I am at an airport, looking to get out of my part of the country, carrying a backpack and two suitcases.

  When people first started talking about secession everyone wrote them off as a harmless fringe group. And then they started enforcing their cim with guns. It didn’t take long after that for them to start annexing surrounding territory that didn’t want to leave with them.

  So far, they haven’t taken kindly to those of us trying to leave.

  I hear a commotion from around the corner behind me. I turn back to investigate.

  I shouldn’t have.

  There’s a bang and someone in front of me falls to the ground. I retreat back around the corner and start trying to remember the proper procedure to check myself for if I’ve been hit, cursing myself for having worn a red shirt today. I decide to just pick my bags back up and run. Hopefully I won’t suddenly notice the pain of a bleeding bullet wound ter once the adrenaline wears off.

  Somewhere along the way of the chaotic panic trying to navigate the besieged airport I lose one of my suitcases. Once I reach my flight gate I’m told to toss the other one onto a pile in a pit to be checked and loaded on. Both I and the airport attendant know it won’t ever make it on. I’m one of the st people lucky enough to board and wind up having to sit on the floor for the flight.

  I hear someone say this is the st pne out.