“We are getting in this building,” Ethan curtly commanded, forcefully grabbing Hunter’s arm to prevent him from running.
“There’s a door there?” Hunter stared into the blackness perplexed. I even stared at Ethan like he was a lunatic. What the heck is he looking at? There is literally nothing there.
“Trust me,” Ethan said, “There’s a door here.”
The ear-splitting creak of the rusty metal door sounded as he opened it.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Hunter whispered. I could just make out his silhouette as he stumbled behind Ethan. “How the fuck did you see there was a door here?”
“Night vision from the ICLs, dumbass,” Ethan said, his tone emphatic, which made me want to slap him upside his genius head. Just like any computer ICLs literally have thousands of applications you can download onto them, one of them being night vision.
“Oh,” Hunter said, finally realizing how Ethan could effortlessly navigate the alleyway.
“Oh, well, thanks,” Hunter commented sarcastically. “Since that is so fucking obvious.”
When the air hit me with a full wave of human excrement, mixed with the rotting wood and the air’s musty texture due to the mold festering on the walls, I crinkled my nose at first. Just your typical abandoned home in the slums of Scottsdale.
Ethan shut the door behind us, and the still blackness inhabited the building. Upstairs I could hear a faint creaking noise, and my heart practically sunk into my stomach as it became further saturated in a pile of anxiety and panic. I stood, unmoving, just feet in front of the doorway, letting the gallons of pent-up fear coalesce into a beautiful gas that escaped out of me with every breath. I could feel the pain in my every joint, in my lungs, in my head, and most importantly, in my heart that had been broken long ago, but was now reduced to just shattered pieces of broken memories.
The fear, though, still poked at my insides, and it threatened to reduce my existing being into nothing but a ball of anxiety and sadness. They are coming. I could feel my heart begin to race at a dizzying speed as I thought about the police coming in and knocking down the door. It would take them just a minute to find out we were illegals, the unwanted, forced out of society by the government. And it would take just seconds for them to either kill us or lock us up for the rest of our lives.
The warm air from outside had failed to seep its way through the building’s walls, leaving it surprisingly cool inside, which caused me to shiver. But sweat still poured with veracity down my face, and dripped like a leaky faucet onto the ground beneath us.
“What do we do?” Hunter asked me, gazing into the darkness with his gorgeous blue eyes that shined like diamonds in the heavy blackness. I felt my whole body suddenly become paralyzed with fear as the blaring sirens of another cop car echoed outside.
Ethan coughed as he tried to catch his breath, then said, “Go upstairs―and hope they don’t see us.”
“That’s it?” Hunter replied, the shock and defeat in his voice apparent, as he finally realized how truly fucked we were. “That’s your grand plan?”
“There’s nothing else we can do,” Ethan snapped back, already starting to walk through the darkness to where I assumed was the staircase. My body flinched as a sharp scream from outside reverberated through the cracked windows that were dotted in bullet holes, and I convulsed with fear, imagining the scream was somehow related to us. They are gonna find us. They are gonna kill us. The thoughts raced through my mind, causing my hands to vibrate erratically as we made our way up the narrow staircase to the second floor. There was a damp, coldness to the air that was absent from the air outside. I could almost feel the fungal-like spores of death beginning to appear on my skin and invade my airways with wretchedness.
“Let’s stay up here.” Ethan’s voice reverberated off the concrete walls. “We don’t have much of a choice to go anywhere else.”
I emerged from the cramped stairwell, miraculously without falling back down the stairs, and my eyes began to process a single ray of light that appeared at the far end of the second floor. It looked like the upper level of the building had never been finished because large metal poles had been left bare in the open, and everything around me looked dull and lifeless. What a great place to die. I began to feel calm, and I could feel the exhaustion finally hitting me again as I mindlessly walked over to a corner of the room that was shrouded in a thick sheet of darkness. I let my body collapse to the cold, hard concrete. I give up. I let all my muscles go loose, as my body conformed to the exhaustion. Life, I fucking surrender to your mercy! World, I give in to your will! The anger was like magma roaring out a volcano, and I let out a hysterical scream, only for it to be stifled by Hunter’s soft hand closing over my mouth.
