Status: Incomplete
Title Pending
Pending Title
In the beginning you will not understand my mind, but I will help you throughout the story. You see my brain is a vast maze of thoughts, thoughts that even I get lost in sometimes. For that I must walk you through so you will not fall into a trap set out to stop you from learning everything from my past.
My name is Sam and I am 16 years old. I am from what is now the United States of the Americas. It is the year 3125 and the planet is very different from your time. The planet was ravaged by disease and warfare; it is now a barren wasteland. Most of Eastern Europe is contaminated by radiation. The Middle East has been decimated by the Great War, nothing is left. This is a war, which the United States did not partake in, maybe that’s why it got so out of hand. It seems that the Americas are now what is left of the planet population-wise; the rest of the world is either inhospitable or deserted. The island of Great Britain is no more; it seems that the constant bombardment has destroyed it.
The United States of the Americas…..funny name right? Well during the Great War there was a growing threat of failing governments in the American continents. The former United States devised a plan to unite all of the governments into one; power would now lie in the hands of the American President of the time. At the time the president of the United States was one of the strongest beings to ever be in office since George Washington. He was pursued the idea of a united Americas and eventually got it. There was something wrong with his idea though, he wanted power and he wanted to keep it. He ordered congress to amend the constitution so that he stayed in power for the rest of his life. He also ordered them to declare his blood royal therefore making his family line the only rulers of this new government. The birth of a new country and its leader a false monarch.
Our new president has called out for the mass deaths of his opposition. He wants to cleanse the world of those unfit of his rule. Unfortunately my family and I are one of those who were cast out into the barren wasteland of Europe. We were woken at midnight, we were beaten and demoralized. They made us believe we were merely animals that didn’t deserve the luxury of our homes. We were all shipped to the shores of France. What we saw the second we got off the ship was that the flames were still burning. It seemed that we wouldn’t be able to survive without any food or water. They left us there to die, that was their true intention. They knew that if they left us there we would not be able to survive for much long…They were wrong. You see we found out that in the mountains of France there was a seed repository, free from the radiation of the wars. We re-grew the fields and farmed the land. We found out that a large portion of the fields of France were dusted with Serpentine as a precaution from the oncoming nuclear war.
We lived peacefully for about 8 years. We started off as a farming community, but within a few months we built monuments and large skyscrapers. We had an abundance of resources that spanned the entire eastern hemisphere. The majority of us did not have a religion, we believed that religion only stopped progress, even though we believed this, we also believed in freedom, the freedom to practice your beliefs freely. We did not prosecute those who believed in a god or gods. Though we became a haven for rationalism, we did not let go of our history, especially the part of history that brought us here. We still held a grudge and we planned on attacking. We would soon launch an all out war on the fascist government of the Americas…..
“David!”
“David!”
Ugh, the problem with this is that I was already awake I’ve been awake since 5AM. She doesn’t understand that I might be tired and maybe not want to go to school just one day. I’ll act asleep and play this out.
“David! Get out of bed or I’ll go up there and get you out of bed myself!”
“Agh! I’m up, I’m up!” She got me, I really didn’t want her coming to my room and standing by my bed yelling even louder. God I hate my sister in the mornings. I love her and all, but in the mornings, she’s my worst enemy. Our parents were taken away to a camp a year ago by the police. They were suspected to be part of the opposition that was left in France. The police came and beat them with their clubs; they planted evidence in the house to make it seem as if they were distributing anti-government propaganda. The only reason we weren’t taken as well was because I was still a little kid and my sister had moved out of the house months before so they left me with her. They took my home and gave it to the governor of that province, they justified it by saying that I was a child without any stake in the home and my sister didn’t care about maintaining the garden. My parents’ home wasn’t an ordinary home, it was a grand mansion. One that rivaled the King’s, I guess that’s why he allowed it to be taken. The house had marble floors and 12 bedrooms all of them would accommodate a king; the master would do so for an emperor. My house was not an ordinary house; it belonged to the man that had created the largest oil monopoly in the world, John D. Rockefeller. It was built for his needs. He was one of the richest men in the former United States of America, and his home was an example of it.
I always seem to trail off when something interests me; I need to stop doing that…
“David are you ready?” My sister screamed from the kitchen.
“Yeah I’m ready!” I hate waking up this early, too early for school.
I’m the only kid on this block that wakes up this early for school, it seems to be that I decided to stay at my old school where my parent’s house used to be, so I had to wake up earlier since my old school is so far away from my sister’s house. It seemed that I was the only person on this block that didn’t know anyone. I rarely went out because of it.
When I got to school I saw things were different, the teachers were replaced and there were locks on everything. The students wore new uniforms; they looked more like military uniforms than school ones. It was a bit scary and I felt out of place. When I entered my first period my new teacher Mr. Alary decided to introduce me to the class, he thought that I was a new student, even though my friends weren’t in the classroom to say otherwise. It’s like everyone disappeared. Even here it felt like I was alone, nothing or anyone to go to. I didn’t know what to do, I thought about calling my sister, but I didn’t want to bother her at work.
After observing the differences that the school had gone through while I was gone I noticed it was lunch time and I was pretty hungry at the time so I went to the cafeteria. When I got there I stood in line like in any normal day when the principal approached me, she looked pretty mad at me for some reason.
“David, did you read the new school manual when you were away?”
“Um, I might have glanced through it. Why?”
“Well there is a new policy that requires you to get a ticket from the other line so you can get your lunch in this line.”
