your usuals.”
He gave me a bright smile and put a little bit of soup into a bowl for me. I gave him a smile back as I took it, reaching into my pocket.
“It’s on the house, Inés, you don’t have to worry about me. I’m more worried about you.”
I almost choked on the potato in the soup. Coughing into my hands, I quickly finish it off despite scalding my tongue and hand the bowl back to him.
“Thanks, Gavin. But I’ll be alright,” I assured him. “We have to be.”
When he reached to grab the bowl, he purposely covered my fingers with his.
“You don’t have to be in this world alone, Inés. You know that, right?”
My eyes welled with tears again over the loss of Carlos and how Emmanuel was taking it. I shook my head with a smile and left Gavin silently, refusing to acknowledge his last statement.