“Shh!” he whispered, and I could feel his entire body tense up in the darkness next to me. I glanced at him through the tears in my eyes and I could still make out his beautiful jaw line in the blackness. “The police,” he said, “they’re still after us.”
“Hunter, shut up and let her scream,” Ethan said, pacing back and forth along the concrete. “It’s fucking useless. We can’t do anything now!”
The scream had so suddenly erupted from Ethan that it caused my body to creep back further into the darkness. The ray of moonlight peeking through the translucent window had managed to illuminate the vexation on Ethan’s face, as his mouth contorted madly with every word.
“Ethan, calm down. Stop being so careless,” Hunter told him as he wrapped an arm around me.
I don’t want to die. But I want this pain to end. A vision flashed through my mind of government agents as they jumped through the window and took us all away with them, just like they’d done with my family. We can’t stop that. We can’t run away. I shivered as I realized the one and only thing of which we were all in control: acceptance. We can only accept it.
“Stop being so careless?!” Ethan looked at Hunter, offended. “You think this was my fault? Are you blaming this on me?!”
“No, stop! Ethan, stop!” Hunter’s voice roared off the walls, threatening to shake the weak foundation of the building. “Just slow down for one goddamn second. In all the years I’ve known you, you’ve always forgotten to just stop and think.” Hunter sighed, and I could see the anger coursing through him suddenly explode into a ball of fire. “You know what? Maybe if you did think about what you’re doing before you do it, then you wouldn’t have freaking blown up a robot and almost get us killed!”
“So you’re blaming this on me?!” Ethan replied, sadness and frustration beginning to pour out of Ethan’s eyes in a river of tears. “You know what? Fuck you! How could you freaking say that after all we’ve been through together over the years?! I’ve been there through thick and thin with you, and you know that!”
Ethan suddenly collapsed to the ground, and a heavy silence hung in the air for a long second. Holy crap. I had never seen them fight like that in all my years of knowing them. Desperation, in combination with hunger and sadness, truly has a way of driving a wedge between people. But, to actually drive them to such a level of annoyance is nearly impossible.
“I only take risks because we have to!” Ethan yelled, banging his fists against the ground as his entire body looked repulsed, just thinking about our situation. “I only do this because we have to survive! I only do this because I know that the alternative is no better!” Ethan paused, and I could see he was starting to calm down a bit. “I have always been this way, Hunter. You know that, and I’m not going to change now.”
Hunter paused before replying, and then his whole body tensed up as he fired the comeback, “If it’s really all about us surviving, then stop and take a minute to think before you get us all killed.”
“Is that so?” The distaste in Ethan’s voice was obvious as he shot Hunter a deadly look. “Because I don’t see you doing anything to help out. You’re not the one finding all the information about the government and hitmen on the internet. You’re not the one willing to take
the risks like I am. You have no right to say that—to say any of it.”
“Ethan, shut the hell up.” The energy behind Hunter’s voice had faded to a weak whisper. “I have given this my all. We all have. We’re all just trying our best here, and I’m sorry if that’s not good enough for you.”
The soft coldness to Hunter’s voice managed to silence Ethan. The tension hung over the air like a thin sheet of glass, and I winced as I imagined the piece of glass falling onto the concrete and shattering into a bloody mess in my lap. The fear suddenly curdled inside of me and began to jump out of my throat in a series of vicious coughs. I felt like my entire body was having a sort of allergic reaction to the sadness and terror that was inside, as my lungs convulsed in an attempt to rid my body of those two vile substances.
