Foreverland Is Dead

inside.
    “What about you?” Cyn asks. “What’s your name?”
    “Miranda.” She rattles the bracelet on her right hand. She doesn’t have a tag inside her designer clothes, just a fancy bracelet, her name engraved on a gold plate.
    “You’re the one that pulled me out of the fence.”
    She nods, eyes cast down.
    “You woke up in the brick house. How come you were in there?”
    Miranda shakes her head.
    “Why doesn’t the fence bother you?”
    Again, she shakes her head.
    “Well, what’s in there?” Roc interjects.
    Shrug.
    “You don’t know?” Cyn adds, softer.
    No response.
    Cyn looks over her shoulder. Roc says, “Told me she woke up in a bedroom and came down some steps, came right outside. Don’t think she looked around, but how should I know ? She hasn’t said two words since. She ate the hell out of a can of beans, though.”
    Roc tosses the apple core into the corner.
    “So no one knows anything?” Cyn asks. “I mean, where we are or how we got here?”
    They shake their heads.
    “Does anyone remember anything?” Cyn looks at Roc. She’s picking her teeth. “Because I don’t. I couldn’t remember my name when I woke up. I don’t know if we’re in the United States or Russia or on another planet.”
    All she gets is Roc sucking on her teeth.
    Cyn goes to the window. And yet I know those are horses. I know the garden has been weeded and the wind harvesters are generating electricity. Am I dreaming?
    “I remember something,” Mad says. “I remember a dream.”
    Cyn turns. “What was it?”
    Mad describes a tropical island. She was flying over the palm trees and soaring over the ocean. She says there were boys there, like it was some sort of Neverland, only they didn’t call it that.
    She stops.
    “Then what?” Cyn asks.
    “Something happened…but…I don’t remember.”
    The sky falls. That’s what.
    “What about y ou?” Roc points at Miranda. “You have any dreams?”
    Miranda dips her shoulder. Her face is completely hidden behind her hair.
    Roc rubs the scar along her chin. There’s a tattoo on the inside of her right arm. The fuzzy blue lines look like a long dagger from the inside of her elbow to her wrist.
    “Come over here, Miranda.” Roc pats the chair next to her. “I don’t bite, girl.”
    Cyn doesn’t care about the dream. She’d rather forget it. As dire as things feel, it’s better to be inside the cabin than inside the dream. The screams sounded like people were being pulled apart.
    “They’re hungry,” Kat says.
    Cyn didn’t realize she was staring at the horses. They’re still romping along the fence, craning their necks over the wire, but the grass is out of reach.
    “How do you know?” Cyn asks.
    Kat shrugs. “Isn’t it obvious?”
    Not to Cyn . But now that Kat said it, Cyn can tell they’re anxious. Have they been without food as long as the girls? How long have we been asleep?
    “I don’t remember.” Miranda is next to Roc, hugging herself.
    “I’m not asking what happened before you woke up,” Roc says. “What’s inside the brick house, girl? Is there a phone or a computer? You know, something that could save our lives, that sort of thing?”
    Cyn walks past Roc’s interrogation. The kitchen is to the right of the wood stove. The door i s cedar plank, but there’s an electronic lock on the silver handle, one that requires a programmable keycard.
    The shelves are stocked with canned goods and jars of fruits and vegetables. The food has been shoved around; empty cans lay on the floor. A half-empty bottle of water. Bruised bananas hang from a hook but still yellow.
    There are two stoves: one wood burning and the other electric. The industrial sized refrigerator is polished silver with a pantry next to it. A nail is bent on the shelf above the sink holding two cards on strings, each about the size of a credit card.
    Cyn retrieves them. She slides one in the kitchen lock. A green light goes on and gears turn. The light turns off and the gears go back.
    “I DON’T REMEMBER!”
    “Don’t give me that!” Roc towers over Miranda. “You walked through that house, you’re not blind, you had to see something, now what’s in there?”
    “She’s right.” Cyn steps between them, kneeling down. Miranda is shaking. “If there’s a phone, we could call someone.”
    “That’s genius,” Roc says.
    “Let’s go over there.” Cyn rests her hand on Miranda’s. “We’ll go with you. You could be the one that saves