Prologue

Prologue

A Chapter by Manon Eileen
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In this chapter, we are introduced to Cecilia, who lives in Panama. Her world is about to change immensely.

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Cecilia took a deep breath of the fresh, thin mountain air and threw her head back, closing her eyes. She spread her fingers and put her arms in the sky. She felt the wind blow through her fingers and she opened her eyes again. She saw the bright blue sky and the high, castle like clouds. She saw the sun and she relished the sensation of it on her skin.

From where she was standing, she could see out over the whole of Panama, and in the far distance, she could see the Pacific Ocean. If she could, she would build a little house right here, on the summit of the Barú volcano. The sight took her breath away every time she ventured out on the mountain.

Usually, Cecilia would take her younger sister, Cruz, to climb the sleeping volcano with her. She couldn’t come today, though. She had to help their parents with a sick goat. Getting the day off was a rarity for Cecelia and whenever she got that freedom, she grabbed it with both hands and wouldn’t let go. It was her only chance to find the pleasure she so longed for every day. Being there, on the mountain, gave her a feeling of freedom she never experienced anywhere else.

           

Having to go through the thick, damp rainforest of Barú, the climb up the mountain was an arduous one and it took Cecilia six hours just to get to where she was now. She left very early and because of her good mood it took her less time than usual to get to the summit. But if she wanted to get down in time, she would have to leave again soon.

It would take less time to get down, about four hours. She would probably still be in time for dinner. Her parents always had dinner early. Or at least, much more early than the other people in their village.

Her parents were one of the few people in town with a strawberry farm, and now, early spring, the seeds needed to be sown, old plants had to be removed, and the remaining plants had to be checked for pests. It wasn’t a big farm, and her parents could manage it with the help of their 6 children, but during the harvest season they got a lot of help from the other villagers.

 

            Cecilia looked out over Panama for the last time that day, sighed deeply and turned around. Her mood suddenly turned. She hated that she could only stay on the mountain for such a short time. It was time to return to Santa Rita, one of the many tiny villages strewn over the volcano’s fertile hills.

Cecilia made her way down the mountain in about four hours, as she expected. She looked at the sun; it had already lowered a lot and was hanging only one hand’s breadth above the horizon. That meant there was only one hour of light left. Santa Rita lay on the hills of the volcano; actually, it wasn’t all that far from the top of it, maybe 10 kilometer as the crow flies.

She walked along the Rio Chico, a river consisting of only rainwater, which flows through Santa Rita. She could already see the village below her, through the trees. It was not much farther, around twenty minutes.

 

            Still following the river, stepping on the moist forest floor, she entered the village. There were small clay houses here and there and she knew the inhabitants of each of them. There was one television in the village, in the church that also served as a school. The television was an old one, perhaps as old as fifty years. But it worked perfectly fine. Well, as fine as you can expect of a fifty year old machine.

The inhabitants of Santa Rita didn’t care much for the technology of the outside world and the television was mostly ignored. Sometimes the people of Santa Rita heard stories about transportation devices that could levitate, but they had never seen one, not even on tv. They found such stories incredible.

They still used cars here, in Santa Rita, possibly still in the whole of Panama. The few they had in Santa Rita were used infrequently. It was very hard to repair damaged cars because carparts were hard to get by in these parts.

Most people were inside at this hour, just before dinner. It was a time for being with the family, and no one would disturb another family during dinnertime. It was even considered a sacred time of the day, by the more superstitious. Dinnertime, a holy event. Cecilia chuckled.

A few chickens were clucking in a pen beside one of the houses and when she looked, she saw one of her neighbors, an elderly woman with stark grey hair and a back that was hunched quite a bit.

“Hola, Cecilia! Esta bien?” her neighbor called.

“Si, si, I’m fine!” Cecilia replied, waved, and continued walking.

Again, she chuckled. Nobody really spoke Spanish anymore these days. At least, not the younger people. About eighty  years ago, the Middle and South American countries had become allies of the Northern American countries and the United Nations of Europe.          

