Chasing Imagination

Amy

After eating a meagre, tasteless meal, Casper led me back to my bedroom like I was his dog on a leash. He was still afraid I was going to try escaping, but I’d figured out ages ago that there was going to be no chance of that. I’d also figured out that it was wise to stay on the good side of someone like Markus, and to do that, I would have to abide by his rules, at least for now. I didn’t want to be down here, but I also accepted that there was never going to be another option. I just had to go with the flow for the moment.

Despite my plan of staying on certain people’s good sides, I couldn’t help but groan far too loudly when I heard music booming from our room, meaning that it was currently being occupied by Leah.

‘I would say that you two should take some time to make friends, but I know that’s never going to happen,’ said Casper, his laugh dark and with only a little bit of humour in it.
‘No,’ I agreed, giving him an irritated look. ‘It’s never going to happen.’

I knocked on the door as he stood several feet back. Perhaps what he was doing was wise. I was suddenly afraid that Leah was going to charge out here like some sort of wild, angry beast and rip my head off.

It flung open, and she glared at me once again.

‘Oh, it’s you again,’ she muttered, stepping backwards. ‘Is Cas there?’

‘I’m here,’ said Casper, bravely taking a few steps forward into sight of her room.

‘I thought you said you’d take her away!’ Leah snapped.

Casper rolled his eyes. ‘I took her away for the last hour. What else d’you expect me to do?’
Leah shrugged, her face looking disgusted. ‘I dunno. Show her the bathroom or summin’.’

‘Or,’ Casper said, clearly much more courageous than me as he raised his eyebrows in an intelligent way. ‘You could help her find some more clothes; get her a wash kit; make her feel welcome.’

Leah looked ready to explode. ‘I ain’t doing that!’

‘You were one of them once,’ said Casper, his voice bitter and thoroughly disgusted with the girl.

By now, Leah’s eyes were practically popping out of her head. However, when she next spoke, she did not shout or scream like I expected. Instead, her voice was low; hushed; but so full of darkness and hatred that it sent chills up my spine.

‘I was never one of them, Casper. Don’t you ever think otherwise.’

After a lot of persuading, and possibly something not far short of a miracle, Leah finally let me into the room. She couldn’t help but continue her dirty, dark glares, but she didn’t shout or scream or rip my head off like I’d feared. I perched quietly on the bed, not daring to even speak until Casper returned with a fresh pile of bedding for me. I laid it out neatly, and Leah watched me doing it, turning her heavy, angry music down just a little bit, but still not quite managing to offer to help me.

When I’d finished making the bed, I sat back down again, and Leah sat down on hers, having hung a few things back up in the wardrobe, not adding to making the room any tidier, her actions mirroring my own.

‘So what’s it gonna be, bitch?’ she asked, flopping back, her head resting against her pillow and her feet up. I didn’t take this as a personal insult; rather assumed it to be how she addressed everyone.

‘What do you mean?’ I asked.

‘Prisoner or Dreamer: what’s it gonna be?’

As much as anything, I was shocked that she was actually talking to me. It was clear in her eyes and her voice that she still didn’t like me, but she wasn’t in such a rage anymore, and she wasn’t ignoring me. Perhaps she had actually taken in something that Casper had said.

‘I—uh, I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I guess I’d have to be Dreamer, but only because I don’t want to be locked up. This isn’t a life I would have chosen for myself.’

‘It’s a damn lot better than anything you’d have experienced up there,’ she said, nodding her head upwards, implying that she was talking about above ground.

I sighed, wondering how far I dared take this conversation. ‘But, before you came here, didn’t you believe that ‘up there’ was all that there was to life?’ I asked. ‘Because you wouldn’t have known any different.’

Once again, Leah gave me a venomous stare; a snake ready to strike, and I bit my tongue, wishing I could take back what I’d just said. But she didn’t kill me; not this time anyway.

‘I was never like them,’ she said, spitting out the word ‘them’ like it was an insult.
I watched her, interested, ready to learn more.

