Page 28 of Resistant

We descend, and we keep going down. It’s pitch black and I had no idea there were so many more floors under the greenhouses which are below ground level. I strain to see in the darkness the only sounds are the squeaks from the pulley and my teeth clacking together. He stops the lift, and the doors bang open, and he forces me out, the chains pinching and bruising my wrists. I clutch the towel over my torn uniform and grimace.

He drags me forward, muttering.

“You’d better be good missy; I don’t want to deal with this shit. Keep your fucking mouth shut. You’re going in the room, you will submit, and if you are good, you’ll stay alive after tomorrow and might be rewarded.”

At last, we turn to a hallway lit with a naked bulb. He opens a steel bar door, and hustles me inside a seemingly bare room, my wet feet slapping on the floor. He unlocks the chains from my wrist, walking out the door and slamming it closed. The locks thud into place. I look around.

The room is large and dirty, the drop ceiling fell through a long time ago, and there is debris on the floor. There’s an old-fashioned school desk in front of me. With the exception of the desk, all the surfaces are gritty and dirty, there are remnants of old furniture on the far side, and it looks like this might have been an old schoolroom.

A green chalkboard takes up one whole wall in front of me. I look down at the desk and see a small piece of paper folded into quarters and a piece of fabric. It’s old paper, blue lined with a three-hole punch, something from The Before that I haven’t seen in a long time.

I unfold the paper, there are three handwritten instructions:

1. Strip naked, 2. Put on the blindfold, 3. Do not talk.

I follow the directions. The fabric is a woman’s scarf, another item from The Before. The scarf is gray and soft.Where did this come from? There isn’t anything like this is left anymore.

I slide off the soggy, torn, and threadbare uniform, fold it and place it in a desk drawer. I tie the scarf around my eyes, smoothing my wet hair out of my face. I lean my hips against the desk and wait. I take a deep breath and try to calm myself.

I wait for minutes, an hour, I don’t know. I know that I’m cold and I’m frightened. Eventually, my teeth stop chattering. Cold sweat trickles down the middle of my back.

I hear multiple footsteps erupt from the silence and the loud clanking of the metal lock disengaging. My blood pressure rises and all I can hear is the swooshing sound in my own head. I smell the acrid scent of sweat, and another, the clean scent of a man, woodsy and crisp.

In this camp, men are generally not nice when they get near a woman. Rape is a common occurrence.

One set of footsteps sounding like bare feet stops right in front of me. I hear shoes clicking away from me, the door slams, and the tumbling of the locks click into place.

I can smell musk and soap, and mint.I want toothpaste. I can feel the heat radiating from his body, and his breath moves the damp hair clinging to my cheek. I am silent.

World Gone Crazier

Declan

I am number 6457. I used to be Declan. I grew up in the Midwest, with an older sister, three brothers and my parents. We were a farming family, so I know a lot about plant growth, crops, and fertilization.

After high school, I attended community college and took courses in atmospheric science. I ran out of money for college, enlisted in the Corps to pay for school and they trained me to be a medic. I’ve done lots of things, and I’m pretty relentless. I like to do things my way. My mother says I’m hard-headed so at times I’ve taken the long way around to get to my objective. I work hard and I used to play hard. I like to have control. I never take any shit from anybody. I’ve always been strong, bigger than the average dude, and the military trained me to be a killing machine.

Now, I’ve become an expert in taking other people’s shit, keeping my mouth shut, and hiding my true feelings. Not long after I finished my reserves, the world went to fuck all, and I signed up to fight for the Resistance.

I was captured and spared by the Order because of my skill set in atmospheric research and farming background.

The Order believes I am valuable because I’m finding ways to accelerate growth, and affect the Gray, moving the planet closer to what it was in The Before. I think they are pretty fucking desperate.

The superiors in the camp have provided me with a laboratory to study nuclear winter. After my first breakthrough, I was moved to a larger cell with a queen-sized bed instead of a piece of shit cot. They also gave me some civilian clothes, so on days I work in the lab I mostly wear jeans and t-shirts.

They pay me with favors in the hopes that I will stay loyal to their cause. Most of the time I feel like a traitor. I’m a far cry from who I used to be in The Before. My intention is to share my discoveries with the Resistance, hopefully there are still people on the outside that I know. Honestly, they could all be dead by now, and I have no idea how I’ll share my research. But I keep working so we, whoever we are, can implement positive change and retake the government.

This afternoon I made another small discovery, a group of plants that if grown in large numbers in small areas may dissipate the grayness from the sky, or at least reduce the timeline of expected dissipation from decades to several years. It’s a start, I’m hoping for chocolate pudding as a reward.I’m pathetic. My secondary focus is how to escape the camp and make it out on my own.

After my shift, I walk from my prison laboratory towards my cell block. A guard prevents me from passing into my block and says I’m to report to the stocks after I’ve had a shower.

I raise my eyebrow at him, in my time here I’ve heard the guards talk about the stocks. I know they are deep underground, and I know that whatever happens down there is a reward for guards only, or so I thought. But I don’t ask him, I’m not allowed to speak unless I’m in my lab explaining my work to the superior or government officials. I stay silent and head to the showers.

I’m met outside the shower room and another guard who hands me a towel. He’s a short hulk of a dude with dark eyes that are too close together. He wears his hair in a ridiculous 50’s style comb over bouffant. I want to punch him in the junk, just for looking like an asshole.

He smirks.

“You won’t need any clothes, man. I don’t know what you did for this, I’ve never been down to the stocks, and you’ve managed to get at least a week’s worth of stock time. If I’m lucky, I’ll get to watch.”

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