Utterly Mad

They drove on through the night. Catnip and L sitting in the plain white truck being towed by Mark in the brick red tow truck. At around midnight, the wind picked up and the sound of it passing through the lifeless cab of the white truck was almost like the moans of a dying man. Catnip sat, stunned, hardly able to believe the turn the day had taken and not understanding what would happen next. She wanted to be home, she wanted her Kathrine. Instead, all she had was the sparse clothing she'd been given and a necklace that made her feel horribly sick at the press of a button. For the first time in a long time, Catnip began to cry. Hearing it, L too began to do the same and still they continued on in the dark.

---

Catnip awoke with a start from a dream in which she returned home from a trip to the refugee center and found the farm ages abandoned. "How long have I been gone?" She had asked the still air, but there had been no answer. She had awoken early to the cold blue desert dawn, an hour before the sun was set to rise. The place to which they were headed stuck out like a mole in the desert. To Catnip, it was the largest settlement she'd ever seen. Winding streets, buildings, towers, farms, smoke lazily drifting from chimneys and smoke stacks, and lights. So many lights. Yet, not a single vehicle moving except on the outskirts. The entire valley had a sense of life about it, the sounds of early morning people getting ready for another day of hard work or play. Ahead and below, lay Pricetown. In Pricetown, lay Catnips future and all the trials of the next year.

In that city in the desert, she would find the beginning of her long road home.