“Are you sure we’re not lost?” I asked Mauro, propping myself up against a tree. Mauro was drawing out a map in the dirt.

“Yes, I’m sure. Look. We had to avoid the bitters here,” he pointed to the makeshift map, “so we took this trail here. The main road should be around here. So my guess is that if we continue along this trail, we’ll either end up back on the path or onto the road.”

“And how long is that going to take?”

“Not too long. By now we’re a little less than a day’s walk from Alexandria.”

“Okay, so—“ breaking out into violent coughing fit, I stumbled to the ground. Mauro rushed over and caught me.

“You’re just getting worse and worse.” He pointed out.

The jig was up. “Hey there’s something I need to tell y—“

“Sissy!” Shouted Amie. She ran towards us, holding a small bouquet of wild flowers. “Look at the fwowers I picked for you!”

Taking the bouquet, I told her how beautiful they all were. I picked one out and placed it behind my little sister’s ear.

“What about big brother?” Mauro pouted.

I giggled.

Amie though for a moment, then she marched over near the trees and marched right back with a big leaf. “Fwowers are too girly!” She proclaimed. She then pulled Mauro down and placed the leaf in the breast pocket of his shirt, and went back to her patch or flowers not to far away.

Mauro looked back at me with a big grin. “You were going to say something?”

How could I ruin the joy written all over his face? Clenching the fabric of my dress I said, “I forgot. Must not have been important.”

He gave me a sceptical look, but dismissed it. “Well, we should get a move on if we want to be there before dark.”

Mauro helped me regain my balance, then we fetched Amie and continued on out trek through the forest.

Finally back on our original path, we found an old abandoned bus. Mauro banged on the side of it and within seconds, a bitter started banging on one of the windows. Amie hid in her face in the skirt of my dress.

“Stay here.” Mauro commanded.

“No complaints here.” I thought.

He hopped onto the bus and took care of the bitter. And like he learned from our father, he started to do a sweep of the bus to make sure it was safe.

While waiting with Amie, I started to look around. The afternoon sun, trees towering over us, the ground littered with stuff people left behind, and the bus. It was rusted and overgrown, but it had its own charm to it.

Mauro stepped out of the bus. “We’ll rest here for the night.”

“What? But you said we weren’t far!” I said.

“Yes but you can barely stand and we don’t know if there’ll be a safer spot to rest at.”

“Yah, but—“

“No!” His shout made me flinch. He then composed himself. “You need your strength, and Amie’s starting to have a hard time too. We’ll start walking again first thing in the morning.”

“…Okay.” I said in defeat.

Mauro took Amie by the hand and lead her towards the bus. My vision and went blurry and the world started spinning. The bus along with Mauro and Amie started going sideways…

“Sissy!”

“Nella!”