May Hawaii and the Dreamhunters

When she was ten, her mother gave her a backpack bigger and heavier than anything she had ever seen. And a raincoat. She had fun jumping in puddles with her rain boots.

“Trini!” her father called. “Don’t wander off.”

He was dragging two huge suitcases and carrying two backpacks. Her mother was the same. That’s why she didn’t have to hold their hands to cross the street. That day, everyone seemed to be outside. Covered in mud or knee-deep in water. Her mother kept turning back to look at her, motioning for her to hurry.

When they crossed the Roman bridge, she stopped, wide-eyed, staring at the river. She had never seen it carry so much water. So fast.

Trini had never been to the bus station before, nor did she know that it wasn’t usually that crowded. She got really bored. She almost got lost.

In the end, they didn’t take the bus. Her aunt picked them up in a van. It was packed. She sat in the back with kids she didn’t know. Loud kids. Loud and whiny. Her father had taught her not to cry. And she was smaller than most of them.

That was the last time she saw Córdoba.

At that moment, she didn’t know she was saying goodbye. They had been told they were going on vacation. But summer was still far away. These were strange vacations.

Though she didn’t remember it well, she knew the van had flipped over. Someone helped her out through a window. She had several cuts. They stung badly. She didn’t cry.

“Don’t look.”

Her father told her that her mother and aunt had gone to get medicine. She realized it wasn’t true after three days of walking alone with her father and Amira.

Amira was her age. Her father told them they were sisters now.

When she was twelve, her father was teaching Amira and her the trade.

“You have to strip the wire like this, and splice it like that.”

Amira had lost an eye but was very skilled. Her father was thinner than ever.

Trini was no longer a child, and she knew that Spain was screwed. The world was screwed.

On the radio, they announced the independence of Andalusia.

“It’s normal,” her father said. “The state has no resources. Everyone has to survive on their own. Like us.”

Amira gestured to ask if they would return to Córdoba.

Her father shook his head.

“We have to go to Madrid. It’s going to get more dangerous here.”

They had held out for two years in Ocaña. They lived in a shack on the outskirts. Those who managed to save up left for the capital. They said things weren’t as bad there.

Trini would wake up at night and see her father looking out the window, gripping his loaded shotgun. On guard.

Sometimes, silence was scarier than screams.

To travel, you had to hire protection and transport. Walking was suicide.

The radio kept announcing elections, declarations of independence, torrential rains. No good news. Each day, people knew less about what was happening in the world and Europe.

It was on a night like that, one of those hot nights that all feel the same, when the noise—different from all the others—woke her up.

Amira jumped off the mattress right after her.

A gunshot rang out. Then another.

They always slept dressed. Always ready to run.

Amira was already jumping out the window with her backpack, but Trini ran into the living room.

One man was on the floor.

Her father was struggling with the other.

The bastards weren’t even wearing masks.

She stabbed him in the neck.

Got hit in return.

Amira stabbed the man in the chest.

They all collapsed to the ground.

“Get out of here, now!” her father shouted.

Amira was shaking. Crying. Covered in blood.

Trini grabbed her by the arm.

She knew her father wouldn’t get up again.

She took the shotgun.

She didn’t say goodbye.

She pulled Amira toward the entrance, not the back window.

She lifted the attackers’ motorcycle. More were coming.

A gunshot.

Where there’s noise, there’s loot.

She started the bike.

Amira sobbed behind her, holding onto her waist with just one arm.

They disappeared into the night, heading north.

When she was fifteen, Amira died of an infection.

First, fever. Then tremors and diarrhea.

Her body just couldn’t take it anymore.

Trini now called herself May.

She had two years of experience as an electrician in the refugee camps south of Madrid.

Something had caught up with her.

The fever made her shiver every night. When she got up, she felt dizzy. Her ears rang.

She thought she would end up like Amira, who lay lifeless on the mattress in the next room.

After two days, she couldn’t stand the stench anymore.

She took what little she had and left, stumbling.

She never returned to that squatted apartment in Usera.

She survived.

Now that Amira was gone, May had to survive on her own.

Refugees arriving in Madrid from Andalusia and Valencia piled up in her area. Survival communities formed. So did gangs.

Amira and she had needed to use a knife since they arrived.

“The new flowers come with thorns,” people said when they tried to take advantage of them.

Every day was about finding work, bartering, dodging bastards, avoiding scams.

One of the trustworthy ones was Montse. She had been a pharmacist in Valencia.

She came and went from the city center. Her husband worked in something related to cinema.

One day, she asked May for help setting up a projection.

The whole neighborhood showed up.

“It’s good to forget about misery once in a while,” she said. “And for that, nothing beats Indiana Jones.”

May watched the movie from the projection table, next to Montse.

The big screen.

The sound.

The crowd.

Indy.

Marion!

It was the first time she had cried since leaving Córdoba.

“Is this the first time you go to the movies?”

“You know,” May said, holding back tears, “I’ve had a shitty childhood.”