by Ben Woollard
“Proélefsi. Proélefsi!” he repeated again, louder this time, and with more urgency. His crying had turned into sobs that shook his whole body.
“Max, come sit back down. Come now, honey, no need to bother our guest,” Tilda said to him softly, and he began, breath by breath, to calm. He sat down, still muttering, allowing Tilda to place a blanket over him, before his speech trailed back to nothingness.
“That’s a word the Singulars use,” I told her, and she nodded, a concerned look on her face.
“I wonder how he came to know such a thing. He hasn’t said anything in months, and when he does it’s usually just demands for food or attention.” We both stood there silent, the sounds of light rain beginning to fall outside. “Anyway,” Tilda said, “I can show you where the place you’re looking for is, but I think you best stay here tonight if you want to sleep dry. Alexei’s Grove is a far walk, and you won’t make it before night. It’ll be next to impossible to find it in the dark, anyway.” I was worried Shiloh was ahead of me, but I knew I wouldn’t find him in the dark, so I agreed to spend the night, so long as I wasn’t going to be placing Tilda in any kind of jeopardy. She assured me that I wasn’t, but that if I felt so inclined I could help her by doing some work around her while I was there.
I spent the last hour of daylight splitting wood and helping Tilda cook. We made soup from potatoes that she had grown in her yard. When the soup was ready we sat at her small table and ate them with bread. The food was unlike anything I’d had in Columbia. It tasted fresh and real beyond what I knew was possible. The half-stale bread and wilted greens I was used to living off of couldn’t compare at all. For the most part we were silent, except for Max’s slurping as Tilda lifted spoons of soup up into his mouth, a large many of which fell out, spilling rills down his cheek and onto his already stained shirt. Tilda smiled while doing this, and I was amazed by her patience, she didn’t seem to mind taking care of her damaged husband at all, and I never got the impression that she’d ever thought of him as a burden.
After dinner Tilda laid a mat out for me in the corner across from the hearth, and apologized because it was the only place she had room to put me. I told her I was more than grateful and thanked her for showing me so much kindness. She went to sleep in a small chamber adjoining the room, with Max sharing her bed. I laid up for a while staring into the ember-glow in the dying fire, watching the last figments of light and heat disperse. I thought of Momma and Grandpa sitting in our small kitchen, eating what meager food they had and worrying about me and Shiloh. Already Columbia had changed for me. In just a day the place I’d always deemed a center of humanity and prosperity now seemed more like a maze, filled with springs and traps designed to keep its inhabitants dependent on its walls. I thought of Shiloh, and wondered at the promises of the Singulars. For the first time I thought what it might be like if it was all true, if everything they said was exactly as they said it. Even if it was, I thought, the sacrifice is too great. To lose yourself and meld with their “higher structure” seemed to me the same as death, whether or not you kept a living body. I fell asleep with the echo of Proélefsi in my mind, sifting from the image of the way Max had looked at me.
Chapter 7
I woke up to Tilda boiling water on the stove in the corner of the room, billowing steam floating to cloud up in the eaves.
“Morning,” I said, and she smiled in response. We drank tea and I sipped it quietly, eating bread and enjoying the sour edge the needles gave the water. “I should get moving, the longer I wait the further ahead of me my brother gets,” I said, and packed up my blanket, as well as a loaf of bread and some vegetables Tilda gave me. I tried to protest, saying she needed them more, but she insisted. She led me out to the eastern end of town, where three roads diverged, and pointed me towards the one leading to Alexei’s Grove.