Not long after that, English had been made a second language. The UNE had already taken on English as their first language years before that. Considering that they had like forty different languages there it must be a lot more easy to communicate now, Cecilia mused.

 

            Still walking, she passed more houses, some overgrown with moss, others under big palm trees. She loved this place, even if she would rather be on top of the volcano most of the time. The people were nice, she felt safe and at home. This village was her everything.

She passed the church and school. The church and school shared a building, and it was the biggest building in Santa Rita. It could house many people. Mass was on Sunday’s, early in the morning. School was on Saturday’s and Sunday’s (after mass), the week was for farm work.

Cecilia’s home was on the outside of the village, where they had a patch of land for the strawberry farm. It was relatively far away from the rest of the village, but Cecilia knew that her family didn’t mind. Even though everyone loved their neighbors, they felt they had more privacy this way.

 

            Cecilia approached her family’s house, a somewhat larger house than most in Santa Rita. Her mother had put beautiful potted flowering plants all over the porch, and with the weather getting better, they were starting to bloom.

Stepping on the veranda, she saw two black eyes peeking through the corner of the opaque glass of the wooden door, where a piece of the glass was missing. Not a second later, Cecilia’s 9-year old brother Adrián threw open the door, and leaped out with his arms thrown in the air.

“Cecilia! Finally, you’re back!” He came to a halt just in front of his big sister, jumped and threw his arms around her neck. He had always been small for his age, and he was probably never going to be taller than Cecilia, and that while she hadn’t grown tall either. Cecilia ruffled through his black hair and put him down.

“It’s been less than a day, silly,” she said, with a grin. “Come on, let’s go inside. I’m hungry! Has mama started cooking yet?”

Adrián nodded and took her hand, and nearly dragged her inside, impatient as always. “It’s already finished, we were waiting for you!”Adrián said.

Cecilia cringed, knowing that her mother would not be pleased with her. She strongly disliked having to serve cold food. Stepping inside, she smelled the coconut rice her mother often served, and some sort of fish. Her three brothers, two sisters and parents were already sitting at the table, with two chairs empty.

Adrián shot to the chair he was probably already sitting on before, and everyone eyed her. Cecilia was placed at the head of the table tonight. No one really liked sitting at the head, because that meant you had to say grace before dinner. Cecilia was fairly sure her parents were aware of this fact.

She took a deep breath and walked toward the table, aware of the awful silence. She wasn’t that late! She was feeling more was going on. She sat down at the head of the table, smoothed her slightly smudgy pants and folded her hands in her lap.

She looked at her father’s face; he was frowning and inspecting her own face. Then, his face lit up and he smiled, showing all his teeth. He laughed his thunderous laugh and everyone else started laughing as well. Cecilia was baffled, she looked around, confused.

“What!” Cecilia exclaimed.

“You should have seen your face,” her older brother Fausto said, wiping away a tear from the corner of his eye, “you’d almost think you were about to get killed!” Everyone roared in laughter.  

“Oh Cecilia, sweetheart,” her mother said, “you have no idea what day it is, do you?”

“Well, obviously I don’t!” Cecilia said, frustrated.

Again, everyone roared in laughter. Then, her mother started singing and soon, everyone all the brothers and sisters joined in.

 

Cumpleaños Feliz,

Te deseamos a ti,

Qué los cumplas en tu día,

Qué los complas feliz

 

            It was her birthday! She totally forgot. Cecilia blushed a deep red and rubber her clammy hands together. She looked up and saw her family watching her.

            “Thank you,” she whispered.

            Her mother stood up and walked over to her.

            “Come here, silly girl!” She said, opening her arms. Cecilia stood up and walked into her mother’s embrace. Her mother hugged her tightly. When she let her go, she walked back to her seat and sat down again.

            “Now, let’s eat!” she said.

            Everyone started filling their plates eagerly. Cecilia was still trembling a little, and waited until everyone had filled their plates before she started to fill hers.

