ng in the middle of the night. When the time came, she was able to escape. Her driving force, the desire to shed this great pain, had saved her life. Her friends and family did not have such fate.Throughout her life, Lauren was forced to deal with pain. She felt every little knee scrape of the kids playing in the street. Every tear shed by a community member was her own. Not only did she have to cope with the pain, she had to hide it. If her acquaintances had known of her sharing, she would have been even more vulnerable. So she took the pain in stride. This hardened her, strengthened her. It created in her an amazing strength, both physical and emotional, that would be vital in surviving in the outside world. “[She could] take a lot of pain without falling apart. [She’d] had to learn to do that” (pg.9). She had experienced and felt even death. When she killed the dog, while taking shooting practice “[she] felt it die.” (Pg 39) She had dealt with it so well; nobody had noticed her extreme pain. This took a great deal of strength. If anyone could survive in a harsh outside world, it would be her.In Lauren’s world it was not uncommon to see people suffering, starving, even dying or dead. The people of this nightmarish world had learned to ignore these people. Sympathy for others was almost non-existent. Yet, these people only saw the pain the others. Lauren felt their pain, and therefore couldn’t help but be sympathetic. She wanted badly to help them. While riding bikes to the baptism, they group traveling with Lauren saw a naked woman, obviously hungry, and more than likely with little time to live. Lauren wanted to help her; she said, “I wish we could have given her something” (Pg 9). The group did not help the woman. The thought would not have even entered their minds. To help people like this would lessen the community’s chance of survival. It was everyone for themselves. Lau...
