by P. S. Lurie
We, The Final Few
P.S. Lurie
9 A.M. - 10 A.M.
Theia
I reach out in my sleep, comforted by her presence and wanting to squeeze her fingers but... these are the final moments of waking from a dream and... panic... I struggle not to break the delusion but it’s too late... her face dissolves as I jolt awake, a cruel entrance to yet another solitary day in captivity. Even still, with wishful thinking, I extend my arm across the mattress but I’m alone. For a year, she was there. Now she is not.
“Leda.” The word comes out weak and loses itself to the emptiness that surrounds me in this pithy excuse of a room, encapsulating everything that my life has been pathetically reduced to. I had no choice but to be here with only empty promises for assurance from President Callister atop the Fence that I would be reunited with my brother and sister. A kinder part of my mind pipes up that I did my best and before I have even stood up I brace to go into battle with more self-critical thoughts, preparing for the internal war of blame versus impunity that fills the time that I waste away in this cell. The stronger part shouts the compassionate side down. It berates and mocks:
This is your best?
Then another voice, this time foreign, overpowers both with its killer line: “They’re your responsibility now,” it says, devastating me in its calm pronouncement. If my self-attempted affirmations were the last mounds of land that my mind clung onto then my mother’s statement is the crux of Total Flood that sweeps me into the depths of the freezing ocean. There’s no absolution because I believe what she says: they’re my responsibility, and considering I’m here alone and my siblings are under President Callister’s control, there’s no other meaning to be taken other than I have failed them.
Even worse as I came to learn: there’s no flood. I’m not even drowning. I’m choking on air.
I sit up and catch my breath. The strip light is always on, revealing nothing about the time of day or the duration that I’ve been here, instead only exposing the bare essentials that are in this room. No windows unlike my bedroom in the Middlelands from which I could write messages across the gardens to Henry. No bunk-beds, disparate to my shared dorm in the Upperlands from which I could stay up late with Selma and Melissa lamenting our past decisions. No sink in the corner from which to break a porcelain chunk and protect myself like I did in the prison. All those places a distant memory, and all those people dead or at best long gone. There’s no joy in escaping the nightmares of their faces that come each night without reprieve because waking up in this room is a permanent reminder of how I am nothing but living past my expiry.
My environment is dissimilar to the past but there are familiarities here, maybe even purposefully, as if all the worst features of everywhere I’ve been have been amalgamated into one monstrous mass of torment. An electronically locked door. Artificial lighting like in the barracks. A pen and paper on a desk but no one to communicate with. A caged animal has it better because it doesn’t understand that it’s being tormented.
There’s nothing but silence, allowing my mind to reverberate with helicopters and gunshots and explosions and voices of people I once knew.
“You can save them. I had a plan for us.”
“I know who smuggled her in.”
“They’re coming.”
“I promise you there’s an explanation for all of this.”
And one louder than all else. “That’s not good enough. They’re your responsibility now.”
I stretch, walk to the tap sticking out of the wall and run the water, curving my body whilst turning my head up to drink directly out of it. Anything I don’t swallow trickles to the sloped floor and flows through a grated drain. It’s ice cold, refreshing and thankfully potable and soothes my parched throat as it funnels past my tongue. I lick my lips, no longer the desert they became overnight and manage to appreciate the little mercy that the water doesn’t ever run out or taste of the sea.
I haven’t spoken to anyone in days, maybe weeks even, and I have had no success in banging or calling through the door for help yet sometimes my mouth works separately from my brain. It calls out names, timidly, lacking the spirited drive I had in the prison basement that roused my friends into action. When the names do escape my mouth, I’m crushed all over again:
Leda.
Ronan.
Worst of all, because of what I came to learn one year after the great cull, the name of someone I loved who didn’t need to die: Henry.
I lean down to take another sip but then turn the tap off and back away in spite of my thirst; I have an unfunny aversion to water after the revelation on top of the Fence. Total Flood may have surpassed scientists’ expectations at one point in our history but the rising water did eventually stop, not almost reaching the height of the Fence as I was led to believe for a whole year through lies and digital trickery. No, the water receded before the great cull and the flood stopped rising before my community imploded on itself.
If only we knew the truth.
I sigh. I would cry, as I did for the first however many days after President Callister locked me in here but I’m out of tears. One more voice comes to the fore: my own, reminding me of what I vowed after I learnt the truth about the sea. I remember it word for word: “I’ll play her game a while longer, and then I’ll win it.”
Only, in every sense, I’m losing.
I move over to the desk and lean over the open sheet of the notebook where the occasional markings I make mysteriously erase themselves overnight, seldom replaced by someone else’s writing. Today, there are a few lines of new text signed by the same person as always.
‘Be patient. We’re waiting for you. Ronan.’