            “How is the goat doing?” she asked.

            Her father chuckled.

            “The goat is doing fine. There was nothing wrong with him to begin with!” Her father grinned widely. “We just wanted to give you the day off, so you could go up the volcano!”

            Cecilia felt a warm feeling in her tummy. She loved her family so much. She felt foolish for forgetting her own birthday, but she had had a terrific day and she knew her parents really couldn’t miss her during the day.  She teared up a little.

            “Thank you so much, daddy,” she said silently. She poked into her food with her fork but she was so choked up she couldn’t actually get any of the food down. She then decided she had to eat the food her parents worked so hard for and forced herself to swallow the small bites she took.

 

            Then, all of a sudden, someone threw open the door, causing a loud bang, and came barging into the room. It was their closest neighbor, Lucio Fernandez. He lived only a 5 minute walk from their house, but from the looks of him, he had run the distance. His black hair hung disheveled over his sweaty forehead and his dark eyes bulged.

            “You all have to come with me, now,” he said, breathless, “quick!”

            Everyone just stared at him for a moment, at a loss for words.

            “What are you waiting for!” Lucio shouted. “Get up! Come, now!”

            Cecilia’s father rose from his chair so quickly that the chair fell over backwards. Cecilia watched it bounce twice before it lay still on the floor. She focused on her father again, whose face was starting to redden while he gripped the table tightly. Her mother rose as well, as did Cecilia’s two oldest brothers. Paulina, Cruz and Adrián got up as well, although more hesitantly.

            By then, everyone stood beside their chairs except for Cecilia. She felt her nails bury into the skin of her handpalms. Her father stepped toward the door and put an arm on Lucio’s shoulder, and he waved his arm toward the door. When her father opened the door, Cecilia saw the sky had already darkened to the navy blue of the evening sky.

             She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Then, she got up.

 

In the distance, the dark, solemn church appeared, dark clouds obscuring the moon. The lights in the building were turned on and the light shone on the church grounds, revealing the big group of people standing outside of the church. They were trying to go in, but apparently the building was already full, because people were also trying to look into the building through the windows. They stood on little stepladders and husbands had lifted their wives on their shoulders, and the wives reported what they saw. People looked nervous, and most had dark frowns on their faces.

Something bad had happened, Cecilia thought. Only bad things attract such crowds. The family and Lucio rushed to the church to join the people at the church.

 “What do we do, daddy?” Cruz asked, looking at the crowd with fear. She apparently felt the negative atmosphere too.

Her father looked back, but didn’t stop walking. He and Lucio walked at the front of their group.

“We ask what is going on. Cecilia, Fausto and Nico, I want you three to fan out and ask people what is going on. Paulina, please keep Cruz and Adrián in your sight and wait here. Your mother and I are going to try and get into the church.”

Fausto and Nico stalked off toward the crowd with Cecilia’s parents, leaving Cecilia and the other children. Cecilia felt lost; she didn’t know what to do or where to go first. She gave Paulina, Cruz and Adrián each a tight hug.

“I’ll be back in about 10 minutes. Don’t go anywhere!” she told Paulina.

Paulina just nodded and made Cruz and Adrián sit down on the ground. Adrián found a little stick to poke Cruz with, who took the stick, broke it and threw it away, upsetting Adrián. That wasn’t something she would usually do, she loved playing games. It must have been the tension in the air.

Cecilia turned her back to her siblings, and looked out over the crowd. What was going on here? People were running around, seemingly without a real destination, as if they were in total and utter panic.

It frightened Cecilia. The feeling that something bad had happened got stronger at that moment. Her stomach knotted and she got a lump in her throat. The idea to have to ask people what had happened embarrassed her.

She hoped her parents and brothers would find some useful information soon, so they would get back before Cecilia could even start asking people. She could tell her parents she thought it was better if she stayed with her siblings.