“I hope you find your brother,” she said. I thanked her for everything she’d done for me, and started down the road. As I walked on I wondered at the future of settlements like hers. The Gov was always trying to control them, and it was impossible for them to avoid the taxes and political control that came with being so close to Columbia. I wondered about those that were further off, if they’d managed to escape the influence that hoped to push the whole area back into something resembling a nation. I thought the Gov was, in its own way, doing something similar to what the Singulars wanted, theirs was just political. Was it only that, though? I wondered. The Gov demanded uniformity, and although they weren’t preaching the literal mixing of all minds, they did want everyone to think the same things as them. What of these people, living out here and trying to scrape a living from the land? They weren’t given a choice to hand their food to the Gov, in order that the city dwellers might eat without having to the grow anything themselves. Where was freedom in that? Where was the individual Grandpa always held above all else? Crushed under the footfall of organizations, of politics and ideologies.
Again I found myself walking through a closely grown forest, the sounds of birds echoing around me, each one completely different from all the others. Everything became denser around me, and was enclosed by the bark-patterned trunks until the trees opened up and I came to a small clearing. I stopped and sat down to rest my legs and eat some of the food Tilda had given me. The sky was clear except for the trails of hazy clouds. I sat there for a moment, almost forgetting where I was, just watching the interplay of sky, the patterns of the foregrounded leaves on the back-suspended blue, listening to the intermittent rustle of the wind. Why didn’t we all live out here? I thought. All of us: me, Momma, Shiloh, and Grandpa. It was quiet, peaceful, there were none of the daily announcements, the outskirts or falling rubble. Is this what the Gov was fighting against? This? The slow drift of floral scents through emerald-laden scenery? I stopped my reverie short, and began my march again with renewed urgency, feeling I’d wasted too much time.
By mid-afternoon I came to a place where the road grew thin, was really no more than a small trail that lead me out of the forest and into open fields filled with looming boulders and creeks running down the light slope of the hillside. I walked until the trail was so thin I could barely make it out among the sprouting grass and pebbles, and kept hoping it would come back, but it only got less and less visible until it disappeared completely. Looking ahead, I saw a grouping of trees standing out on the horizon, and noticed a small white flag flapping from one of their trunks. By this time the sun was beginning to set mellow and I was relieved to think I might’ve found the place. The discovery of the first signs of my destination did little to reassure me, though, since I now faced walking into a camp of fanatics in hopes of stealing away one of their recruits. I approached cautious, walking until the white flag was fully visible, keeping an eye out for anyone that might be around. When I came to the small grouping of trees I was disheartened to find no buildings or signs of human involvement. I began to creep around the grove, looking for something, anything that might give me a sign of Shiloh.
After some time searching and seeing nothing, I sat down on a fallen log to consider what I should do. At that moment I looked over to a small pile of stones and noticed they were arranged all stacked on top of each other in a way too ordered to be natural. I began to pick them up, one by one, pulling each one faster as their removal revealed a steel hatch concealed within the ground. I cleared away the rocks and looked at the hatch, amazed by the discovery. As I was about to reach for the handle, I felt hands grab me from behind, and a sack was pulled over my face. My attackers bound my hands and feet and sat me down upon the ground.
Voices spoke to me, asking what I was doing there. They sounded strange and manic, and they were nearly whispers. I told them that I was looking for my brother, that I’d heard he’d come this way and it was my intention to follow him. I figured this was innocent enough; they couldn’t know I knew anything about the Singulars.
“Do you know who lives in this place?” one of the voices asked me. I said I didn’t, that I’d jus
t been following my brother.
“Please, his name is Shiloh, is he here? Do you know?” I asked, and the voices went off a small way and whispered to each other.
“We’ll take you to him,” one of them finally said, and relief washed over me despite my being bound. They undid the ties of my feet, but didn’t take off the sack or release my hands. I heard the creaking sounds of metal hinges and was made to step precariously down a steeply angled staircase. As I went down I smelled damp and felt the temperature increase. I was lead along for a long time, accompanied only by the reverberating sounds of my own footfall on the iron floors. I was disconcerted by not being allowed to have free hands or to see where I was going, but I figured it was just a matter of precaution; I still saw The Singulars as being mostly nonviolent. Eventually we stopped and I again heard the sounds of unoiled hinges before being thrust forward, having my hands untied, and the sack pulled from my eyes. They took my knapsack and all the contents of my pockets, then shut the door behind me.
