The Fantasy

Hadley could hear a fierce electrical storm raging outside The Estate. These kinds of storms solidified the belief that none of the lower class had survived. But Hadley’s mind still held doubts. The doubts had begun to grown in his mind after the so called “death” of his wife Jerle. Hadley didn’t believe that she was dead. It could’ve been that their survival of the events since 2012 had lulled him into thinking that they were practically invincible, and he didn’t know how to live without her. Hadley was convinced that she had escaped the wall and joined the lower class, the ones who had survived. He knew that she had never been happy confined by the wall and the threats that lay outside. It had been nearly a year since her disappearance, and Hadley had spent the majority of that year locked in his small room. Long periods of solitude can do strange things to a person’s mind. He rarely saw anyone except for Aten, an official, who was Jerle’s brother. Aten was a tall imposing man, whose rank had gone up in Hadley’s state of grief. He was slated to replace Hadley when needed, but Hadley had other ideas. When he was alone the doubts in his mind had taken on a persona of their own, known as Verne. Verne had groomed the doubts and planted reasons. Verne became an ambassador for the people of the lower class, telling Hadley all their rationales, and everything that was supposedly going on. Hadley believed all of it, because Verne was real, Verne would never lie to him, and Verne was right.

Lately Aten had been visiting Hadley daily, desperate to reach a reasonable part of Hadley’s mind. Aten knew nothing of Verne, he didn’t believe the lower class had survived, but he knew that Cogitden was dying. The city was powered by uranium ore, nuclear fission. As far as they knew, there was no uranium left in the world, and their supply was dangerously low. The four year black out after 2012 was the cause of more deaths than anyone wished to count, and soon Cogitden would be enveloped in that horrible blackness again.

The electrical storm continued to cause havoc outside. Hadley could feel The Estate’s foundations shaking with every lighting strike it took. Verne’s voice slid into his mind once again, he was a welcome visitor.

“Hadley,” Verne began, “there’s talk of new resources.” This was unexpectedly welcome news, and hardly believable. For so long there had been searches for resources, entire cities had perished hunting for fossil fuels, there people who had devoted their lives to the search. Hadley began to respond, but didn’t. Something like this was entirely too huge to get his head wrapped around.

“How?” he stammered, “where? What is it? Do they– do they actually have… power?”

“Not yet,” Verne replied, “they’re still experimenting. These aren’t fossil fuels; these are the clean energy sources that were tried before 2012. They think they might’ve found a way to create power using wind turbines. It was one of the more common methods, but never very reliable.”

“Well, they’re trying… then we should be helping them. No one is going to get anywhere in this world avoiding any possible solutions. There’s been a mutual peace; we should reopen the city to them. We could resurrect Cogitden.

“I’m not too sure about that, the people are scattered and leaderless. They’ve already begun fighting, and by the time they get power their fighting will be enough to destroy it.”

“That’s why we need to act now. We need to establish some sort of order. If we can’t be reasonable together then we have no hope at all. I can only imagine what the rest of the world has come to, whether they have found power or not, or banded together, of if they’ve all come to ruin.”

"That's what we need to do."

Aten walked in, Hadley didn’t seem to notice. It wasn’t an unusual sight for Aten to see Hadley completely lost in his own world.

“Hadley?” Aten began cautiously. “Hadley, I need to talk with you.” Another moment of silence followed, and only then did he snap out of it.

“Aten… Aten you need to listen to this–”

“No Hadley, I don’t care about your fantasy world and there is nothing it can do for us. You need to focus on our world, and our problems.” A particularly violent lightning strike sent a burst of light through the small window illuminating their faces.

“Aten, the answer to any problem we have won’t be found inside the walls of Cogitden. We–”

“And there you go again! There is no way any of the lower class survived! Look out your window, do you see this? It is a desert wasteland out there, with nothing but blackened trees. There is no way anyone without a proper shelter can survive this!”

“Where do you think Jerle–”

“Don’t bring that up again!” He snapped, “There is nothing outside the wall! If there are people they’re only in your mind.”

“You underestimate what people are capable of!” Hadley was also getting angry. “The live outside the wall, they survive without a governing force. But I am still their leader, I intend to help them, and let them help us. We still need the other class, just as they need us.”

“There was war! It never ended. If we reconnect with the lower class there will be chaos again.”

“You don’t get it! The lower class is gaining power. Soon enough they will have it! We need to reconnect now so we can share power and become a city again, before they have enough power to destroy us!”

“I have had it with you and your fantasies! You should step down before you destroy your whole city. I can lead them –without you– but I am asking for your help!” Aten left, slamming the door behind him. The air currents swirled around in his wake before settling into their usual patterns. Hadley was back to staring out his window.

Aten stormed down the hallway, he had gone at least a hundred paces before calming down. Most of the time talking with Hadley left him raging. He turned the corner and just about ran into Eris.

“Hey.”

“Oh, I didn’t see you.” Eris was a good friend of Aten’s although she was much younger. She was barely ten when the war of the classes had begun, and took the life of her mother. Her father was a high ranked official who spent all his hours working and sleeping.

“You look mad, Hadley again?”

“I’m telling you, he get’s crazier every day. It’s like he’s living in his head or something. He’s bent on the idea that the lower class survived.”

“Do you think there could be people?”

“It’s not possible. Everything is in his head.”

“His own world?”

“Yeah, he’s completely lost his sanity, but he was a great leader. He could still be, if only he would forget his damn fantasies.”

“Do you think he will?” Aten didn’t respond for a moment.

“I don’t care if he does or not, we just need him to focus on our problems.”

“How much longer do you think the power will last?” Aten thought about it before responding,

“I’ll show you.” They left heading down the corridor in the direction he had come from.