The garbage can bonfire burned brightly against the black sky. I sat in an old lawn chair by the fire along with some other kids, one of which was Joseph Dean, or Snipe as he is known now. Snipe and I had gone to the same high school back in Texas. That was before we ran away to the Lost City.
The conflict between me and my parents had been going on for a long time - ever since I was in the eighth grade. That was when I decided I didn't want to go to a Christian high school, which upset my devoutly Christian parents. They were also described by my friends as “Republican Extremists.” Fast forward to my junior year of high school. This was the year that I began discovering myself. I realized that I didn't want to go straight into college after my senior year. My parents heads nearly exploded when I told them about my path change. They have always had this idea in their heads of me becoming going to college, finding my one true love, and then settling down to raise my child to become the next pope. Senior year flew by, and I had to make my next life decision. My parents eagerly awaited my decision on college. When I told them again that I didn't want to go yet, they tried telling me that “the devil was tempting me with the temptations of the outside world.” My mom told me that watching so much TV was putting crazy ideas in my head. My parents were driving me crazy. Luckily I wasn't the only one going through that with their parents. Joseph, or Snipe, told his dad that he wanted to be an artist, and he flipped out on him.
We had heard of the Lost City from kids who had graduated a year before us. The Lost City is where kids run away, to escape everything. I always had the thought of running away in the back of my mind, but Snipe was the one who convinced me. What also convinced me to leave was the raving reviews I heard being whispered in the hallways. There was no school. There were no parents. There were no taxes because money didn't exist in the Lost City. The thought of being away from my parents oppression sealed the deal. Snipe and I set a date that we would leave. When that night came, I snuck out at 1 am on the dot, and got on the number 16 bus to the Metro Center. There I met up with Snipe, and we got on a train heading towards Nevada. Before I left, I wrote my parents a note. I told them that I left because of them, and that they shouldn't even bother with coming to look for me. That night I left behind my phone and my old life.
We got off at the Las Vegas stop. Las Vegas was the complete opposite of Corpus Christi, Texas. Churches were replaced with clubs and casinos. My moment of awe was cut short when Snipe pulled me the other way. We started walking away from the bright lights and loud music, and towards the silent desert. We walked for an hour, when we came upon a rock. Engraved in the rock was “Follow the sun set.” By then it was 5 in the afternoon. We were tired and hungry, but we couldn't stop in the middle of the desert. We kept a steady pace until 8 pm. In the far distance I spotted an abandoned crane. I knew that the Lost City was in an abandoned city in a hidden valley in the middle of the desert. “Yes! That has to be it!” Snipe shouted as his pace picked up speed. We were sprinting, luggage and all. I ran so hard that I started heaving. We got to the top of the valley. When I looked down, the city looked like a village of ants. Snipe and I started walking down the sharp descent. I guess we were spotted coming down the hill, because a crowd gathered at the bottom. when we got the bottom, a frumpy woman in her early twenties approached us. She said to us “We've been expecting you. What are your names?”
“I’m Joseph, and this is Kaliegh.” Snipe responded.
“My name is Earth, and I am the leader of the free people.” she told us. She put her arms around our shoulders and led us through the camp. She was going on about how they were all one big family and how this is our new life, but I wasn't really listening. I was looking at the people. If i had one word to describe them: dirty. Their clothes were filthy and their hair was matted. They were sleeping on brown mattresses on the floors of unfinished buildings. The people were all my age or older. Some were way older than me, like they were in their thirties. We walked past a few people standing on a corner trading something back and forth, and then smoking it. This wasn't the best first impression, but it still sticks with me.
I am still sitting by the bonfire staring at Snipe. I should explain how he got that name. Back in Texas, Snipe went out every Saturday with his dad to go hunting. He was pretty good at it too. Snipe showed off his skills the first week when we came by shooting some coyotes that had entered to camp. Since then, everyone calls him Snipe. Since then he has become the city's favorite person for ‘saving the town’. If you ask me, ever since he changed his name he has become a different person. He was no longer this free spirited artist who was my best friend; He is now a crazy, junkie who had forgotten about the real reason for why we came here.
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