chapter ten

jimin puts on the gloves but he doesn’t touch me. “Let him up, Rosie. I’ll take

it from here.”

The boot disappears. I struggle to my feet and stare at nothing. I won’t think

about the horror that awaits me. Someone kicks in the backs of my knees and I

nearly stumble to the ground. “Get going,” a voice growls from behind. I look up

and realize jimin is already walking away. I’m supposed to be following him.

Only once we’re back in the familiar blindness of the asylum hallways does

he stop walking.

“taehyung .” One soft word and my joints are made of air.

I don’t answer him.

“Take my hand,” he says.

“I will never,” I manage between broken bites of oxygen. “Not ever.”

A heavy sigh. I feel him shift in the darkness and soon his body is too close

so disarmingly close to mine. His hand is on my lower back and he’s guiding me

through the corridors toward an unknown destination. Every inch of my skin is

blushing. I have to hold myself upright to keep from falling backward into his

arms.

The distance we’re walking is much longer than I expected. When jimin

finally speaks I suspect we’re close to the end. “We’re going to go outside,” he

says near my ear. I have to ball my fists to control the thrills tripping my heart.

I’m almost too distracted by the feel of his voice to understand the significance

of what he’s saying. “I just thought you should know.”

An audible intake of breath is my only response. I haven’t been outside in

almost a year. I’m painfully excited but I haven’t felt natural light on my skin in

so long I don’t know if I’ll be able to handle it. I have no choice.

The air hits me first.

Our atmosphere has little to boast of, but after so many months in a concrete

corner even the wasted oxygen of our dying Earth tastes like heaven. I can’t

inhale fast enough. I fill my lungs with the feeling; I step into the slight breeze The air is crisp and cool. A refreshing bath of tangible nothing that stings my

eyes and snaps at my skin. The sun is high today, blinding as it reflects the small

patches of snow keeping the earth frozen. My eyes are pressed down by the

weight of the bright light and I can’t see through more than two slits, but the

warm rays wash over my body like a jacket fitted to my form, like the hug of

something greater than a human. I could stand still in this moment forever. For

one infinite second I feel free.

jimin touch shocks me back to reality. I nearly jump out of my skin and he

catches my waist. I have to beg my bones to stop shaking. “Are you okay?” His

eyes surprise me. They’re the same ones I remember, blue and bottomless like

the deepest part of the ocean. His hands are gentle so gentle around me.

“I don’t want you to touch me,” I lie.

“You don’t have a choice.” He won’t look at me.

“I always have a choice.”

He runs a hand through his hair and swallows the nothing in his throat.

“Follow me.”

We’re in a blank space, an empty acre filled with dead leaves and dying trees

taking small sips from melted snow in the soil. The landscape has been ravaged

by war and neglect and it’s still the most beautiful thing I’ve seen in so long. The

stomping soldiers stop to watch as jimin opens a car door for me.

It’s not a car. It’s a tank.

I stare at the massive metal body and attempt to climb my way up the side

when jimin is suddenly behind me. He hoists me up by the waist and I gasp as

he settles me into the seat.

Soon we’re driving in silence and I have no idea where we’re headed.

I’m staring out the window at everything.

I’m eating and drinking and absorbing every infinitesimal detail in the

debris, in the skyline, in the abandoned homes and broken pieces of metal and

glass sprinkled in the scenery. The world looks naked, stripped of vegetation and

warmth. There are no street signs, no stop signs; there is no need for either.

There is no public transportation. Everyone knows that cars are now

manufactured by only one company and sold at a ridiculous rate.

Very few people are allowed a means of escape.

My parents The general population has been distributed across what’s left of

the country. Industrial buildings form the spine of the landscape: tall, rectangular

metal boxes stuffed full of machinery. Machinery intended to strengthen the

army, to strengthen The Reestablishment, to destroy mass quantities of human civilization.

Carbon/Tar/Steel

Gray/Black/Silver

Smoky colors smudged into the skyline, dripping into the slush that used to

be snow. Trash is heaped in haphazard piles everywhere, patches of yellowed

grass peeking out from under the devastation.