‘I had it drummed into me since I first learnt to think that I wasn’t allowed to dream,’ she said, her tone bitter and dark. ‘But I never liked the idea. My decision came when I was eleven, and I was going to secondary school. I wanted to learn three languages, but they only let me take two, saying I should take ancient history instead. I ain’t bad at languages, but I wasn’t good enough for them. But ancient fucking history? Who wants to spend their time learning about the people who lived in times so much better than your own? Don’t it just make you jealous?’

I decided that this was not a good time to point out that I’d gladly taken history all the way to university level; though that was technically modern history—since the year 2000, roughly, mostly focusing on the times around the Revolution and World War Three.

But what Leah was saying was fair, too. Everyone had things they preferred in life, whether it was subjects or colours or foods. The government weren’t happy with people saying it, but we could still think it in our minds. And I was lucky enough to be good enough at my favourite subject that I was told to take it at every level. Sadly, not everyone was so lucky, Leah being one of them. I could understand how that must be frustrating.

‘Anyway,’ she continued, ‘that’s when I learnt that the world up there is a shithole. Because, whilst I wanted to do German, and I ended up learning about bloody Queen Victoria, I learnt a hell of a lot about life before dreams and imagination and individuality were banished. And I wanted change. I was eleven years old, and I hadn’t even heard of the so-called terrorists, but I already wanted change.

‘And then, when I did hear of the rebels, I wanted to join them. But I was a teen, and I didn’t know how to do it. How d’you find someone whose first priority is to remain secret? It’s impossible.

‘It took me until I was sixteen, and then I began to take drastic measures. I started telling my friends about my dreams. I started telling them ideas. And they betrayed me, just like I wanted them to.’

I thought back to poor Mr Smith who had been carted off to some prison somewhere, about to undergo three months minimum of intensive ‘treatment,’ all for expressing an idea to a group of people he trusted. He had trusted them, and they’d betrayed him.

Leah was right. The world could be cruel.

‘You wanted them to betray you?’ I asked.

She sniffed. ‘Ain’t that what I just said? I wanted them to betray me, so I got carted off to some imagination prison—not an Institution, but only one step down, and they could drug me and probe me and electrocute me all they liked, but after three months of rehab I was so not broken. And the Dreamers were waiting for me when I got out. They do a load of research—there are people here whose jobs it is to find out who’s in the Institutions and the asylums and the prisons and keep an eye on the ones who they think are possible contenders for being Dreamers—half of the people here are ex-prison inmates. And these last two years have been the best of my life.’

I was surprised that Leah had opened up to me so quickly and so honestly, and I was grateful too. Nevertheless, the story was barely over when her stone-cold mask returned, and she gave me an ugly glance and said she was going to the bathroom. She didn’t come back for a long time, during which time I studied all her books and her music, not daring to touch in case I got murdered for it.

I had never seen a real book or a real mp4 player before—I thought they’d all been burned and hidden beneath the cities.

Beneath the city. But wasn’t that where we were now?

Wow, the government could be thick sometimes.

The Dreamers had obviously got hold of all the books and music and films and DVDs that had been hidden and buried down here. Most of the books weren’t in good condition; the spines were bent and the covers were peeling and some of the pages were ripped, but they were still easily readable.

And before I knew what I was doing, I was picking up the top book from the pile beside Leah’s bed. It had a hard cover, and therefore it was one that had fared quite well over the ages, but it still looked ancient; its cover was faded and the pages were ripped and yellowing.

'Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix' was what it said on the cover. I didn’t know what a phoenix was, but perhaps it was something to do with the ruby red bird surrounded by flames on the cover; the colours now faint with age, but the scarlet bird still clear as anything.

‘What you doing?’ thundered a voice from behind me.

I hid the book too late; Leah had already seen me looking at it.

She strode in, snatching it from me and flopping back on her bed, giving me a long, poisonous glare.

‘I’m sorry,’ I mumbled. ‘I was just...’

‘It’s mine!’ she snapped.

‘I’m sorry,’ I repeated.

She put it down, briefly examining it to check it was still in the same condition as it was before I had touched it.

‘I’ve never seen a real fiction book before,’ I admitted, hoping this was justification enough for why I’d been holding her prized book.