“Oh, alright, thanks Principal Eisner!” I said it in the fakest tone I could. Geez when did schools turn into bureaucracies? I couldn’t believe that I had to stand in one damn line so I could get a ticket to go to the other line! They didn’t even extend the lunch hour for this! After that long time in both lines I finally got my lunch, but there was nowhere to sit, nowhere to sit with anyone I knew that is. I managed to find an empty table almost to the end of the cafeteria, it wasn’t that bad except that I noticed there was a sign on it saying reserved. Reserved for whom? Before I could think about who the table was reserved for, “they” came. The popular kids in this school I guess. A few of the jocks and their cliché cheerleader girlfriends, and some other people not really associated with sports. When they came, they looked at me like they were ready to attack, but one girl stopped them, when I noticed who it was I almost screamed her name and made myself look like a total idiot. It was my elementary school best friend Katie; she apparently told them she knew me so they sat down with me. I learned their names; the really tall one was Jeremy, he was pretty pale and had very dark green eyes that glistened in the light, I noticed he was wearing his letterman jacket; like most of the jocks, it was blue and yellow (or how the school called it, gold). He was very outgoing, like jocks should be, he had light brown hair, he didn’t have any piercings or anything out of the ordinary. He was an ordinary American boy. The other guy was a jock as well, and his name happened to be the same as my dad’s, Matthew. Matthew was an average sized person, which he compensated for being really buff, he had light blue eyes and very light blond hair, he was a very smart guy for being a jock he actually knew what I was talking about and took an interest in what I was saying. The two cheerleaders were complete clichés, blonde, well endowed chests, looks that would soon burn out in their late twenties, the look of a bimbo. My mother always taught me to never judge a book by its cover, but I don’t think she took these girls into consideration when she said that. The last girl, Katie was one of my best friends when I was little. We grew apart after going to different middle schools; we finally met once again in freshman year at Montebello High School. She was my last connection to this school and I think she knew it. I want to ask her where everyone is but like always I’m too scared to ask. I figured I’d work up the courage to ask her but deep inside I knew that I had to ask her at this moment while the guys were preoccupied with the cheerleaders.
“So um…Katie, where’s Danny and the rest of the guys?”
She hesitated to answer me; she was looking at me like if she was seeing a ghost. I didn’t know what to think of it so I asked her again.
“Do you know where they went to?”
Again she hesitated, but this time was different it was as if she was gathering the courage to tell me. “I’ll tell you after class” she said, “I can’t tell you here”
“Hmm, well alright” I looked at her confused, wondering what she was talking about. Why couldn’t she tell me here? Why is it that she looked so scared when I mentioned them? I had to find out and the only way to find out was to wait till after school and see what happens, besides its just 5th and 5th period left. I can handle two more hours of school. The last two periods were physical education and computer animation, not a bad ending to the day I must say so myself.
As the day was drawing to a close I decided to wait for Katie at the front of the school. I didn’t know it would be packed with people though, I mean who stays at school so long? Let alone in front of it. As I was waiting I noticed that there were people in black suits all around the school, like if they were looking for someone. They looked like the king’s personal guards, but why would they be here? Today is just getting weirder.
I finally saw Katie and decided to approach her, “Hey Katie!” she looked surprised, I guess she thought I wouldn’t wait for her after school.
“Oh, hey David, I thought you wouldn’t believe me enough to actually come here.”
“Yeah, well I’m here now. What were you too afraid to say in school?”
She looked at me with a look that would make hell freeze, “not here, we have to keep walking.”
Still confused I followed her until we got to an alley three miles away from the school. “So where are they?” She pulled me away farther into the darkness of the alleyway. “Katie! Tell me where they are! I have to get home soon and I don’t have time for your games!” I said in a frustrated manner.
Katie quickly stopped and stared at me for a minute, she looked hesitant. I didn’t know what she was going to do next, for the moment I was very confused. “They’ve been taken.” She just stared at me with a blank face.
“What do you mean, they’ve been taken? What happened to them?!” At the moment I wasn’t ready for what she was about to say
.
“It’s a long story.”
“Like I care! Tell me where my friends are!”
“During the time that you were gone, the king decided to take over the schools. It wasn’t announced on television because of what he was planning on doing with the new acquisition of what used to be a free schooling system. First he decided to fire all of the staff and replaced them with loyalists and those sympathetic to his cause. He wanted to create a world where there was no resistance to his reign and what better way to do so than by stopping them at the source. He thought it was easy to do since they were just kids, but he didn’t count on the fact that high schoolers didn’t brainwash too easily since the seeds of the opposition were deep in their families. He decided to do the next best thing which was raiding the homes of those students and taking them and their families to re-education camps. David that’s where they are.”
I was completely awestruck with what I had just heard. I couldn’t believe that the man I had praised for bringing the countries of the Americas as one to resist the disaster that was the Great Wars! I wanted to know more about what was happening so I kept asking.
“Katie, did you see or hear anything else? And why were the king’s personal guard at the school today?”
“I heard that they are going to reinstate the draft, it seems that the resistance that was left to rot in France has stayed alive and is now flourishing in what was once desolate land. The king wants to exterminate them and take the land for his own personal use. During the acquisition of the schools the king decided to replace the school security guards with his personal guard; there are rumors that his son is attending one of the schools. No one knows what he looks like though, let alone his name.”
I was intrigued enough that I decided to go to the city hall and look for the name of the king’s son in any of the public records. It was here in Montebello where the king lived before he rose to power, maybe there was something on the birth of his son. At the moment we couldn’t talk anymore since it was getting dark and curfew was about to start.
