By: Chloe Xiao
It was bright and sunny today. It sure was a wonderful day to be alive.
The snow, deep and slushy, was almost enough to make Jake start crying happy tears. Lonnie on the other hand was screaming and jumping all around. Yelena kept grumbling about how she wanted to read her book in peace. Lonnie and Jack started tumbling around, playing tag. Jack slid down a small hill and kept doing so, refusing to explore along the small hills of snow with Lonnie. With a pout and a shout of “You’ll wish you didn’t miss this!” Lonnie stormed off on her own.
After a few minutes of sledding, exploring and researching about the old invasion of some long-ago country named Ukraine that Yelena had been deployed to earlier on and seemed to know way too much about, a single scream interrupted the deep silence.
Jake would have torn off towards the direction of her screaming had it not been Yelena who had grabbed his wrist, and hurriedly climbed a hill of snow instead of barreling straight towards the snow like Jake. They soon found Lonnie whimpering in pain while a strange metallic box was lying beneath her. The box had a little silver parachute nearby, as if awaiting the next “Yelen, Yelen.”
Lonnie kept whimpering and uttering random things while calling out to the pair. Jake released himself from Yelena’s grip and ran down to comfort her. Yelena simply stared in shock. As she slowly walked down to the hill, she gently picked up Lonnie and set her down on the snow, her HazMat suit slightly stained as if the box was only recently painted.
The whole patch of snow nearby was painted a deep silvery gray. Yelena reached in and grabbed the box, and despite her strength could barely lift it. Lonnie had gotten over her pain after a fair amount of babying from Jake and pouting about how she was fine now but seemed to recover her spirit when she saw the mysterious object that she had landed on.
“What in the bomb is that?” Lonnie exclaimed.
“Probably nothing much. It seems to just be, oh wait.”
Yelena paused for a moment, looking over the package.
“Yea I think I’ll open it. You guys can join if you’d like I assume.”
“But, but what about Mrs. Miriam? Shouldn’t we show her what we found?” Little Jake said, ever so innocent, even after all that had happened. He hadn’t learned the game of the nuclear war. Oh, how Yelena wished for that same level of innocence.
Before all of the nuclear war had happened, Yelena was a sniper in her regiment. All of her friends called her water balloon for what she told herself was that of you popped her she would splash and murder all of you, but in reality, she had thrown something reminiscent of a water balloon at a drill sergeant, and had bathroom duty for the next 3 months afterwards.
But of course, God had a way of changing it all. The bombs started dropping. Yelena choose to desert, running to Mrs. Miriam’s open arms.
And now, standing over the silvery box she gently opened it, before bursting into tears when she saw what was there. A military package. She told herself she already knew what was inside. She hoped she did.
“Um Yelly are you ok?” Jake and his puppy dog eyes were staring deep into her soul, demanding an answer in the sweetest way possible. Yelena took a few moments to breathe, barely able to conceal her happiness in a version of her normal face, but with a ridiculously dreamy look on her typically deep scowl.
The package was simple, just a few care packages and a small message labeled to someone named “Water Balloon”. She let Jake and Lonnie take the rest of the supplies back to Mrs. Miriam and clutched the message, a broad grin on her face.