‘Casper found them on one of the expeditions down into the Vaults,’ Leah explained. ‘Nearly killed him trying to rescue all the books, but it’s a bloody good job that he did. These ‘Harry Potter’ ones are the best, though we had a bit of trouble trying to put them in the right order. There are seven of the books—all Harry Potter and the something-or-other. They’re about wizards.’

I pulled a face. Hardly daring to utter the words, I practically mouthed ‘what’s a wizard?’

Leah looked explosive with anger, but not specifically at me.

‘It’s at times like this I wonder just what a shithole of a world we’ve ended up in!’ she fumed. Taking a moment to calm down, she added, ‘d’you know what magic is?’

‘Kind of,’ I said. ‘I know that it doesn’t exist, but in the past, people were persecuted for black magic, or witchcraft as it was also called. Some of them were killed for it.’

‘Yeah,’ Leah agreed. After all, she’d studied history like me. ‘But this ain’t black magic. This is good magic—magic that can, I dunno, turn things into another thing and open doors or make a fire and then douse it. Wizards are people who can cast magic, and the books are about kids at a wizard school. Apparently, they were just about the most famous books of the early twenty-first century. I dunno how Casper and his friends managed to get hold of them, but I’m grateful all the same. Then again; they came from the Vaults, and we’ve only just scratched the surface of all the secrets down there.’

‘The Vaults?’ I asked.

‘You really don’t know nothing, do you,’ snapped Leah. ‘The Vaults are where the government keep everything they don’t want the public knowing about. It’s seriously corrupt up there. They keep so much from you lot—there is so much more buried, quite literally, beneath the surface. I mean, dreams ain’t dangerous. Dreams are fantastic. But that’s what they teach you.’

‘So I’ve heard,’ I agreed. In all honesty, I’d never had any idea that our government was as corrupt as people were now suggesting. But then again, compared to these Dreamers, I knew nothing. I never knew that there was such thing as the Vaults, or what they kept down there. I knew they hadn’t burned all the books and films and music in the world, but I had no idea where they kept it.

‘Does every city have these Vaults, or is it just London?’ I asked.

‘Ev’rywhere,’ Leah replied. ‘They’re all just as corrupt. Whatever they say, it ain’t true. Down here, though, we live for something more. We’ve all discovered that there can be so much more to life than what they tell us. There can be adventure and excitement and fun and endless possibilities. In that old world, before the Revolution, dreams and imagination and ambition could get you just about anywhere.’

‘Really?’ I whispered. It sounded incredible. I’d never heard anything like Leah was saying, but maybe that was because everyone was too scared to say it. Or maybe everyone else ‘up there’ was just as ignorant as I was. Either way, I couldn’t help but believe every word she was saying.

Shortly after, Leah decided to leave, and by some miracle I managed to get her to let me read her 'Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix' book. She disappeared, and I was left to ponder all that she’d said. For a long time, I didn’t even feel like reading. I was too wrapped up in everything that she’d told me.

It was strange, opening this book. I couldn’t ever quite get my head around the fact that everything I was reading didn’t happen. The people weren’t in existence, and the storyline was made up. It was pretend. I couldn’t feel sympathy for them, and I couldn’t get into it in the same way as I would a non-fiction book—what was the use in feeling for someone who wasn’t real?

Nevertheless, it was intriguing, although I still didn’t really understand it. They kept using all these names that I did not know; and the storyline was completely unrealistic—reading the first chapter, I came face-to-face with a mean boy named Dudley, who Harry disliked for a reason I couldn’t specifically work out, and then it got even more crazy as some strange, made-up, magical beings called Dementors came in. After that, they were virtually talking in a foreign language—something called a Hogwart and something called a Patronus and something called a Dumbledore. I should have probably started with the first book in the set, though I didn’t know what it was called or where it was kept. Presumably, Casper or someone had it, because it wasn’t in Leah’s room.

Casper knocked and entered quite a long while later, looking surprised to see me. Checking the clock by Leah’s bed, I saw that it was after half ten and, after he’d directed me to the bathroom and provided me with a wash kit and a set of pyjamas that I could sleep in, he left me to get ready to go to bed.