Grey

Grey
Kira
The wind lifted my brown curls off of my shoulders. I stared into the distance. I could feel the nervousness in the air. Our world was in trouble. The sun was going to explode. And we only had 1 day left. One whole day. 24 hours. The scientists had calculated it with their “amazing” math skills.
I was not necessarily worried or upset that the sun was going to explode. Everyone knew it was eventually going to happen. Well, at least I knew. And Grandma. She had large round grey eyes just like me. In our religion grey eyes meant you had a special magic inside of you and you were put onto this earth for a reason. Grey eyes meant you were wise and strong and powerful.
A painful nudge in my right rib sent me skyrocketing out of my day dreaming. “Oww!” I grunted under my breath to my cousin. He turned and smirked at me, his brown eyes twinkling with laughter. I smirked right back at him and turned back to our town leader.
The town leader Rodrick kept blabbing on and on about how we had to stick together till the end and all that stuff. But we all knew once our biggest source of light vanished, and meteorites started falling from the sky chaos would break loose. There would be no stopping it.
I sat in my bed and stared out into the stars. At 12 AM it would happen. I was surprised with myself though. I was not worried. I was not crying into the arms of my mother and father like my sister was. I was sitting and waiting. Waiting for what millions of people have been waiting for. They always used to say that the world could end right now or tomorrow or in a million years. But now, it was actually happening and nobody knew what to do.
A shrill scream made me wake up drenched in hot sticky sweat. I couldn’t see anything. A huge red thing lit up the sky. It was falling towards my house. I jumped out of bed and grabbed a fuzzy robe to put over my pajamas. I groped around the the hallway wall and finally found the light switch. I flicked it on and jumped back. My sister was sitting right in front of me shaking. “Where's mom and dad?” I yelled over the roar of people. “Th-they’re dead! They died trying to save me. They were carrying me out of the room when th-the door collapsed” Erica burst into another round of tears. I froze. I
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couldn’t move. I knew we were going to die if we didn’t get out of the house. I broke free of my grief and hid it in the back of my mind.
I picked up my sister and ran towards the door. Time seemed to slow down. As soon as my foot hit the ground our house collapsed on top of me. The world I knew was taken from me and I was thrust into a new one.
In this world everyone was laughing and having fun. The sun shone brightly and made the children's faces light up. My parents and Erica were laughing and playing together. Erica called out my name. “Kira!” At first it sounded like she was happy and wanted me to play but then she started crying. “Erica! Erica! Whats wrong?” I screamed at her. She wouldn’t answer.
I woke up and screamed. All I could feel, all I could see, all I could hear was a blinding pain. “Quick! Get some water” I heard in the background. I tried to calm myself down. I breathed in and out, in and out. It wasn’t helping much. Suddenly everything stopped. The pain left me. I felt my body relax. I tried to open my eyes but when I did I could barely see anything. The only things I could see were two soft brown eyes full of worry. Carlos. My cousin. I felt myself slowly lose consciousness.
“Erica? Carlos? Where are you? The pain is not as bad anymore. What happened? Where am I?”
“Shhh. Calm down. We’re right here. The door collapsed on top of you and crushed your leg. The town doctor fixed it up but, the reason why it hurt so much was because they couldn't find any anesthesia and anyway it would have been too dangerous to use with only candle light to see by” replied Carlos to my distressed cry. I blinked a couple of times. Two blurry forms came into view. “Erica, is that you?”
“Yes, it’s me. I’m right here. Everything is going to be ok.”
As soon as those words tumbled out of Erica I knew something was wrong. “Carlos? Erica? What’s going on?” They both seemed to zip their lips up into silence. “Tell me!” Tears started dripping from Erica's eyes. “We lied. I’m so sorry. The doctor couldn’t fix you. Your dying.”
The truth of the words hit me like a bullet. I was dying. I was dying. “How long do I have?” I asked, trying to act calm but failing.
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“We don’t know” Erica whispered hoarsely. I looked at both of them and then laid my head down and looked at the stars through the cracks in our little hut. I was going to die.
Erica
Tears blurred the image of Kira’s frail, dying body. She was getting weaker and weaker. We all knew that she was going to die soon. Maybe even today. But I didn’t want to think about that. I wanted to think about all the times we had fun together. All the times when we were younger and played princess. I had always insisted on being the princess and Kira would always let me. She was always so nice to me but I never realized. I never realized until the day she started dying. It hurt me in my heart that I had to wait until my sister started to die to realize how much I truly loved her.
I woke slowly and peacefully. I could hear Kira in her little bedroom in the hut we had built. She was coughing. Hard. All of a sudden, I knew it was happening. She was going to be gone after this. Gone, forever. I ran out of the room with tears making my white skin show up under the mask of dirt. I ran and ran until I tripped. I didn’t even try to stop myself from falling. I just let myself fall. I let go. I hit the hard rocky earth and closed my eyes. I breathed in the air. It no longer smelt fresh and clean. It smelt like smoke and fire and grief.
A hand touched my shoulder and made me jump. I turned around and saw Carlos. I could tell by the lines of sadness now forever embedded into his face that Kira had died. “You know, she’s not really gone. She’ll always be around watching over us. Watching us grow and become good people” he sounded as if he was trying to convince me and himself.
We sat still and stared up at the stars that were now going to be there forever. We could no longer tell if it was night or day. But somehow, someway, we found a spark of hope inside of us and forged on. We believed.