Cecilia turned around to look at her sisters and brother. They were still sitting on the ground, watching the people. Adrián had a confused frown on his face, Cruz was picking a little twig apart and Paulina looked up at Cecilia, her face questioning. Cecilia stepped toward where Paulina was sitting and sat down beside her. She took her hand and squeezed it tightly.

Adrián creeped toward Cecilia and sat down next to her, then rubbed his head against her upper arm. Cecilia stroked through his hair.

 

Cecilia saw her older brother first. Fausto was returning to them, with a concerned look on his face. He sat down next to Cruz and took her in his arms, hugging her tightly. Cruz looked up to him, confused, and started to push him away. She was right at that age where they don’t want to get to close with their family.  Fausto didn’t let go, and nearly crushed her in his embrace.

Cecilia looked at his face closely. His eyes were red, it looked like he had cried.

“Fausto… What is going on?” Cecilia asked hesitantly.

“You didn’t ask around?” he replied.

“No… I decided not to, I thought I should rather stay with them.”

“That’s probably for the best. We’ll wait for mom and dad to return, alright?”

Fausto closed his eyes for a moment and let go of Cruz, who looked annoyed.

“What did you do that for!” she asked, agitated.

“You’re a silly girl, Cruz,” Fausto said.

Cruz took one of the twigs she had been fiddling around with. She poked it into Fausto’s skin until it started to turn red, but he just kept smiling at her.

 

Their parents looked much like Fausto did when he returned about 20 minutes ago. No, Cecilia thought, they looked worse. She noticed Nico walked behind them. He too looked… Devastated. Fausto hadn’t said much in that time, he had just continued to hug his siblings.

Her parents and brother reached them.

“Get up, kids, we’re going home,” her father said.

Cecilia noticed more people were leaving the church, all with hopeless looks in their eyes, all as devastated as her brothers and parents looked. She didn’t dare ask what was going on.  She’d probably find out soon enough, anyway. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to know at all.

 

When they reached the house, Cecilia’s mother went to put a bleary eyed Adrián to bed. The rest of the family sat down around the dining table.

“Cecilia, could you please make us some tea?” her father asked.

Cecilia nodded and walked to the kitchen. She went about filling the water boiler solemnly, all the while wishing the thing would break, so that it would give them a reason not to have to talk about what happened yet.

It didn’t break though. Staring at the boiler, Cecilia was listening to the popping bubbles of the cooking water. She heard her father talking or rather, whispering, with her two elder brothers. Her mother had returned from putting Adrián to bed and she too sat down at the table.

It was strange to realize it was still her birthday. Only an hour before, everyone had been happy and excited for having fooled her. Now, that was all gone.

Cecilia took out seven mugs from the cabinet and walked over to the table to put them down.  Paulina and Cruz both looked very tired, but from the looks on their faces they still didn’t know what was going on, either. Her parents looked at her patiently, waiting for her to get back to the table.

She walked back to the kitchen and took out their big teapot. She filled it with the cooked water and got out the tea strainer from a drawer, and put in some black tealeaves. Now, it was time to join her family at the table. Her hands were shaking a little.

She poured the tea in the mugs, but she spilled some.  She stepped toward the kitchen to get some paper towels to clean it up.

“Cecilia, never mind that. Please sit down, now,” her father said.

She sat down on her chair with a thump.

Her father took a deep breath and rubbed his hands together. He closed his eyes and folded his hands. Then, he opened his eyes again.

“Children. I don’t know how to tell you this, or if I even should. But I think everyone on this world has a right to know. That, of course, includes you.

“What happened tonight…” Cecilia’s father sighed deeply. Her mother took her father’s hand and squeezed it tightly. Cecilia noticed tears were running down her cheeks. She continued with a quavering voice where her father ended.

“One of the people in the village was watching the news channel in the church after dinner. He found out that three days ago, the UNE had announced something terrible,” she said. She wiped away the tears from her cheeks, but her tears quickly formed new streaks over her cheeks.

“Are you all aware of the tension in the East?” she asked.

Cecilia nodded, as did her siblings. 

