Zoo by Tara Elizabeth Page A

far apart as
possible with their backs to each other. My mother is awake. She’s
looking at my framed picture on her nightstand. She’s silently
crying, while my father is unaware in his unconsciousness.
     
    ***
     
    This time after the flash of light, we are
in an office building. My mother and father sit across from one
another with bitter expressions. A man in a fancy, pinstriped suit
sits next to my mother. Another similarly suited man sits next to
my father. Divorce papers sit between them. They have already
signed them.
    I feel sick. So much was ruined when I died.
Over what?
    A text.

BACK TO THE PRESENT IN THE FUTURE
     
    My body and mind feel broken. I slowly open
my eyes to see blinding, white light all around me. I groan as I
prepare for another onslaught of disturbing images of what was lost
and what was ruined. But I realize that I’m able to blink. I force
my eyes to focus on something other than white.
    I panic as I find that
there’s only white here. It’s consuming me. White . . . only
white.
    Finally, I manage to roll my head to the
other side and see Kale facing me. His eyes are haunted as he
stares back at me from a large, white reclining chair. It’s like a
dentist’s chair with restraints, but sleek and futuristic looking.
There are no buckles on the restraints or hinges on the chair.
    Instinctively, I jerk my hands up, but they
don’t move.
    This is all my fault. Kale didn’t need to
see whatever it was he saw. He shouldn’t be strapped to that chair
next to me. “I’m so sorry,” I whisper to him, as I fight back tears
of guilt.
    He whispers back, “Are you
okay?” Am I okay? How can he even care about how I feel after what I just
caused him to go through? But I can see the concern growing in his
eyes.
    A man clears his throat, interrupting my
answer to Kale. I roll my head forward and look around the room to
take everything in and find whoever made that sound. “Dick.” I
groan when I see him.
    “ It’s good to see you too,
Emma. You as well, Kale.” Dick cheerfully welcomes us. His hair is
extra shiny today.
    I twist my hand over in the restraint and
give him the finger with a sickly, sweet smile.
    “ I see that you enjoyed
your little visit home. Well, this is just a friendly reminder that
should you choose to disrupt the public again, we will be forced to
return you to your original fate. Death. And I would hate to see
you go.” He takes out his tiny notepad from his jacket pocket and
flips it open.
    “ I see here that the two
of you haven’t mated yet. I would recommend that you make that
happen soon. Should you fail to produce an offspring for the
facility, protocol says that you will be transferred to another
enclosure. Remember what I told you about those places, Emma
David.”
    Kale asks Dick, anger evident in his voice,
“And what will happen to the baby once Emma has it? Will you take
it? Will you put it in a cage by itself to see what happens?
There’s no way we’re going to comply with your demands.”
    Dick is all smiles. He doesn’t answer any of
Kale’s poignant questions. He simply says, “Well, that is your
decision to make, but I promise you, you don’t want to get
transferred. They aren’t as nice there as we are here.” He glances
at his old-fashioned wristwatch and says, “Time flies when you’re
having fun. It was nice to see you two, as always. Goodbye for
now.”
    Dick walks to the other side of the room and
then disappears into the white wall as our chairs inject us with
knockout juice. My vision tunnels and the blinding, white light
slowly turns into a black void.

OUR RETURN
     
    We wake up on the ground by the rock wall.
My head is pounding and I’m nauseous. The clouds in the sky seem to
be swirling and shaking above me. Then I see that Janice and Greg
are kneeling next to us. They’re waiting for us as we regain
consciousness.
    Janice scoots closer to me and brushes the
hair from my sweaty face. “Are you okay? What did they do to