Foretold by Carrie Ryan Read Free Book Online

angry … dangerous.”
    She takes it all in, and her lip trembles until she clamps her mouth together to stop it. I caused that. I hurt her.
    But they would hurt her more.
    “My father’s prophecy warned of the changes that would come at the end of days. I never thought it would start so soon.”
    My head bobs in agreement. I’ve heard Jeremy Child’s promises for years. War: not just the standard fight of country against country that’s been going on since the beginning of time, but war within nations, within families. People’s hearts would grow hard and hating, and they’d become savages and turn upon their own. Bright has a point. What I saw this morning definitely looked like the end of the world.
    Bright closes her eyes and goes still, so still the fog starts curling in to reclaim her, but then she opens them again and stares at me. Her gaze is as gray as the mist. “Okay, then,” she says. “We have to do our best to prevent anything worse. Come with me.”
    She tugs on my hand, and seconds later, we’re splashing across the creek and toward the woods. I look behind us at the water and beyond that, the compound. The mist is beginning to clear and I can just barely make out the outline of the buildings. They’re still and silent, for now.
    There’s no turning back.
BRIGHT
    My father’s prophecies were quite clear: before the end of days, we chosen few would be lifted into heaven and spared the pain and suffering the rest of humanity would experience as the world was consumed. He wasn’t the only one whothought that, of course, but his was the only path that was right. He was the only one who knew the hour of our salvation, his followers the only ones who’d be included.
    The apocalypse would never touch us. We spent a lot of time talking about what we’d be missing so we’d better be able to communicate to our recruits the dangers they’d face if they didn’t join us. The dangers that face us now—me and Sam, and anyone else left earthbound. Wars, plagues, famines, and other terrors beyond our reckoning. Demons with human faces. Hell on earth.
    I used to pity the nonbelievers. They were foolish, and ignorant, and they deserved whatever they’d get when the end times came. But now, as I walk with Sam through a silent forest on the face of our doomed world, I wonder at my own sense of superiority. After all, as hard as my father tried for all those years, there were people his message couldn’t reach. Perhaps, if they’d heard him, they would have joined us. And there are babies and children, too. They don’t all deserve to suffer—and neither do Sam and I. But we will suffer, here on this earth, and I can mope about it, or I can mobilize and prove that I am equal to the task set before me—that of shepherding the innocent and the righteous who’ve been left here with me. People like Sam.
    I lead Sam through the forest in silence. The only sound is our feet shuffling through the carpet of yellow and orange leaves. I’m lost in thoughts and plans for the dreadful future, and he’s staring at me. They used to be shy and furtive, these looks of his, but now they’re more open. Yet the reason is the same—he’s waiting for me to lead him, to guide him. Father always said I was a model to all the children in the compound. I can’t let him down now that I’m all that’s left.
    Mist still clings to the tops of the trees and pools in the hollows along the path. Tree trunks the same pale shade ofgray stand like ghosts in golden gowns and watch us as we walk. I used to love the trees, and though I know they have no souls, I’m sorry they will be lost when the world goes dark. I’m sorry for the animals, too. I wonder if there are forests in heaven.
    “Where are we going?” he whispers at last, and in the stillness of the forest, it sounds like a shout.
    Father’s stockpile is stored in the side of a hill three miles into the woods. He made all his children memorize the location in case the