I flick back through the pages at more of his words of encouragement, always vaguely optimistic but amounting to telling me to wait. I’ve done too much waiting. I’m a prisoner without a trial let alone a release date, with the predicament that I am not winning any games by abiding to the rules but with no alternative. I may not be in physical danger but the emotional torture is exquisite in its brutality. The same questions fill my mind. Is this Ronan’s hand? Can he believe that I am being locked up for my own good? Does he expect that I will forgive and forget if the Upperlanders decide that I am ready to be set free? Or have I too readily moved on from playing along with their demand for gratitude and loyalty? Could I be released when I am able to demonstrate these qualities?
An electronic beep brings me back to the room and I watch as the door opens. I may regret saying that emotional torture is worse than physical threat as President Callister coolly enters, refined as ever, eyes locked on me and holding a knife by her side.
Selene
I’m on my back, half-submerged in the still, pleasant water. Multicoloured fairy lights glow from the depths of the ocean guiding me by their warmth to my final resting place but my eyes are closed, choosing to let the water carry me along unrushed rather than fight it. If I took in my surroundings all I’d know is the endless sky and sea, reassuring rather than frightening in their enormity. I feel nothing except serenity. Nothing can harm me now that I am dead and I revel in the freedom that is finally within my reach.
“Kick.” The word momentarily enters my consciousness but I push it away.
Still, it triggers something in me and I start to move. My arms circle by my sides and keep me afloat whilst my legs do the hard work of breaking the surface and splashing gently up and down. Despite my physical movements I no longer have anything to fear with nowhere to be except here, buoyant on the tepid, vast ocean of pleasant nothingness.
“Selene.”
My left leg struggles to keep up with the ri
ght, at odds with what my head wants to believe which is that I should feel no pain. I’m free. That’s all I need to know. There’s one else accompanying me.
“Harder.”
The voice breaks my self-deceit, familiar but forceful and giving me instructions I don’t want. “No,” I yearn to cry back at her, as her truth overpowers my happy illusion. “Not again. Not after you dragged me from the brink of death last time.”
“Come on Selene.”
And then the voice alters, deepening as it becomes someone more threatening.
“There’s one thing you need to know. The truth is...”
At these words my body capsizes and I panic, gasping for air but instead I take in a swell of water caused by my arms swooshing over my head and...
“Selene,” the man shrieks at me as I leave him to die under the wreckage of the Utopia. “Help me.”
...then I’m scrambling as my feet don’t find ground and I start to drown. I force open my eyes that sting in the water but it’s too late to make neither head nor tail of my whereabouts or even align myself with the sky. I somehow manage to break above the surface but my legs give out from underneath me and only my arms push down into the water to stop my head from going back under but my ears have filled with water and all I can hear is his voice, calling my name from beneath the debris of the ship. I can’t shout for help. I can’t find the strength to power myself to shore. I can’t die peacefully, just like my attempt last time at the bottom of the Fence, after my mother was killed, after part of the Utopia punctured my body and after Melissa saved my life unknowingly against my wishes.
I feel my arms let go and more water rushes into my mouth, and then...
I’m held. Two arms are around my waist. “I’ve got you. Now, find the floor with your feet.” It takes a moment to compute these words before my feet skim along a smooth surface and I manage to straighten my body out until I’m towering above the waterline. I rub my eyes, blow out water from my nose and mouth and feel my ears drain. I turn to the girl who is fully clothed and holding me. “Deep breaths,” she says.
I don’t reply and instead take in her furrowed brow that tells me this wasn’t expected, that she wasn’t planning to have to jump in and save me and that I should be doing better than nearly dying on her watch this far into my rehabilitation.
“Selene,” the man calls from under the water, but his voice has faded. Despite being muffled I jolt that he is here and try to wrestle free from her grasp, confusing her support with his grip.
“Get off me,” I scream at him.
“It’s ok,” Melissa says, not letting go. “I’m here.”
Jack
“Whichever way we look at it, our best bet is to move now.”
“We need more time.”
“I thought you wanted to rescue your friend?”
“Believe me, I want to but it’s still too dangerous. Not until we have a better idea of what’s waiting for us.”
“We should have moved as soon as you returned. Biggest fuck up of all.”
“You had a year while we were up there and didn’t advance.”
“So let’s not waste any more time. Tick tock.”
“With all due respect...”
He cuts me off. “You’re only seventeen and don’t know what you’re talking about?”
“Not this again. I’ll walk away right now and then you’ll have nothing.”
“You’ll do no such thing.”
“Maybe we should take five minutes,” says a third person to the conversation, beating me to it.
The man I’m sparring with roars with laughter at the suggestion. “Of course. Always five more minutes. That’s the solution, isn’t it? We need to decide what to do.” He’s as exasperated as me and I do feel guilty because in truth, not that I can let on, I feel the same.