I ran home as fast as I could, I wanted to avoid any police at this hour. Teenagers weren’t considered citizens until the age of eighteen, so the police could do whatever they wanted to punish us so long as they didn’t kill us.
When I got home my sister was in the kitchen cooking dinner. I wondered why she didn’t say anything about me being out late, I didn’t want to pour oil into the fire so I decided not to mention it.
“Did you hear?”
“Hear what?”
“The king will be visiting Montebello for the saint’s day parade.”
“Why would he come here? Didn’t he try to kick us all out of here to turn the city into a strategic military base?”
“David, the king has long since abandoned that idea, don’t you remember when he announced he was taking the western coastal cities and creating barracks to train our navy.”
“Our? Why say our? He’s using us for his own sadistic purposes! He’s sending what remains of the resistance to re-education camps! That’s where my friends are!”
My sister pretended not to know what was happening all around us, she only told me about the resistance staying alive. She doesn’t know much but I think I can use her to find out the name of the king’s son.
“Sam, do you remember when the king lived here?”
“Yeah, I was thirteen back then, he was actually living in the Montebello Hills by what used to be the town center. He was a very eccentric man, never took no for an answer, everyone liked him, I guess that’s how he got to be where he is now.”
“Do you remember any children?”
“He had a daughter named Sarai, but that was it. There is a rumor that he has a son about your age, but it was never proven. Sarai would have to marry to be considered queen of the Americas, there isn’t much royalty in this world so I would guess that he might have bore a son during the time he was slaughtering the resistance. Don’t know how he found the time to romance the queen.”
So he had one confirmed child, Sarai, but he needed a son or his legacy would end with the first king. This assured the fact that he bore a child and that he was in one of the California schools, for what other reason would he take them over and create a haven for pro-regime sympathizers. I needed to find a way to get into the records office of city hall.
The next day I decided to go the civil way and ask for access to the records. They took me to the basement of the building, through some doors and into a large room filled with filing cabinets. Before that though I saw a door that read, “Restricted” hmm I wondered what it was and why a public office was withholding secrets from their people.
“May I ask what’s behind that door?”
“Old records from the 1950s and below, they are extremely sensitive and cannot be accessed by a commoner.”
Hmm nice lie, I bet they were all trained to say that. I was after one thing and one thing only and that was a record of the king having a son. If the rumors are true he had his son here in Montebello, it was the only place he lived for ten years during the construction of his palace in northern California.
The room was well organized, everything in alphabetical order. I just couldn’t believe that they still used paper even after the complete digitization of all public records in the congressional green act of 2033. It seemed pretty suspicious that there wasn’t a supercomputer here instead of an island of filing cabinets. Like I said it was very organized, I found the records of the king and his family when they lived here; there was no mention of a son, well at least in the papers that weren’t blacked out to protect some kind of sensitive information.
I left the basement and thanked them for letting me access the records of Montebello city. I also decided to ask why there were filing cabinets in there and not a computer that kept the records. They told me that the king destroyed the computer in this city only, because it contained all of the information about the resistance and he didn’t want vigilante loyalists attacking what still were citizens of this great nation.
Another steaming pile of bull from the clerks at the records office. Do they really think that someone with common sense would believe their crap? I didn’t know if they were really stupid or if they actually believe what they were told.
I decided to break into the building and go through the “Restricted” door. I knew what I was going to do was going to be the most dangerous thing I have ever done. I shouldn’t have gone out that night or any other night for a fact.
I went out at midnight; I made sure that Sam wouldn’t hear me leaving. I couldn’t believe what I was about to do. I had to make sure that I wasn’t caught by the roaming policemen, or any other person that worked for the king. I had to be careful not to make any suspicious noises while I was out. I packed a backpack full of the things that I needed to break into the records office, and a blueprint of the building that I found on the internet. I had to use millions of proxies so I couldn’t be tracked back to my computer.
It was completely dark out, the street lights were out so I had to use my phone to light the way. I was scared that someone would catch me because of the light from my phone so I decided to turn it off. I was almost to there when I heard a car passing by, I ran to the alley at the corner, I decided to look to see what it was. It was a policeman driving by patrolling the area; at that point my heart was beating extremely fast, so much that I didn’t notice that my hand had been cut from some broken glass on the floor. I used a rag that I had in my backpack as a bandage to cover the wound, it was weird because I didn’t feel any pain even when I was removing glass fragments from the wound.
The policeman was just passing by and he didn’t see me so I decided to keep on going and get into the building. When I got there, it seemed like the lights were on, but it was just the emergency lights that stay on all night. According to the blueprints there was a small window leading to the basement on the right side of the building. It looked like this was the only way to get into the basement from the outside. When I got to the side of the building I noticed that the window was cemented in, that’s why I didn’t see one when they were taking me to the hall of records. I decided to study the blueprints a little more and noticed that there was something in the back of the building that looked like a secret entrance, it must have been one since there was only one way to get into the building and that was from the front. As I trailed the back of the building looking for some kind of crack; I heard another car passing so I ducked down and hid from the oncoming light of the cars high beams. It was another cop, weird it was like they were protecting something, there was too much activity here for a records office of a town that was to be condemned.
While I was on the floor hiding from the passing cop car, like the rebel I was, I accidentally pressed a button that opened a hatch that led to the inside of the building. I hesitated to get in because I was afraid it would lead to somewhere other than the basement, then I heard the car stop by the street behind the building where I was so I jumped in and closed the hatch before I was caught by the police breaking into a building they were so intent in protecting.
