Chasing Imagination

Amy

I left the breakfast table with Imogen, privately glad to be away from Casper. He seemed like a nice person, and I was sure he genuinely was sorry and wanted to help me settle in as much as possible, but I just couldn’t shake the fact that he had done this to me. He had destroyed my chances of ever having a normal life ever again.

No. I had destroyed those chances.

I just couldn’t listen to reason.

Imogen led me down another corridor—the whole underground was a great web of interconnecting tunnels. I had no idea how I was going to learn to make my way around this place. I could probably manage getting from the foyer to the bedrooms; that was just one main corridor; but anything else was probably beyond me.

We got to the point in this direction where whoever had built the tunnels had become bored of having them tiled, and therefore the tiles lining the walls, floor and arched ceiling had been abruptly stopped. Headache-inducing, white strip lights had been installed at distances from each other, but these seemed to stop with the tiling. Now, we were into the temporary lighting, which had presumably been put in place by the Dreamers; probably the first people needing to come this far into the underground for a long time.

‘We’re here,’ Imogen announced brightly. We stopped in front of a wooden door, which had an unprofessional sign taped up, saying STOREROOMS.

She pushed the door open into a small, completely undeveloped room, with more doors leading off. There was nothing really in here apart from a plain wooden table and two chairs, and a light at either end.

She opened the first door on the left, and this revealed more of the sort of room I’d been expecting.

It was like a colossal walk-in wardrobe, though probably the size of the whole ground floor of my house. It seemed that clothes had collected in here over the ages; some new and pristine, others worn and patched and covered in thin layers of dust. There was a curtained area at the other end, which I could only assume was a changing room. The floor in here was, unusually, wooden, which gave it a much more comfortable feel.

The clothes themselves were incredible. I’d never seen such things. There were t-shirts, trousers, shorts, dresses, skirts, tights, shoes, jackets, cardigans and a huge variety of accessories. They were all different colours of the rainbow; women’s on the left; men’s on the right, but that was the only way in which they were sorted. Every colour, every pattern, every fabric and every style; possibly even things from before the Revolution; lined the endless rows of hangers. Inside, it was like a maze. I would have to fight to ever find my way out again.

‘Off you go,’ Imogen prompted.

Some of the things in here were crazy. It was all like what Leah or Casper or Imogen wore, though in completely different ways, and some of it was even more eccentric than that.
The one thing that was for certain was that there was no way I was going to exit this room in a pastel t-shirt and black trousers.

‘Where do I start?’ I asked, concerned, picking up the corner of the nearest female item; an emerald, sequin-infested dress; as though it was diseased.

‘Well you won’t get far with an attitude like that,’ said Imogen, but she sounded understanding rather than disapproving. ‘I’ll help you; I’ll suggest what looks good.’

‘Where do you get it all from?’ I asked. ‘There’s so much of it.’

‘They bring back much more from the raids than they actually need,’ Imogen said.

‘But I’ve never seen clothes like these,’ I cried.

‘Some of the early Dreamers rescued them shortly after the Revolution, before they were due to be destroyed. They’ve survived a lot down here. The rest have come from lots of underground stores in the Vaults—the government don’t like to get rid of everything; and from the slightly more eccentric clothes shops. I mean, if you take a normal top and put it with a nice skirt and some exciting accessories, it can look nice, right?’

‘Yeah,’ I agreed absent-mindedly, shuddering at the very sight of a black and purple dress; strappy and with a flouncy skirt, imprinted with lots of tiny little skull patterns.

‘When you wear something, you can then go and put it in the wash,’ Imogen continued. ‘We’re a proper society; we have washing machines and stuff down here. And whoever’s duty it is to dry and sort the washing, then brings it all back in here. If you have a favourite item, you’ll find it again a few days after you’ve put it in the wash—as long as no one else has beaten you to it. Essentially, everything in here that fits is yours, and everyone else’s.’

It all seemed crazy, but I nodded, ambling along, trying to find at least something I liked.

A little further along, as I browsed aimlessly through the first of many clothing racks, I found a pair of black trousers. I held them up, but it seemed a little too much to hope for.

‘You’re new down here, Amy,’ Imogen explained. ‘You’ve got to prove yourself, or else they’ll think you’re a betrayer. It’s not easy being the new kid; I know, but we all go through it.’

