Some say this is the end of the world—those are the doomsdayers. The transients disagree. They say we’re just passing through another dark time in history.

According to the government, I’m no one, with no past, no future, and no hope. They’ve locked us in this wasteland of crumbling buildings. Those hungry and desperate like me were lured here by the food trucks. Next came the barricades, and then the walls. After that, any hope for a different life evaporated. 

But I had a life before all this. 

Before my mom died. 

Before my dad disappeared. 

Is it wrong to hope that he’s dead and spared from ending up inside a walled city like this one? To imagine that he’s found my mother in a better world? 

Sometimes I’m so cold and hungry and lonely that I don’t know what to wish for, and wishing feels too hard. Hope too dangerous. There’s only surviving, and nothing more. Or so I thought. 

Beyond reason. Beyond any glimmer of rationality lies a desire I don’t dare to utter aloud. I want to escape these walls. I want a life beyond this prison. I want the impossible. And when there’s nothing left to take from me, I will rise.