Amya

She was awake, but laying down on the bottom bunk of a camper bed. She couldn't get up for fear of waking the child asleep in her arms and the two other women sharing the bed with her. This child, a young girl of about five years of age, was a runaway who lost her mother along the way. Her name was Sarah, she'd been with them a year now.

Now, there were an enormous amount of runaway children without parents here. No one person took the job of caring for a motherless child, they all cared for each other. Last night, this child was too afraid to be left alone and no one wanted a fussy child in their bed. No one, that is, except Amya.

Amya ran her fingers through Sarah's long, chesnut brown hair. She relaxed and closed her eyes, she didn't need to start the wake up call yet...

Someone started banging on the door. Amya groaned loudly and gently pushed the child off of her. So much for sleeping in. She adjusted her shorts and shirt that she had worn to bed. She opened the door and grimaced at the middle aged man standing there. "What is it, Robert?" She asked, even though groggy, her voice was beautiful.

Robert smiled deliriously. "We're turning on the underwater highway again." He said.

Amya stopped rubbing her face. She looked at him in disbelief. "No..." She said smiling. "We haven't had any runaways since Sarah!"

Robert smiled. "Lucille called this morning. There are five of them. A family of four and another man, traveling alone." He said.

Too excited, to even be suspicious, Amya rushed to arise everyone. People crawled out of their cardboard boxes and stumbled out of their campers and trailers. The motherless children flocked to one adoptive mom or another. The cooks started up the food trailer. Amya soon felt Sarah's little hand slide into hers. Amya smiled and picked the little girl up, balancing her on her hip.

She was thrilled. They had been running low on food supplies and the escapees knew the prerequisite to getting on the underwater highway: they had to break into a store and steal as much food as they could carry.

They had their own water purification system set up, so water was never a problem, once in awhile, a few brave people would go back over the states and trash a store. They were smart about it though and no one ever got left behind.

Amya carried the little girl to the food trailer and set her down with an adoptive mother with about five other little ones clinging to her. Amya smiled at the woman whose hair was golden blonde, a result of the amazing amount of sun they all got. "Think you can handle another one, Hannah?"

Hannah had been with them the full ten years. Amya was thirteen when she ran away, when she discovered the underwater highway, most likely left over from a war in the past that the government had erased from the history books. She decided as she rode through it, that she was going to prove that the government no longer ruled the world.

So she started going on supply trips and people followed her, soon they weren't supply trips at all, they were rescue missions.

In the first two years, their numbers increased by the hundreds. One little girl led hundreds of people to freedom, in only two years.

There were deaths, family members that had to be left behind. Amya tried not to dwell on the losses, but rather use them as reasons to fight.

Now, ten years later, their numbers exceeded the thousands. They were a force not to be reckoned with.

Amya cleared her throat. "My friends, we're reopening the highway once more. We have five new runaways!" She said with a smile on her face so big it almost hurt.

Everyone cheered and began talking excitedly.

Amya smiled and linked her arm with Robert. "Let's do this, let's go make history once more."

Amya

Her name was Amya. Her candle was crimson red. The time period was niehter present nor past. It was in a bleak future where the world was run by one malicious Empire, outlawing even the tiniest of sins. The death penalty was common but no longer was it humane. No liquid poison injected into you to slowly kill you. You were beaten to death or far worse depending on which crime you commited.

Amya was a freedom fighter. She didn't live in the government built neighborhoods. She lived with people like herself. She was a sinner, but so were they. She lived in a field, in Australia, where the summer never ends. They had trailers, run down campers, but not nearly enough. When it rained, the stronger and wiser ones gave the shelter to the children, while they slept in the surprisingly durable cardboard boxes. Rarely did it rain though, because the summer never ended.

The government knew about these sinners, everytime a child went missing or everytime an expectant mother fled before her scheduled birth, it was recorded. They were hunted, many of them never made it to Australia, because He got to them before they could.

These sinners had an Underground Railroad all their own. He knew of some of the parts and had taken away many flames this way. Sometimes they got a head start though. Women who had a child before didn't need to purchase the government issued and tracked test, because they had a way of just knowing. They'd run away, taking their previous child with them. No one would notice, unless their husband, a government approved partner, stayed behind and told. No one notice until Sunday, when they weren't at church, a law punishable by death if they missed even one day for anything other than the utmost emergency. Then it would be too late and even He couldn't find them.

Her name was Amya, her candle was crimson red. She was the leader of the sinners, the first to run away.

He was undeniably and unbelievably in love with her, her, the one he swore an oath to kill.