“Well then. As you know, Chinasia has been bent on conquest for a long time. The only part of the world that thought they had a chance of stopping them was the Middle East. After the Muslim Wars in the 21st century, it took the countries in that area a long time to recuperate. But these days, they are as strong as they ever were. Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Egypt and all other smaller countries, there, formed the alliance now known as the Middle East. Only three months ago the Middle East decided it was time to attack Chinasia, and stop them from their conquest.”

“Chinasia was probably about to attack the Middle East themselves,” Nico said.

“Yes, you may be right,” their mother continued. “However, I think the Middle East decided to go by the old principle that ‘offense is the best defense’,” she moved her left hand to rearrange her long, black hair. Cecilia’s father seemed not to be listening to the story as he was staring in the distance. Cruz looked confused and a little scared. Paulina had her eyes closed and her hands folded, as if she were praying. She could be praying, for as far as Cecilia knew. Cecilia’s mother closed her eyes for a moment and sighed. She then continued her story.

“It appears the attack was not one that we are very familiar with. No guns or bombs were involved.”

“What does that mean?” Cruz asked.

“It was a biological attack,” their mother answered.

Cecilia felt her heartbeat quicken.

“What kind of biological attack?” she asked. Her hands were starting to get sweaty. She had been taught about biological attacks in school. It had happened only once before, in the Muslim Wars. She started to understand why everyone was so extremely upset.

“They don’t know.”

“How can they not know!” Cecilia exclaimed, frustrated.

“Well, it’s nearly three months after the attack was launched. We only found out about this news now, while the UNE announced this news only three days ago,” Fausto said with a frown.

“That’s right, Fausto. We’re late to receive this news and they were late to announce it,” their mother said. “The UNE nor the Americas know what they’re dealing with. Apparently, neither does the Middle East. The UNE also announced that the attack backlashed. Chinasia has suffered significant losses, but the disease has spread to Russia, and about three days ago… First deaths of the disease were reported in the Middle East.

“That means that it won’t take long until the disease will spread to Europe. Perhaps that has already happened.”

Cecilia couldn’t take her eyes away from her mother. During the Muslim Wars, careful precautions were taken to make sure the biological attack would remain contained.

“Aren’t they able to fix it?” she asked, confused.

“It appears they aren’t.”

“But,” Cecilia said, hesitantly, “that would mean…”

“Yes, mi niña.”

“And it won’t be long,” their father said, out of the blue. He was still staring into nothingness. He too had started to cry, silently.

 



© 2010 Manon Eileen


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This is a great prologue! It is so easy to read, and has a great flow! Many writhes here have such complicated language that I have to open a dictionary every other sentence as a non-native English speaker. Yet you make complex images with a simple, readable language:) Got to love that^^,
Your buildup is impeccable, I love how you go from the old TV, to the levitating machines and to "They still used cars here". Just these small sentences reveals so much! The way you reference to how the countries have changed also implies this is the future:)
I think the only thing I can put my finger on is that I' having a little difficult keeping up with all the names:P Cruz and Adrián is introduced gradually, while the rest of the family kind of gets more diffuse and I start mixing up the names a little.
Please keep writing, I want to know what happens next:)

Posted 12 Years Ago


This is amazing! You really deserved the Champion title for the_kate's contest, and I'm glad you got it! Great job!

Posted 13 Years Ago


This is such a great chapter! Please keep writing, I just HAVE to know what happens. I think this really deserves the Champion title from my contest, First Chapters. If you ask me, this has potential to get published. Congratulations, and great work!

Posted 13 Years Ago



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Added on December 7, 2010
Last Updated on December 7, 2010


Author

Manon Eileen
Manon Eileen

Utrecht, Netherlands



About
My name is Manon Eileen, and I’m a 21-year old from The Netherlands. I study Clinical Psychology and Criminology at the Utrecht University, but that’s not enough to keep me busy! I read.. more..

Writing
Aeon Aeon

A Book by Manon Eileen