It was dark, but as I started to move around the hall the lights started to turn on one by one, all of them leading straight to the door with “Restricted” written on it. It felt like I was supposed to open this door, like I was chosen to open it and find out what was really behind that door!
As I got closer to the door I started to hear people walking around outside by the secret passage way, I started to panic so I ran to the door way. It wasn’t locked so I slowly started to turn the knob so I wouldn’t make any noise and alert the people in the upper level. I have to admit I was scared as hell, but I was also very excited, I couldn’t believe I was going to find out the name of the king’s son and find out which school did he go to.
I opened the door slowly, I hoped it wouldn’t screech when it opened, but to my luck it did so I opened it quickly as to not prolong the noise. It was a dumb idea because the noise got way louder than I had expected. I went inside quickly, I don’t know why, I mean it wasn’t going to save me from anyone because they were going to find me here anyway. I wasn’t thinking, I was extremely afraid of being caught out during curfew, let alone being caught breaking and entering.
As I went inside I noticed that this room was different. It had different rooms, with walls made of glass. Inside there were papers being processed, each paper being slowly scanned into a central mainframe to be kept as public records. After the paper was scanned it was put into a moisture resistant laminate and put into a dark box where they won’t be exposed to light so the ink would not fade. “Damn, they were right” I said in a sarcastic monotone.
Since I was there I decided to go through the glass hallways and see what I could find, I was careful enough not to trip any alarms. There were so many rooms, some that handled the paperwork and others that contained the paintings recovered in secrecy from the Louvre, and other prestigious museums in Europe. The glass walls stopped when it got to a dark hallway in the corner of this complex of rooms. I wondered where it led and like any teenage book I would totally go in and find out. “Now isn’t that always the way?” I said sarcastically with a giant smile on my face.
I noticed that there was writing etched on the walls, it looked like names. It was then when I noticed what this was. Why would he say it was missing? Why would he disgrace these people and their families destroying it and using parts as his construction project? Why would he use the veteran’s memorial wall? It may be over a thousand years since that time but that was still a big part of our history! Just because we are no longer the United States of America anymore doesn’t mean we have the right to disgrace out history. All of the hard work that the nation builders that we call our founders did smashed by one power hungry king.
As mad as I was I kept moving closer to that door, it was like it was pulling me in. I think it really was, I felt some strange energy emanating from the room inside, I was a little scared because I wanted to just leave and run back home, but I kept walking towards the door. I got to the door and I stayed there for a while just staring at the door, I didn’t know why I was doing it, I was just doing it.
That’s when I heard it. At the moment I didn’t know if I was going crazy or anything but I was hearing movement coming from the other side of that door. I was now hesitating to open the door now, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go in now. I mean what if it was one of those cops that might have seen me get in here, or one that was already guarding here to begin with? I didn’t know, but at that same moment I mustered up a little courage and turned that doorknob. What I saw that day changed me. At that moment I didn’t know if it was a good thing or not, but what I did know was that I had to go in and investigate further.
What I saw was an old stash of music, music that the king had banned for being too “freeing.” We all knew that the king was afraid of what would happen if people grew courageous enough to notice what he was doing, what he did to the opposition and the hypocrisy that followed after.
The music was really old, but I knew what that music did during its age; it started an all out social revolution on mankind. It ravaged the airwaves and the internet in its infancy. It became the anthem for a group of people. This artist was brilliant! Her music preached to an entire generation; from minorities to the very powerful Hipsters. Sure there were other artists that rallied a few people, but only she could get everyone young and old on their feet to fight for what is right. She single-handedly brought the conservative government to its knees and offered a much better reality for the bullied with the “It Gets Better” videos. She told us that we were beautiful in our way, because God makes no mistakes. That we were Born This Way….Taught us how to love ourselves for who we are and who we will be, because it really did get better.
The king was afraid of the lasting power that she kept even in this era…
He banned her and other music; he took over all of the record companies with the help of the corrupt congress. He now had ultimate power over the minds of teenagers; he could make them think whatever he wanted.
While I was looking through all of the music I found what looked like an mp3 player of the time. It was touch screen and pretty well preserved. It had somewhat of a charge, enough to look through it for a while. I found some videos on it. The video that intrigued me the most was a movie about a country with citizens that were afraid of the government. The government had its citizens in curfews and no one was allowed to speak ill of their leaders or face the consequence of losing their party status. It reminded me a lot of what was happening now, just that in the movie it wasn’t a monarchy, it was more of a dictatorship and the leader was hidden underground by the party leaders for fear of his assassination.
I was beginning to understand that the government was corrupt and that it was the duty of the citizen to rise up against their leaders and point out their flaws and remove them from government!
I seemed to have said that last part out loud since I started to hear a voice on the top floor.
“Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit!” I whispered as I heard the footsteps getting closer.
“Who’s there?” a man shouted as he came down the stairs of the trap door.
I got down on the floor and hid behind a filing cabinet that was next to the electronics I found. I could hear him moving closer to my door, I was so scared that I couldn’t stop shaking. I tried to stop, but I couldn’t, I had never been in this kind of trouble so I worried that if I got caught I could go to jail for a long time. I was so frantic that I tried to stop myself from being heard. All I could hear was his footsteps coming closer and closer into my door, I felt like just running past him and hoping that I could get away. I heard him opening the door so I just held my breath for as long as I could so he wouldn’t hear me. I was still shaking, but it wasn’t very noticeable.
He walked into the room and just stood there, I guess he was canvassing the room to see if there was anything out of place. He found the mp3 player; it was on.
