k_a_webb | Kim’s Earth: Kate: Heading Home (part 4) (Reply)

This entry is part 5 of 29 in the Kim's Earth collection

“From what everyone said they were all thinking, if things are as bad as we really don’t want them to be, of going back to the bunker. Even though we don’t all know each other we are all in the same position, so that’s an option.” Gideon sighed. “There are going to be other survivors, I hope, building communities, some of whom we might actually know.”

Kate bit her lip, trying to remember whose parents had been able to pay the fine in order to make certain that their child was safe, because it was likely that everyone was at least a little worried that something might go wrong. She hadn’t really believed it was possible and yet there had still be this niggling worry in the back of her mind, probably thanks to the reports she’d been reading in the papers. They kept going on and on about how it wasn’t possible for the World Government to have tested the injection well enough, but everyone had wanted to believe the lies – it was easier than thinking that something might go wrong if they had the injection. It had been her dad who had pushed for her to go somewhere safe, wanting her away from everything that was happening, and when she hadn’t arrived they would have had to pay £1000, which was an amount very few people could afford.

If she was being honest with herself Kate wasn’t entirely sure where her parents would have got the money from. That was a month’s salary for her dad, after tax and National Insurance, which had to go to paying the mortgage, the bills, for the food, and they tried to keep some to go into their savings account. Maybe they’d had enough in there to be able to pay the fine. Sighing, she told herself to stop thinking about it, because she was never going to get the answer to her questions, and thought about what Gideon had said. Would she know anyone who had survived, if things were as bad as the newspapers said they could be?

“Do you think anyone you know might still be alive?”

“No, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to hope that they are.” Gideon smiled. “There is a chance that some people did survive having the injection and my plan was, after checking on my parents, to go around the houses of all my friends to see if any one did, but I don’t know if that’s a good idea. If I don’t check on them then I won’t know if they’re alive or dead and I almost think it’s better that way. At least then I can imagine them surviving, going on to live a life, maybe having children, before dying at the age of 85, surrounded by their children and grandchildren.” He shook his head. “That makes me happy that what is likely to be reality, as their parents wouldn’t have been able to afford the fine.”

“How did yours manage to find £1000?”

Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.