I looked around and saw I was in an iron cell filled with eight or nine people, illuminated by a single buzzing light bulb suspended uncovered from the center of the ceiling. Looking at the faces of the people I was overjoyed to see Shiloh sitting in the corner of the room, head between his knees. The shock of everything was still lingering, and we just stared at each other for a moment like we were seeing the phantom of someone long dead.
“Sam?” he said, standing up and coming towards me, eyes squinting in disbelief. “Shit, it’s really you!” he yelled and hugged me. He pulled away suddenly and looked at me seriously. “Sam, what’re you doing here? You shouldn’t have come.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“I came to get you! To bring you back! Shit, Shiloh, I mean, for a while I was scared you’d already joined.” I looked around at the crowded cell, my spirits falling. “What is this?” I asked. “Why do they have you all locked up in here like this?”
“Come on, sit down, Sam. There’re some things I need to tell you. You really, really shouldn’t have come here.” We went and sat in the corner and talked while those around us stared up at the water dripping down through a crack in the ceiling.
“What’s happened?” I wasn’t surprised to have been greeted in the way I had, but to find Shiloh and other apparent supporters of the Singulars, judging from the robes many of them wore, was something I hadn’t even considered.
“The Singular have changed,” Shiloh whispered, glancing around as if they’d hear us. “I started noticing it right after the Gov attack. I’m guessing you heard what happened?” I nodded. “It was terrible, Sam. Blood and smoke everywhere. I watched the Gov club people so hard their skulls broke open. They threw explosives into the crowd and limbs were laying all over the floor. We were all chocking. The only ones that kept calm were the initiates. They lead us out through a back way, some escape hatch they’d made just in case, while others held off the troops rushing in.” Shiloh’s expression was dark as he told me this, and his hands shook. “I mean, it was fucking awful Sam. I didn’t know what to do; I was so fucked up from the whole thing. The initiates led us out and pushed us towards the road leading out of Columbia. I didn’t want to go, really, but what could I do? I was prepared to leave the city; I really believed in the Singulars. But that violence, that bloodshed, I didn’t want a part of that. Not of any of that. Still, I followed the initiates. It felt like I was in a dream, everything was a haze and blur. It all melded together and next thing I knew we were traipsing through the woods, further out from Columbia than I’d ever been.”
“So why didn’t you come back?” I asked him, looking around at all the downcast faced gathered tightly in the cell around us.
“I was scared,” he said. “The Gov was after us. We had to go through the woods and keep off the roads. We didn’t have any food except for the plants and berries we managed to find along the way, no water except what we could stoop and sip from the streams. I didn’t think I could find my way back. But I tried, or at least I wanted to try.”
“What do you mean?” Shiloh again looked at the iron door that had let me in. Everyone around us was silent, like the whole place was contemplating something, but what it was I couldn’t say. Shiloh’s voice became nearly inaudible, a faint whisper peaking up from the vacuum that surrounded us.
“Something started to change in the initiates while we were out there. After a few days the two who’d brought us were different than they had been when we first left Columbia. They were paranoid, like less benevolent than they seemed the whole time I’d spent with them in the meetings. While we were travelling they started muttering under their breath to each other. I thought it was weird, why would people who share the same mind need to talk to one another like that? But I didn’t think that much about it, and, well, things only got worse from there. The initiates began to yell at us, accuse us of stuff none of us could’ve done. Then one of the younger kids told them he wanted to go back. He asked them to point him in the direction of the road so he could go home. At first they both agreed, but right away started whispering to each other, moving off a little so that none of us could hear what they were saying. They pointed him in the direction they said would take him to the road. We thought that maybe that would be that, and I was about to follow him when one of the initiates grabbed a stone from the ground and jumped on top of the kid and smashed his head in with it. Me and Kylie, the only other non-initiate with us, jumped on him and pulled him off, but it was too late; he was already dead. The other initiate just stood there and let it happen. We wanted to run, or to fight back, but they told us they’d kill us if we tried, and there were only the two us.”