“Now that we agree on,” I mutter. What he doesn’t realise is that although we actually do both want the same thing I’m buying time. He could always disregard me – after all, as he so eloquently reminded everyone, I’m just a teenager – but I have the upper hand; without my approval, the Middlelanders won’t be privy to the knowledge that I have about the layout of the city beyond the Fence. Melissa knows the Upperlands better than anyone else and agrees with me to deter, informing me as recently as last night that Selene isn’t ready to trek that far. I’m bluffing that I know the city too even though I spent most of the year in a prison cell but the other self-appointed soldiers here don’t need to know that.
Everyone falls back, returning to incomplete maps and hypothetical lines of attack and silence prevails, our rough and ready army composing themselves after the first of many blows today, gearing up for round two of the debate and repeating the same circular arguments that have lasted half a year since we came together and the negotiations started. There is plenty of unaddressed hope that each new day will be the one in which all parties agree on what to do. However, as with all of the others, this one is looking no more successful and I know that I’m the one holding us back from progressing.
I pace the room, caught between wanting to make a break for it to drag this out even more and staying so that I look more in control instead of depicting myself as a coward. I sigh, over the top, expressing my frustration not just at the stand-off but at the fact that this has become my life.
“Yes, yes, we are all as infuriated as each other,” says Travis, my sparring partner, thirty years my senior. “You could end this by conceding.”
I won’t budge in what I want, despite Ruskin and Selene’s differences of opinion to my own. I throw my hands up in vexation. “I’m done today,” I say, suddenly feeling the need to break ranks and clear my head.
The man shrugs and wipes the crown of his nose with his thumb and index finger, whilst everyone else turns back to whatever they were working on individually as I leave the room.
“Let him go,” I hear Claire say to Travis. “He’s a child,” she adds, attempting to be empathic but instead coming off condescendingly.
I want to turn around and argue my cause, that I have experienced more than any of them and that she has actual children much younger than me to protect and that I don’t need looking after, but I continue on steadfast because maybe she’s right; I have too much to contend with and I’m not managing well.
I walk along the corridor of the makeshift control centre that used to be a school in the heart of the Middlelands and slink down onto a bench near one of the exits. Fresh air looms outside but I don’t want to go far; despite the irritation of these talks, I need to be persistent in my presence if I am to have my say. The four of us discussed it and I was delegated as our spokesman. Jack Benetton, the pacifist turned military strategist.
I drop my head to my hands and think about everything that has gone wrong in my life to be here, arguing about a war I know is necessary but one that I’d love to have no part of, leaving me torn between protecting some people by not advancing and risking the lives of others whilst we hold off.
I hear the sound of violent banging from along the corridor and know instantly who it is. I follow the heavy panting to an assembly hall that has been turned into a training ground. A long time ago, when I really was an infant, the Upperlanders herded us in here and played videos as they built the foundations of the Fence. Today, it is barren except for the presence of one person. In the corner is a very sweaty boy slamming his fists into a punch-bag and undeterred by the pain it’s causing him each time his knuckles make contact. He sees me approach, stops to regain his breath and notices my withered expression.
“Going that well?” Ruskin says, sarcastically.
Even through his anger, his presence reminds me that on the flipside some things went well in my life too, mainly that he’s here with me; finding the one silver lining to the atrocities I have lived through isn’t difficult, not that he makes it easy. His annoyance at me isn’t misplaced but I’m just one source of his frustration that is all-encompassing. Full of mistrust and fury,
he’s desperate to return to the Upperlanders in the fortress and seek revenge but he’s in no state to think rationally. Like a beast ensnared, he blames me for being trapped and wants to be released, not fully comprehending that I’m doing this for his own good. Given the chance, he would run headfirst into a torrent of bullets. I need to know he’s going to advance cautiously if I give him the go ahead.
Melissa and I are similarly worried about Selene.
I smile pleadingly at Ruskin, avoiding his question but it is short-lived as he scoffs and returns to the punch bag. He doesn’t need to hear that we’ve decided no more about what to do regarding the society that continues to exist higher up the mountainside and threatens danger on us with each passing day. Ruskin already knows this but isn’t willing to think with his head rather than his heart. There’s a reason he isn’t part of the negotiations.
I go to speak but stop. Instead, I wipe my hand across the top of my spine massaging my upper back. I don’t know what comes over me but I have to bite my lip to hold back tears.
“Hey, hey.” Ruskin pulls off the gloves and comes to me. He puts his hands on either side of my face and then pulls me in close. I let him hug me despite his sweatiness. “What you’re doing for me is amazing. I do know that.”
“Thanks.” I love hearing him say that but I also know that his sudden outbursts mean any understanding is transient.
“Maybe you should go back to it tomorrow.”
I bat his suggestion away. “If I’m not there to deter Travis and Claire then I risk losing you. Selene’s not ready either.”
“Each day that passes...”
“I know.” We hardly knew Theia, me even less than Ruskin but she means more to him than nearly anyone else. Besides, she saved our lives and we need to return the favour. “We’ll get her back.”
“Promise?” he asks.
“I’ll tell you what. We’ll do better than that. We’ll take her out on the rowboat the day after we rescue her.”