They are coming. Even in the eerie silence, my mind had somehow tricked itself into believing that the police were about to rush through the door and take away the one last thing I could barely hold on to: my own life. But instead, a different sort of blue barged through the door, and with its power, it began to rush over me and take over my body. I could feel its wrath suddenly gaining control of me as tears ran down my face uncontrollably. It’s all over. It’s all over. I felt Hunter’s warm lips brush against my cheek as he slowly fell into a deep sleep. I could feel the exhaustion and defeat beginning to pull on my eyes like a million-pound dumbbell cemented to the top of each eyelid.
My arms grew limp and my legs suddenly turned numb, as the sadness and regret coursed through me and hardened in my veins, turning them cold and brittle, like ice. My whole body was succumbing to the will of darkness, and I could feel my entire life slipping away. Finally, my one last bit of control, my one last sliver of power, had gone from me, as my body entered a state of paralysis.
I miss you. The thought reverberated throughout my brain as memories flashed by, visions of another life, visions of better days. But those days were long gone, and that life had long escaped me. I could feel the final remnants of that former life fade from my body that night, almost like a ghost freeing itself from its host. But now that ghost was free. And now that ghost could haunt me―forever.
Chapter 4
“Holy shit!” Ethan gasped at the image on his ICL in shock.
“What is it?” Hunter was eating a box of crackers, and was slumped up against the edge of the roof of the building.
I finally broke the trance I’d been in, staring at the monotonous lull of heatwaves emanating from the surface of the abandoned building’s roof. The past few days had been filled with nothing but the mindless eating and drinking of the groceries we’d stolen just days before. But now our food was almost gone, and tensions were beginning to run high as both Hunter and Ethan contemplated making another desperate and deadly run for survival.
“You gotta look at this,” Ethan said, motioning for a holograph to be projected out into the daytime sky, scattered with wispy clouds. “This could finally be the break we were waiting for.” There was a new vibrant glow to Ethan’s caramel skin, and that familiar spark in his eyes seemed to have been reignited, for the first time in weeks. That day was the first day, that he had failed to cry about his three, undoubtedly cute, little siblings, who were ruthlessly taken by the government. That day was the first day, that he hadn’t madly screamed, cursing himself for taking the great life he once had for granted. And that day was also the last day that I heard him mention the warm look that always adorned his mother’s dark, brown eyes, and the firm, yet loving voice, in which his father always spoke. After that day, he never mentioned his parents again.
“What is this?” I said, staring at the holograph, trying to process all the tiny letters. But my brain was too overwhelmed at that moment.
“This is a possible haven.” Ethan smiled, and the excitement radiated from him. “I somehow found this on the internet, and it says that atop Camelback mountain, there’s a refuge for people like us. It literally stated, ‘We welcome people of all ages and backgrounds to join us atop the peak of Camelback mountain if they’ve been excluded or eliminated from the general population.’”
“Woah.” I felt my body sit straight up as a dose of adrenaline began to rush through me. I stared at the screen, allowing my brain to process the same words that Ethan had read to me, and a surreal feeling began to overtake.
“Yeah, holy crap. This is crazy,” Ethan said, then took a deep breath as he stared out into the blue sky, its thin, airy clouds above. “There’s actually a system of refuges out there for people like us.” Ethan laughed, and I could see the relief begin to loosen the tightly wound tension in his muscles. “We aren’t alone in our loneliness.”
“Wow,” Hunter said, as he put the box of crackers down and squinted at the holograph. “That is unbelievable. Literally, unbelievable. In fact, I don’t believe it.”
“What is there not to believe?” Ethan threw his hands into the air as he shot Hunter a confused and frustrated look. The tension between them from their argument just a few nights had faded away—mostly.
I found myself staring at the holograph in complete and utter shock. There, right in front of our eyes―finally―there was the first proof that life could actually be merciful. For once, I could feel the dimmest glimmer of hope, like a single spark dancing through my veins. Is this real? Is this fucking real? The excitement roared inside of me and leaped out of my throat in an ecstatic scream that made its way through the open sky. I stared at the screen, my whole body shaking with apprehension and pure joy, as my eyes processed the words in front of me.