“I know you’re in here! Come out and you won’t get hurt, just come out.”
I shouldn’t have come out, but I did, I was just a scared kid not wanting to get in trouble. I stood up a little and the cop saw me.
“I’m sorry; I’ll never do it again. Please don’t take me in” I cried. I couldn’t say much more because he hit me across the mouth with his baton.
“Shut up boy! No one wants to hear your explanation of how you got in here! You have no rights as a child here, boy. You belong to me tonight and there is no one here to save you.”
He started to beat me with his baton, each blow to my body hurt more than the last, he decided to hit me in the same spot over and over until he broke the skin. He broke my fingers one by one; he laughed at my pain; every time I screamed as he broke each of my fingers he would go back to one that was already broken and prolong my screams. As he was about to break my last finger he made me open my eyes to watch; I didn’t want to so he grabbed his baton and smacked me in the face with it.
“Open your eyes or you die!” he screamed.
I had no choice but to open them for fear of death. All I could see was his sadistic smile as he pushed my finger back slowly so he could savor my pain. I could feel the tendons ripping as he kept pushing my finger farther and farther back; he finally broke my last finger. I wished that would be the end of all this pain, but it wasn’t. He thought it would be fun if he made sure I couldn’t run away from him as he tortured me so he shot my legs multiple times, then he beat them until he heard the bone crack and then he beat them harder until they completely fractured.
“Stop! Please stop! I can’t handle anymore!” I cried.
“What? Why? The fun isn’t over yet little boy” he said with a sadistic smile.
“Let me go, please let me go!” I screamed.
“Not tonight.”
He started to beat me again. So much that he broke a few of my ribs. He wanted to make sure I couldn’t move for what he was going to do next. He started to laugh, he laughed for a while, after that he just stared at me. It was the first time I could make out his face. He was very pale, with blue eyes; his eyes looked so caring which gave me the feeling that he would stop, but that was just a mask he put on for the public. He had short blonde hair, it was darker than any blonde hair I’ve seen before, and I figured I could identify him that way. He was a slender man but extremely strong, which scared me knowing he would be the one to kill me.
“Are you going to kill me?”
“No, not yet” he smiled.
“Then what are you going to do?”
He grinned, “You’ll see soon enough.”
My name is Sam and I am 16 years old. I am from what is now the United States of the Americas. It is the year 3125 and the planet is very different from your time. The planet was ravaged by disease and warfare; it is now a barren wasteland. Most of Eastern Europe is contaminated by radiation. The Middle East has been decimated by the Great War, nothing is left. This is a war, which the United States did not partake in, maybe that’s why it got so out of hand. It seems that the Americas are now what is left of the planet population-wise; the rest of the world is either inhospitable or deserted. The island of Great Britain is no more; it seems that the constant bombardment has destroyed it.
The United States of the Americas…..funny name right? Well during the Great War there was a growing threat of failing governments in the American continents. The former United States devised a plan to unite all of the governments into one; power would now lie in the hands of the American President of the time. At the time the president of the United States was one of the strongest beings to ever be in office since George Washington. He was pursued the idea of a united Americas and eventually got it. There was something wrong with his idea though, he wanted power and he wanted to keep it. He ordered congress to amend the constitution so that he stayed in power for the rest of his life. He also ordered them to declare his blood royal therefore making his family line the only rulers of this new government. The birth of a new country and its leader a false monarch.
Our new president has called out for the mass deaths of his opposition. He wants to cleanse the world of those unfit of his rule. Unfortunately my family and I are one of those who were cast out into the barren wasteland of Europe. We were woken at midnight, we were beaten and demoralized. They made us believe we were merely animals that didn’t deserve the luxury of our homes. We were all shipped to the shores of France. What we saw the second we got off the ship was that the flames were still burning. It seemed that we wouldn’t be able to survive without any food or water. They left us there to die, that was their true intention. They knew that if they left us there we would not be able to survive for much long…They were wrong. You see we found out that in the mountains of France there was a seed repository, free from the radiation of the wars. We re-grew the fields and farmed the land. We found out that a large portion of the fields of France were dusted with Serpentine as a precaution from the oncoming nuclear war.
We lived peacefully for about 8 years. We started off as a farming community, but within a few months we built monuments and large skyscrapers. We had an abundance of resources that spanned the entire eastern hemisphere. The majority of us did not have a religion, we believed that religion only stopped progress, even though we believed this, we also believed in freedom, the freedom to practice your beliefs freely. We did not prosecute those who believed in a god or gods. Though we became a haven for rationalism, we did not let go of our history, especially the part of history that brought us here. We still held a grudge and we planned on attacking. We would soon launch an all out war on the fascist government of the Americas…..
“David!”
“David!”
Ugh, the problem with this is that I was already awake I’ve been awake since 5AM. She doesn’t understand that I might be tired and maybe not want to go to school just one day. I’ll act asleep and play this out.
“David! Get out of bed or I’ll go up there and get you out of bed myself!”
“Agh! I’m up, I’m up!” She got me, I really didn’t want her coming to my room and standing by my bed yelling even louder. God I hate my sister in the mornings. I love her and all, but in the mornings, she’s my worst enemy. Our parents were taken away to a camp a year ago by the police. They were suspected to be part of the opposition that was left in France. The police came and beat them with their clubs; they planted evidence in the house to make it seem as if they were distributing anti-government propaganda. The only reason we weren’t taken as well was because I was still a little kid and my sister had moved out of the house months before so they left me with her. They took my home and gave it to the governor of that province, they justified it by saying that I was a child without any stake in the home and my sister didn’t care about maintaining the garden. My parents’ home wasn’t an ordinary home, it was a grand mansion. One that rivaled the King’s, I guess that’s why he allowed it to be taken. The house had marble floors and 12 bedrooms all of them would accommodate a king; the master would do so for an emperor. My house was not an ordinary house; it belonged to the man that had created the largest oil monopoly in the world, John D. Rockefeller. It was built for his needs. He was one of the richest men in the former United States of America, and his home was an example of it.