I detected a story behind the newly found emotion in her voice, but I didn’t dare ask. For some reason, it felt as if the stories about how people became Dreamers should be a private matter. After all, a lot of them weren’t very nice.

‘What about this?’ she suggested, back to her normal enthusiasm. She held up a many layered, short, ruffled black skirt. I hadn’t worn a skirt for ages—last summer, shorts had been in fashion—denim shorts, to be precise, but it had been skirts the year before. Those skirts, however, had been white and pastel colours, often with flower patterns on but usually just plain. This new item was not how I would have previously defined ‘a skirt.’

‘You have the figure for it,’ she insisted, thrusting it at me. It seemed I had no choice but to take it, survey it for a moment, and then hold onto it as I continued browsing.

‘At least try it on,’ Imogen said, practically pleading with me.

‘If you insist,’ I said, half-smiling. I had never been on a shopping trip quite like this before. And the fact that it was all free made it even better.

About an hour later, I had come to the far end of the female clothing rack, having briefly gone through it all, and was loaded with things to try on. I had been my usual, picky self, but Imogen seemed good at clothes styles, and she often won me over. I agreed to try it on, for her sake, but I wasn’t necessarily about to wear it.

The first outfit in the pile was a pair of excessively tight blue jeans and a black t-shirt covered in graffiti. I had to admit that, when I tried it on, I was quietly impressed. All the clothes of my life had been so boring and same-y that I was suddenly eager to try something new. To maybe even stand out a little bit. If I could look good in this weird stuff, then maybe it wasn’t so bad.

I pulled back the tattered, lilac curtain, showing it to Imogen.

‘It looks great!’ she cried. ‘Keep that; I’ll find you some shoes whilst you’re changing. Try some other stuff on; you’ll want to take as much as possible so you don’t have to come down here every morning. Then, when you run low on that stuff, you can come here again and stock up. It’s fantastic!’

Her enthusiasm was contagious, and I couldn’t help but laughing as I pulled the curtain closed and tried on my second outfit. This was a short, black dress in the style of a tunic, with bold, brightly-coloured patterns on it, and tights.

‘That’s so pretty!’ she said again, returning just as I pulled the curtain back with some boots to go with my jeans outfit. ‘I’ll find you a necklace. You can take lots of jewellery and scarves and stuff now, but normally after this, each time you come and get something, it’s expected that you’ll bring some stuff back as well.’

‘Sure,’ I agreed casually, admiring the dress in the mirror. It was even longer since I’d worn a dress, and I was surprised at how it looked. For all the bold, dark colours on it, it was surprisingly feminine.

The whole morning continued in this manner, and by the end I had been given too many clothes, shoes and accessories to hold. Imogen found a large sack to temporarily put it in, and, now wearing my tight jeans, graffiti t-shirt and boots, we headed back into the main area, managing to just about lift it between us.

‘Where are you staying?’ she asked.

‘With...Leah,’ I said, suddenly realising Casper’s promise that he would find me a new room.

Sure enough, when I knocked on the door, still feeling like I was intruding on Leah’s personal space, she opened it and grunted.

‘You ain’t in here no more,’ she said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean,’ she huffed, annoyed that anyone had dared disturb her, ‘that Casper told me to tell you that he’s got you a new room. Thank God; I might add.’ She gave Imogen a stony look. ‘What?’

Imogen ignored her, her eyes flickering away.

‘Where?’ I asked.

‘Linzy’s room,’ Leah said.

I had no idea what sort of a name Linzy was, but hopefully she would be nice.

‘She’s a bit older than you,’ Imogen explained, filling in the blanks. ‘But it’s about three doors down from me and Kira, so you’ll be able to talk to her. I don’t know her all that well, but she seems nice.’

‘That’s good,’ I said. Surely, anyone would be a better roommate than Leah.

‘Oh,’ Leah added as I went to turn away. ‘Congrats on becoming a Dreamer. You did the right thing.’

Her tone was not exactly cheerful or warming, but I assumed that ‘congrats’ meant ‘congratulations,’ and therefore it was nicer than anything I had expected from her.

I gave a brief smile. ‘Thanks.’

‘Well, now the Amy-and-Leah saga is over, let’s go to Linzy’s room,’ announced Imogen, turning away.