If you are reading this, we welcome you to our refuge; a place where you are protected from the dangers of the world, and sheltered from the darkness. I had to read over that line several times before my brain could accept the words were, indeed, right in front of me.
“This could just be a trap,” Hunter said, as his eyes muddled over the words, erring on the side of caution as usual. “This could just be the government’s way of getting more of us to walk right into their hands.”
“But this isn’t the government,” Ethan replied. “An organization called the White Knights has set them up across the country. They are a rebel group, who wants to help us live! They want to give us a chance, and Hunter we have to take it.”
There was a look of fire in Ethan’s eyes that burned incandescently. I could feel the energy buzzing off him like heat radiating off the top of a stove, and my body soon began to absorb some of that heat, causing my heart rate to speed up and that same fiery look to echo in my eyes.
“I don’t care if these people say they’re the freaking White Knights. That doesn’t mean that the government isn’t behind all of this. That doesn’t mean that when we get there we won’t all die.”
I could feel the pain weighing down Hunter’s voice as he stared at the holograph in adamant denial that it could be real. I, on the other hand, didn’t know what to think. It almost seemed too good to be true, quite frankly. It did seem unreal. How could a rebel group be advertising safe havens for people the government wants killed without President Ash ordering for it to be taken down?
“It’s not like we won’t die anyways,” Ethan said. There was a condescending tone to his voice as he looked at Hunter with narrowed eyes. “Hunter, you know that if we keep doing this, that if we continue living this lifestyle, we won’t live much longer. It’s inevitable!” Ethan suddenly yelled, and his voice boomed off the rooftop and onto the empty streets below.
“But what about the risk?” Hunter asked. His arms shook madly with anger and uncertainty. “What if the government is just waiting there to kill us?! That isn’t any better!” Hunter banged his fist against the ground, and I could see him letting out his frustration at the world, and mostly his frustration with himself. “I’m sorry, but I just don’t trust this. I can’t trust it. Not after everything that has happened, not after everything that has been taken away for me—taken away from us! I don’t want to surrender the last piece of power I have. I don’t want
to just give up and leave myself to the mercy of the will of the world. I can’t do that. Ethan, I’m sorry I can’t risk this.”
Ethan paused, and I could see a rare look of sympathy flash across his eyes. I could even feel my own eyes begin to tear up just listening to Hunter, as he so beautifully echoed my own fears.
“He’s right,” I finally managed to croak, instead of just staring at the holograph in awe. “How do we even know this is real? How were they even able to bypass all the government censors, unless this is the government themselves?”
“Because they didn’t mention the government or anything about Protocol 00, the blue pill, hitmen, or really anything that would trigger any of the immediate government censors to go off,” Ethan replied. He glanced at the holograph almost as if he was admiring the handiwork of whoever crafted the web page. “But we don’t know how long this will be up. In fact, the second line of government censors will probably flag this for some kind of underlying meaning and take it down.”
“So you’re saying that we should go soon?” I asked, looking out at the mountains that lined the horizon like a great wall of dirt and rock, protecting Phoenix from the outside world. From the roof of the building, the skyscrapers that line the streets of downtown Phoenix were visible, gleaming in the sunlight like metal spires of hope that represented what everything could be. But instead, the valley of the sun was shrouded in a darkness that managed to swath over everything, and suck the life and hope out of every last person.
“Yes.” Ethan’s eyes lit up, “Yes. In fact, we should leave right now.”
“Whoa, whoa.” Hunter put a hand up. “We can’t do that. I can’t do that. How are we supposed to just get up and leave, when we barely know where we’re going to?”
“There is no other option,” Ethan said sternly as he stood up, peering out into the sky with a determined look. “Waiting around for something to happen is not going to help us. Hunter, we have to take this risk.” Ethan walked over to Hunter and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Buddy, I don’t care how scared you are. I don’t care how much you don’t trust this. We have to do it.”
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