I always seem to trail off when something interests me; I need to stop doing that…
“David are you ready?” My sister screamed from the kitchen.
“Yeah I’m ready!” I hate waking up this early, too early for school.
I’m the only kid on this block that wakes up this early for school, it seems to be that I decided to stay at my old school where my parent’s house used to be, so I had to wake up earlier since my old school is so far away from my sister’s house. It seemed that I was the only person on this block that didn’t know anyone. I rarely went out because of it.
When I got to school I saw things were different, the teachers were replaced and there were locks on everything. The students wore new uniforms; they looked more like military uniforms than school ones. It was a bit scary and I felt out of place. When I entered my first period my new teacher Mr. Alary decided to introduce me to the class, he thought that I was a new student, even though my friends weren’t in the classroom to say otherwise. It’s like everyone disappeared. Even here it felt like I was alone, nothing or anyone to go to. I didn’t know what to do, I thought about calling my sister, but I didn’t want to bother her at work.
After observing the differences that the school had gone through while I was gone I noticed it was lunch time and I was pretty hungry at the time so I went to the cafeteria. When I got there I stood in line like in any normal day when the principal approached me, she looked pretty mad at me for some reason.
“David, did you read the new school manual when you were away?”
“Um, I might have glanced through it. Why?”
“Well there is a new policy that requires you to get a ticket from the other line so you can get your lunch in this line.”
“Oh, alright, thanks Principal Eisner!” I said it in the fakest tone I could. Geez when did schools turn into bureaucracies? I couldn’t believe that I had to stand in one damn line so I could get a ticket to go to the other line! They didn’t even extend the lunch hour for this! After that long time in both lines I finally got my lunch, but there was nowhere to sit, nowhere to sit with anyone I knew that is. I managed to find an empty table almost to the end of the cafeteria, it wasn’t that bad except that I noticed there was a sign on it saying reserved. Reserved for whom? Before I could think about who the table was reserved for, “they” came. The popular kids in this school I guess. A few of the jocks and their cliché cheerleader girlfriends, and some other people not really associated with sports. When they came, they looked at me like they were ready to attack, but one girl stopped them, when I noticed who it was I almost screamed her name and made myself look like a total idiot. It was my elementary school best friend Katie; she apparently told them she knew me so they sat down with me. I learned their names; the really tall one was Jeremy, he was pretty pale and had very dark green eyes that glistened in the light, I noticed he was wearing his letterman jacket; like most of the jocks, it was blue and yellow (or how the school called it, gold). He was very outgoing, like jocks should be, he had light brown hair, he didn’t have any piercings or anything out of the ordinary. He was an ordinary American boy. The other guy was a jock as well, and his name happened to be the same as my dad’s, Matthew. Matthew was an average sized person, which he compensated for being really buff, he had light blue eyes and very light blond hair, he was a very smart guy for being a jock he actually knew what I was talking about and took an interest in what I was saying. The two cheerleaders were complete clichés, blonde, well endowed chests, looks that would soon burn out in their late twenties, the look of a bimbo. My mother always taught me to never judge a book by its cover, but I don’t think she took these girls into consideration when she said that. The last girl, Katie was one of my best friends when I was little. We grew apart after going to different middle schools; we finally met once again in freshman year at Montebello High School. She was my last connection to this school and I think she knew it. I want to ask her where everyone is but like always I’m too scared to ask. I figured I’d work up the courage to ask her but deep inside I knew that I had to ask her at this moment while the guys were preoccupied with the cheerleaders.
“So um…Katie, where’s Danny and the rest of the guys?”
She hesitated to answer me; she was looking at me like if she was seeing a ghost. I didn’t know what to think of it so I asked her again.
“Do you know where they went to?”
Again she hesitated, but this time was different it was as if she was gathering the courage to tell me. “I’ll tell you after class” she said, “I can’t tell you here”
“Hmm, well alright” I looked at her confused, wondering what she was talking about. Why couldn’t she tell me here? Why is it that she looked so scared when I mentioned them? I had to find out and the only way to find out was to wait till after school and see what happens, besides its just 5th and 5th period left. I can handle two more hours of school. The last two periods were physical education and computer animation, not a bad ending to the day I must say so myself.
As the day was drawing to a close I decided to wait for Katie at the front of the school. I didn’t know it would be packed with people though, I mean who stays at school so long? Let alone in front of it. As I was waiting I noticed that there were people in black suits all around the school, like if they were looking for someone. They looked like the king’s personal guards, but why would they be here? Today is just getting weirder.
I finally saw Katie and decided to approach her, “Hey Katie!” she looked surprised, I guess she thought I wouldn’t wait for her after school.
“Oh, hey David, I thought you wouldn’t believe me enough to actually come here.”
“Yeah, well I’m here now. What were you too afraid to say in school?”
She looked at me with a look that would make hell freeze, “not here, we have to keep walking.”
Still confused I followed her until we got to an alley three miles away from the school. “So where are they?” She pulled me away farther into the darkness of the alleyway. “Katie! Tell me where they are! I have to get home soon and I don’t have time for your games!” I said in a frustrated manner.
