The Host ¤ The Next Chapter

The Host ¤ The Next Chapter: 5

The Host ¤ The Next Chapter: 5

(song - Three Wishes by the Pierces)

The next morning, I dress in my white Healer's outfit. Unlike the tight pants Healer Sunshine likes to don, mine are gauchos. A form-fitting T-shirt covers my top. 

Since I own nothing, I leave my temporary residence empty handed. Everything that I will ever need will be provided on my way there. This is the kindness that all Souls possess---the one thing that humans lacked. A generocity that exceeds oneself to benefit the whole. 

I walk down the Center's halls to the elevator so I can get to the first level. This is my first time leaving this floor. I've never been outside it because the Seekers had wanted to make sure I was able to take care of myself. I've proven that now and so I can leave this place without their worry.

On the ground floor, I join others of my kind, either new to this world or newly born like me, in a single file line. Seekers bid us farewell as we go out the door without any kind of security check. We trust one another to not use any deceit against one another. Outside, those I travel with walk down the sidewalk to their new home in Houston or walk up to one of the buses.

In my case, I walk to the bus labled California. At the boarder, I will be directed to the correct transfer bus that will take me to the city of my destination. Everything ahead of me has already been planned out by the Seekers. I don't have to worry about a thing.

I climb onto the dark blue California bus with a picture of the HollyWood sign on the side. The contraption is a large, four wheeled vehicle that can hold up to fifty people. Although I doubt that there will be that many on the bus, Seekers take extra percausions. 

Once inside, I am escorted to a seat by a waitress. She tells me that if I need anything, I'm to simply call her by Shadow Born. I'm placed in seat twenty two in the middle of the bus on the right. 

As I wait for my journey to begin, many other Souls get on the bus. Most of them are in their young adult years in their human bodies, but only they know what age they really are. I'm almost unidentifiable as a young Soul. Because it is impossible to decipher how old one is, everyone is treated the same age. Each of us is an adult, no matter the experience we have.

The youngest I see is a little girl who appears to be eight years old. She has a small angel crop of hair and blue eyes like all of us. Even in that body, I cannot tell her age. She could be as new as me or be the most ancient of us all. The little girl takes a seat acrossed the aisle from me and stares out the window, waiting for the bus to start moving. It looks like she's used to traveling.

A Soul, a girl who is about my age, is placed next to me in seat twenty. She smiles at me sweetly like a mother would do to a young child. This Soul is certainly older than me. I smile weakly back and stare out the window like the little girl. Hopefully I won't have to talk much to her. Although I know that's mean to say, I'm as nervous as it is just sitting beside her. I feel like I could jump to the moon in my seat right now.

Ten minutes or so later, the bus's engine starts up. The driver informs us that we will now begin the trip to the California boarder. Simultaneously, the buses parked in front of the Center leave their parking spaces behind and move in a single file line.

At first, we start with seven buses. Then slowly, they start splitting off as we hit different ramps on the highway. One bus goes to Louisiana while another to Oklahoma. A third goes stays in New Mexico as we travel through the state. A fourth heads South to Mexico. The other two head for distant states to the North as we leave the New Mexico boarder and enter into Arizona.