Being the Light by Eirian Naomi Omid

 

“The darkness is a writhing being of evil that will encroach upon you at your weakest moments. Most bow before it, but it takes a true hero to be the light that makes the darkness bow before them.”

• • • Anonymous

 

IT was a quote that Amber had read recently in a book about zombies. The book was alright, but she had felt that it tried too hard to be about how good conquers evil and, despite being compelling enough to read to the end, she walked away from it feeling... jaded. In her seventeen years of life, she had not yet learned that eventually, everything is okay, because everything in her own life was very much not okay.

 

Her mother and father had united over drug addiction long ago, so they had always experienced a strained and harrowing relationship, which resulted in them not really giving Amber the attention that she needed, and deserved, especially once she was in her teens.

 

Now, she was existing on this ethereal plane of being. At thirteen she was sort of throw into adulthood without taking on most of the responsibility that comes with maturity. Her parents were paying for her amenities like her cellphone, food, and car insurance, but as long as her grades were decent, they didn't check in with her. To them, she was the house cat of offspring, just fill the bowl, clean the box, and she'll take care of herself.

 

But that couldn't have been further from the truth.

 

Now, at seventeen, she'd been promiscuous for four years, with a revolving door queue of older men vying for her attention, all while battling her own substance abuse problem and living with a man who was aggressively toxic and abusive whom she had no business dating in the first place.

 

There was no light at the end of her tunnel. She was shrouded in darkness from all directions.

 

“Stupid book,” she grumbled as she knocked back a handful of pain-killers with a couple of sleeping-pills and allergy medication mixed in with her double strength cold-brewed coffee. She just wanted to be numb. Fuzzy and numb. “Life has no happy endings.”

 

She preferred psychological thrillers where everyone dies at the end. Now that was taking a look at reality. Not some dumb, hippie, love-fest touting that positivity is will save society from the apocalypse. Give me a break.

 

Amber sighed and flopped down on the couch. Her boyfriend wouldn't be around for hours, so she wanted to enjoy her few moments of peace and tranquility for as long as she could. Using the buttons on the remote, she turned on the TV and started sifting through channels. She loved getting high and zoning out on the boob-tube; killing twice as many brain-cells, twice as effectively.

 

Then, she started hitting the news channels and suddenly the news was on all of the channels. Apparently, something important was happening. And even though she didn't care, she didn't want to unglue herself from that television set, so she watched. At first, numb to the words. Then, becoming more and more spiritually awakened as the news cut deeper and deeper before finally setting in.

 

There was a pandemic. Lots of people were dying. The only way to respond safely was to shut down the city. All cities. Across the nation. Effective immediately.

 

Amber was alert through her pill-induced haze as she heard the words, “Shelter in place for the next four weeks.”

 

Her heart stopped cold. Four weeks of being trapped inside with him?!? Ah, hell no!

 

The quote at the beginning of that stupid book bounced around in her head as she formulated a plan.

 

Something inside of her had changed. She thought her life was already over, but the threat of having it truly taken away from her by containing her in a cage with a live scorpion made her realize how much more of her life she had left to live.

 

Suddenly, Amber was was at her dresser, throwing the few items that were important to her into a duffle bag and leaving the rest before rushing out the front door. As she pulled out of the drive in her purple sedan, she looked semi-longingly at the mobile home that she never truly got to call home. There would be no note. No explanation waiting for him. Just breaking news playing to an empty room.

 

In a flow-like state, she just... drove, following a blind faith in her heart. It wasn't until she had been on the interstate for a few minutes that she realized where she was going. She speed-dialed her best friend who had moved halfway through their junior year; which was the only family that she really had.

 

She answered on the second ring with a gasp, “Amber! Is that really you?”

 

Amber nodded as bittersweet tears rolled down her face, forgetting the lack of visuals, before saying, “Uhn-huh. I just saw on the news that everything is shutting down and... I need to be somewhere... safe.”

 

 

 

They would discuss the details in the weeks to come. The important thing was merely that Amber was safe, for the first time... in her life.

 

All because she got a wake-up call from the universe to open her heart and soul to the idea that ultimately we all deserve love, and so did she.