Traditional homes of our old world have been abandoned, windows

shattered, roofs collapsing, red and green and blue paint scrubbed into muted

shades to better match our bright future. Now I see the compounds carelessly

constructed on the ravaged land and I begin to remember. I remember how these

were supposed to be temporary. I remember the few months before I was locked

up when they’d begun building them. These small, cold quarters would suffice

just until they figured out all the details of this new plan, is what The

Reestablishment had said. Just until everyone was subdued. Just until people

stopped protesting and realized that this change was good for them, good for

their children, good for their future.

I remember there were rules.

No more dangerous imaginations, no more prescription medications. A new

generation comprised of only healthy individuals would sustain us. The sick

must be locked away. The old must be discarded. The troubled must be given up

to the asylums. Only the strong should survive.

Yes.

Of course.

No more stupid languages and stupid stories and stupid paintings placed

above stupid mantels. No more Christmas, no more Hanukkah, no more

Ramadan and Diwali. No talk of religion, of belief, of personal convictions.

Personal convictions were what nearly killed us all, is what they said.

Convictions priorities preferences prejudices and ideologies divided us.

Deluded us. Destroyed us.

Selfish needs, wants, and desires needed to be obliterated. Greed,

overindulgence, and gluttony had to be expunged from human behavior. The

solution was in self-control, in minimalism, in sparse living conditions; one

simple language and a brand-new dictionary filled with words everyone would

understand.

These things would save us, save our children, save the human race, is what

they said.

Reestablish Equality. Reestablish Humanity. Reestablish Hope, Healing, and

Bliss unlike anything I’ve ever known Happiness.

SAVE US!

JOIN US!

REESTABLISH SOCIETY!

The posters are still plastered on the walls.

The wind whips their tattered remains, but the signs are determinedly fixed,

flapping against the steel and concrete structures they’re stuck to. Some are still

pasted to poles sprung right out of the ground, loudspeakers now affixed at the

very top. Loudspeakers that alert the people, no doubt, to the imminent dangers

that surround them.

But the world is eerily quiet.

Pedestrians pass by, ambling along in the cold, frigid weather to do factory

work and find food for their families. Hope in this world bleeds out of the barrel

of a gun.

No one really cares for the concept anymore.

People used to want hope. They wanted to think things could get better. They

wanted to believe they could go back to worrying about gossip and holiday

vacations and going to parties on Saturday nights, so The Reestablishment

promised a future too perfect to be possible and society was too desperate to

disbelieve. They never realized they were signing away their souls to a group

planning on taking advantage of their ignorance. Their fear.

Most civilians are too petrified to protest but there are others who are

stronger. There are others who are waiting for the right moment. There are

others who have already begun to fight back.

I hope it’s not too late to fight back.

I study every quivering branch, every imposing soldier, every window I can

count. My eyes are 2 professional pickpockets, stealing everything to store away

in my mind.

I lose track of the minutes we trample over.

We pull up to a structure 10 times larger than the asylum and suspiciously

central to civilization. From the outside it looks like a bland building,

inconspicuous in every way but its size, gray steel slabs comprising 4 flat walls,

windows cracked and slammed into the 15 stories. It’s bleak and bears no

marking, no insignia, no proof of its true identity.

Political headquarters camouflaged among the masses.

The inside of the tank is a convoluted mess of buttons and levers I’m at a

loss to operate, and jimin is opening my door before I have a chance to identify

the pieces. His hands are in place around my waist and my feet are now firmly

on the ground but my heart is pounding so fast I’m certain he can hear it. He

hasn’t let go of me.

I look up.

His eyes are tight, his forehead pinched, his lips his lips his lips are 2 pieces

of frustration forged together.

I step backward and 10,000 tiny particles shatter between us. He drops his

eyes. He turns away. He inhales and 5 fingers on one hand form a fickle fist.

“This way.” He nods toward the building.

I follow him inside

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