Zealous

"I've strayed so far from normal now, I'll never find my way back.
And the truth is, I no longer want to."
-- Alyson Noel


What to do! This huge storm took my family and I’m stuck with my brother. It’s a shame we have no one to help us. We are left to go and find someone else. I don’t think I can do this on my own. I think it best to find other family and leave him with them. I’m old enough to care for myself, but I can’t care for both. He’s too young to help much. What can a ten-year-old do to bring home food and shelter? My fifteen years can bring in more for us to survive than his years.


She walked away from the destroyed rubble, wind blowing through her, chilling her bones. She left the rubble knowing things would be far from normal for her. Jezeel brushed the top of her hand across the tip of her nose. No more tears. No time. Time to move on. She thought it best to look for the remains of the family, her brother. He wasn't here when the windsheer came through the tiny village of mud and straw. Jezeel looked around her. Everything looked flattened. Some of the piles of rubble stirred and people emerged from them. Shouts of people calling for their loved ones.

My brother and I argued the night before. We always fought, but this one was different because he came at me with a knife for selling his leather bag for food to eat. He never told me why or what was so special about the bag. We needed to eat and I knew it. I swallowed against my will because I wanted to show him I had the power to hurt him more.

"Fester," I said, "you have to understand we need to eat. That is more important than the objects we possess."
He glared at me, his chest moving up and down in exaggerated motions. His lips tight and his eyes squinting, as if to send nails right at me. I stiffened my back. "Put the knife down. We have to work together for us to survive." His respirations relaxed a little.

"That was my compass!" he said. "We need that to survive! How will we know where we are to go?" He lowered the knife, returning it to its handmade leather sheath, and turned away leaving me alone to watch. He didn't stop. He kept walking and never looked back.

That was last night, before the storm. He didn't eat. I ate the food I purchased with his compass. Looking at the different piles of rubble, some people seem to appear. There were few and no one looked familiar. After finding what appeared to be the main street, I walked away from the village. I think my brother was already gone. He didn't have his compass, but he was good at navigating.