Katie quickly stopped and stared at me for a minute, she looked hesitant. I didn’t know what she was going to do next, for the moment I was very confused. “They’ve been taken.” She just stared at me with a blank face.
“What do you mean, they’ve been taken? What happened to them?!” At the moment I wasn’t ready for what she was about to say
.
“It’s a long story.”
“Like I care! Tell me where my friends are!”
“During the time that you were gone, the king decided to take over the schools. It wasn’t announced on television because of what he was planning on doing with the new acquisition of what used to be a free schooling system. First he decided to fire all of the staff and replaced them with loyalists and those sympathetic to his cause. He wanted to create a world where there was no resistance to his reign and what better way to do so than by stopping them at the source. He thought it was easy to do since they were just kids, but he didn’t count on the fact that high schoolers didn’t brainwash too easily since the seeds of the opposition were deep in their families. He decided to do the next best thing which was raiding the homes of those students and taking them and their families to re-education camps. David that’s where they are.”
I was completely awestruck with what I had just heard. I couldn’t believe that the man I had praised for bringing the countries of the Americas as one to resist the disaster that was the Great Wars! I wanted to know more about what was happening so I kept asking.
“Katie, did you see or hear anything else? And why were the king’s personal guard at the school today?”
“I heard that they are going to reinstate the draft, it seems that the resistance that was left to rot in France has stayed alive and is now flourishing in what was once desolate land. The king wants to exterminate them and take the land for his own personal use. During the acquisition of the schools the king decided to replace the school security guards with his personal guard; there are rumors that his son is attending one of the schools. No one knows what he looks like though, let alone his name.”
I was intrigued enough that I decided to go to the city hall and look for the name of the king’s son in any of the public records. It was here in Montebello where the king lived before he rose to power, maybe there was something on the birth of his son. At the moment we couldn’t talk anymore since it was getting dark and curfew was about to start.
I ran home as fast as I could, I wanted to avoid any police at this hour. Teenagers weren’t considered citizens until the age of eighteen, so the police could do whatever they wanted to punish us so long as they didn’t kill us.
When I got home my sister was in the kitchen cooking dinner. I wondered why she didn’t say anything about me being out late, I didn’t want to pour oil into the fire so I decided not to mention it.
“Did you hear?”
“Hear what?”
“The king will be visiting Montebello for the saint’s day parade.”
“Why would he come here? Didn’t he try to kick us all out of here to turn the city into a strategic military base?”
“David, the king has long since abandoned that idea, don’t you remember when he announced he was taking the western coastal cities and creating barracks to train our navy.”
“Our? Why say our? He’s using us for his own sadistic purposes! He’s sending what remains of the resistance to re-education camps! That’s where my friends are!”
My sister pretended not to know what was happening all around us, she only told me about the resistance staying alive. She doesn’t know much but I think I can use her to find out the name of the king’s son.
“Sam, do you remember when the king lived here?”
“Yeah, I was thirteen back then, he was actually living in the Montebello Hills by what used to be the town center. He was a very eccentric man, never took no for an answer, everyone liked him, I guess that’s how he got to be where he is now.”
“Do you remember any children?”
“He had a daughter named Sarai, but that was it. There is a rumor that he has a son about your age, but it was never proven. Sarai would have to marry to be considered queen of the Americas, there isn’t much royalty in this world so I would guess that he might have bore a son during the time he was slaughtering the resistance. Don’t know how he found the time to romance the queen.”
So he had one confirmed child, Sarai, but he needed a son or his legacy would end with the first king. This assured the fact that he bore a child and that he was in one of the California schools, for what other reason would he take them over and create a haven for pro-regime sympathizers. I needed to find a way to get into the records office of city hall.
The next day I decided to go the civil way and ask for access to the records. They took me to the basement of the building, through some doors and into a large room filled with filing cabinets. Before that though I saw a door that read, “Restricted” hmm I wondered what it was and why a public office was withholding secrets from their people.
“May I ask what’s behind that door?”
“Old records from the 1950s and below, they are extremely sensitive and cannot be accessed by a commoner.”
Hmm nice lie, I bet they were all trained to say that. I was after one thing and one thing only and that was a record of the king having a son. If the rumors are true he had his son here in Montebello, it was the only place he lived for ten years during the construction of his palace in northern California.
The room was well organized, everything in alphabetical order. I just couldn’t believe that they still used paper even after the complete digitization of all public records in the congressional green act of 2033. It seemed pretty suspicious that there wasn’t a supercomputer here instead of an island of filing cabinets. Like I said it was very organized, I found the records of the king and his family when they lived here; there was no mention of a son, well at least in the papers that weren’t blacked out to protect some kind of sensitive information.
I left the basement and thanked them for letting me access the records of Montebello city. I also decided to ask why there were filing cabinets in there and not a computer that kept the records. They told me that the king destroyed the computer in this city only, because it contained all of the information about the resistance and he didn’t want vigilante loyalists attacking what still were citizens of this great nation.
Another steaming pile of bull from the clerks at the records office. Do they really think that someone with common sense would believe their crap? I didn’t know if they were really stupid or if they actually believe what they were told.
I decided to break into the building and go through the “Restricted” door. I knew what I was going to do was going to be the most dangerous thing I have ever done. I shouldn’t have gone out that night or any other night for a fact.