I was amazed by Shiloh’s story. I couldn’t imagine anyone murdering an innocent kid like that. To give him false hope and then break his skull in with a rock while his back was turned, and as a means of setting an example! I was speechless, it had never occurred to me that the Singulars were capable of atrocity to that degree, and I recognized how lucky I was to be imprisoned rather than finding myself facing something similar.
“As soon as we got here they locked us in this room. Since then they’ve taken some and brought a few new people in. The one who was with me, Kylie, she was taken only a few hours before you showed up. They won’t say what they’re going to do with us, or where those they take are going.”
“I’ll tell you where they’re going,” said a man sitting behind Shiloh, who identified himself as Theo, a name paired with a long and unkempt beard. “They’re makin’ us into them. Don’t you get it? This whole thing was a ploy! They tricked us into coming here. Now they’re gonna brainwash us, so we become tools for Proélefsi.” Shiloh shook his head.
“Maybe, but they didn’t trick us into coming here. Something changed in them, I don’t know what, or why, but something in them became corrupted. None of the initiates I ever met acted like that. I don’t get how they could’ve faked sanity so well, only to fall completely out of character once we were outside the city.”
“You’re overly optimistic,” Theo sneered. “Maybe that damned device of theirs doesn’t even exist, or if it does it doesn’t work, and this whole place is just a bunch of lunatics drawing people in with nothing.”
“What’s Proélefsi?” I asked. “I keep hearing that word.”
“It’s the name they give to the unified personality,” Shiloh told me. “You really think this was all a ploy to get us here?” he asked, turning to the man behind him.
“I think we’re all fucked,” Theo responded, “and there’s no point whatsoever in theorizing about it, ‘cause in a few days, or a few hours, or whatever, that doors gonna open and their gonna grab me, and then they’re gonna grab you, and whatever comes next sure as fuck isn’t gonna be any of that love and light bullshit they’ve been preaching up ‘till now.” Hearing what Theo said, I’d be lying if I said that in that moment despair didn’t overwhelm me, make my limbs weak and my heart beat quick. Shiloh seemed stoic, though. I have no idea ho
w. Either he’d accepted his fate or accepted his despair, but either way his movements were easy.
“What can we do?” I asked at last, “there must be some way to escape.”
“Pray to the other side,” Theo said. And that was it, the only advice that anyone could offer us. We were, as Theo pointed out, truly fucked. I’d followed my brother into a hole in the ground guarded by madmen, and we both knew that no help was coming. There was no one, nothing that could save us. The Gov didn’t care; they’d see us as traitors even if by some miracle they did arrive.
I don’t know how long we spent in that cell. Time didn’t exist there except in the pacing of the dripping water from the ceiling, the occasional flicker from the suspended bulb that only served to mock the sun. At some point in the haze of that dark room, the door opened, and a robed initiate walked in and grabbed the first person he saw, seemingly at random. He chose an old man who’d been hunched in the corner and dragged him out, closing the door behind him with a rusted creak. More time passed, and again the door opened. This time a different initiate entered and grabbed me by the arm, pulling me roughly to my feet.
“No!” I heard Shiloh yelling through the fog that was building in my head. “Take me instead! Take me!” he was screaming at the Singular, but the man pushed Shiloh back down to the ground as he tried to stand, and I was forced out of the room, and again had the blinding burlap sack pulled over me. I can’t remember the walk except to say that it was a long one. When I finally stopped and they pulled the hood from over my eyes I was standing in an auditorium with all the seats removed. At the end of the space there was a stage, on which I saw a chair flanked by a strange machine. It looked like a large helmet, white and sleek like plastic, with tangles of wires running from it to a steal box, which took up most of the stage. I knew what it was almost immediately. I had found myself, against my will, facing unification.