Chapter Two

Terence Parton, often called Terry by his friends, was the son of Lizzie Bisco and Kenny Parton. He was Tara's best friend in many ways, he had helped her up when she fell down in kindergarten, help cleaned up her water bottle spill in third grade, and helped her write her graduation speech. One day in the village of Sparks, heavy wind and rain fell and the food storage was struck by lightning. It caught on fire and all the food was burnt up. Villagers had to eat only the vegetables that grew in the fields, and since it was winter, not much were growing. This made Terry very miserable. And when he was miserable, he asked his mother Lizzie to tell him stories when she was in Ember.

"Mother, could you tell me a story? The one about the mayor's secret food?" Terry asked Lizzie.

"Of course! I'm really not the best at these stories, though, you could ask Tara's mother for more stories, the escape wouldn't have been possible without her." Lizzie sighed, thinking back about the canned food Looper had secretly gave her years ago.

"It all started on a gloomy and dreary day, of course, it wasn't raining because there was no weather in Ember..." Lizzie began.

Terry listened with anticipation and clung on to each word.

(TWO WEEKS LATER...)

"Tara, how much horse food is left?" Lina asked worriedly.

"Not much, I'll see if there are any roamers in town, they might have some horse food." Tara said, bolting out the door.

Lina sighed in recognization of herself in Tara.

"She's so much like you." Doon sighed, walking over to Lina.

"Me when I was young, I've grown in the past years. My legs have grown tired, and Fleet's getting old too." Lina snorted.

"Your still that quick little messenger I know," Doon replied, smiling.

"I wish." Lina smiled back weakly.

Outside, Tara had gone to Mary to see if she knew of any roamers coming.

"None at the moment," Mary shrugged.

"Okay. Thanks anyways." Tara sighed.

As she exited the building, she spotted Terry climbing a tree.

"Terry!" Tara exclaimed.

"Come up!" Terry grinned.

Tara climbed up the tree clumsily and sat down awkwardly.

"My dad said this was the tree that he saved Uncle Torren from," Tara remarked.

"It was on fire before," she added.

"I can tell," Terry replied, gesturing towards a section of the bark that looked like it had been burnt years ago.

"Do you ever wonder what Ember looked like? How the buildings looked? How everything looked?" Tara asked.

"Sometimes, but I'll never find the answer," Terry shrugged.

"Unless we... Dive into Ember and power back all the electricity!" Tara joked.

"There's probably some food still there, even after all these years." Terry said.

"Yeah," Tara grinned, sprouting an idea in her head.