I went out at midnight; I made sure that Sam wouldn’t hear me leaving. I couldn’t believe what I was about to do. I had to make sure that I wasn’t caught by the roaming policemen, or any other person that worked for the king. I had to be careful not to make any suspicious noises while I was out. I packed a backpack full of the things that I needed to break into the records office, and a blueprint of the building that I found on the internet. I had to use millions of proxies so I couldn’t be tracked back to my computer.
It was completely dark out, the street lights were out so I had to use my phone to light the way. I was scared that someone would catch me because of the light from my phone so I decided to turn it off. I was almost to there when I heard a car passing by, I ran to the alley at the corner, I decided to look to see what it was. It was a policeman driving by patrolling the area; at that point my heart was beating extremely fast, so much that I didn’t notice that my hand had been cut from some broken glass on the floor. I used a rag that I had in my backpack as a bandage to cover the wound, it was weird because I didn’t feel any pain even when I was removing glass fragments from the wound.
The policeman was just passing by and he didn’t see me so I decided to keep on going and get into the building. When I got there, it seemed like the lights were on, but it was just the emergency lights that stay on all night. According to the blueprints there was a small window leading to the basement on the right side of the building. It looked like this was the only way to get into the basement from the outside. When I got to the side of the building I noticed that the window was cemented in, that’s why I didn’t see one when they were taking me to the hall of records. I decided to study the blueprints a little more and noticed that there was something in the back of the building that looked like a secret entrance, it must have been one since there was only one way to get into the building and that was from the front. As I trailed the back of the building looking for some kind of crack; I heard another car passing so I ducked down and hid from the oncoming light of the cars high beams. It was another cop, weird it was like they were protecting something, there was too much activity here for a records office of a town that was to be condemned.
While I was on the floor hiding from the passing cop car, like the rebel I was, I accidentally pressed a button that opened a hatch that led to the inside of the building. I hesitated to get in because I was afraid it would lead to somewhere other than the basement, then I heard the car stop by the street behind the building where I was so I jumped in and closed the hatch before I was caught by the police breaking into a building they were so intent in protecting.
It was dark, but as I started to move around the hall the lights started to turn on one by one, all of them leading straight to the door with “Restricted” written on it. It felt like I was supposed to open this door, like I was chosen to open it and find out what was really behind that door!
As I got closer to the door I started to hear people walking around outside by the secret passage way, I started to panic so I ran to the door way. It wasn’t locked so I slowly started to turn the knob so I wouldn’t make any noise and alert the people in the upper level. I have to admit I was scared as hell, but I was also very excited, I couldn’t believe I was going to find out the name of the king’s son and find out which school did he go to.
I opened the door slowly, I hoped it wouldn’t screech when it opened, but to my luck it did so I opened it quickly as to not prolong the noise. It was a dumb idea because the noise got way louder than I had expected. I went inside quickly, I don’t know why, I mean it wasn’t going to save me from anyone because they were going to find me here anyway. I wasn’t thinking, I was extremely afraid of being caught out during curfew, let alone being caught breaking and entering.
As I went inside I noticed that this room was different. It had different rooms, with walls made of glass. Inside there were papers being processed, each paper being slowly scanned into a central mainframe to be kept as public records. After the paper was scanned it was put into a moisture resistant laminate and put into a dark box where they won’t be exposed to light so the ink would not fade. “Damn, they were right” I said in a sarcastic monotone.
Since I was there I decided to go through the glass hallways and see what I could find, I was careful enough not to trip any alarms. There were so many rooms, some that handled the paperwork and others that contained the paintings recovered in secrecy from the Louvre, and other prestigious museums in Europe. The glass walls stopped when it got to a dark hallway in the corner of this complex of rooms. I wondered where it led and like any teenage book I would totally go in and find out. “Now isn’t that always the way?” I said sarcastically with a giant smile on my face.
I noticed that there was writing etched on the walls, it looked like names. It was then when I noticed what this was. Why would he say it was missing? Why would he disgrace these people and their families destroying it and using parts as his construction project? Why would he use the veteran’s memorial wall? It may be over a thousand years since that time but that was still a big part of our history! Just because we are no longer the United States of America anymore doesn’t mean we have the right to disgrace out history. All of the hard work that the nation builders that we call our founders did smashed by one power hungry king.
As mad as I was I kept moving closer to that door, it was like it was pulling me in. I think it really was, I felt some strange energy emanating from the room inside, I was a little scared because I wanted to just leave and run back home, but I kept walking towards the door. I got to the door and I stayed there for a while just staring at the door, I didn’t know why I was doing it, I was just doing it.
That’s when I heard it. At the moment I didn’t know if I was going crazy or anything but I was hearing movement coming from the other side of that door. I was now hesitating to open the door now, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go in now. I mean what if it was one of those cops that might have seen me get in here, or one that was already guarding here to begin with? I didn’t know, but at that same moment I mustered up a little courage and turned that doorknob. What I saw that day changed me. At that moment I didn’t know if it was a good thing or not, but what I did know was that I had to go in and investigate further.
What I saw was an old stash of music, music that the king had banned for being too “freeing.” We all knew that the king was afraid of what would happen if people grew courageous enough to notice what he was doing, what he did to the opposition and the hypocrisy that followed after.
The music was really old, but I knew what that music did during its age; it started an all out social revolution on mankind. It ravaged the airwaves and the internet in its infancy. It became the anthem for a group of people. This artist was brilliant! Her music preached to an entire generation; from minorities to the very powerful Hipsters. Sure there were other artists that rallied a few people, but only she could get everyone young and old on their feet to fight for what is right. She single-handedly brought the conservative government to its knees and offered a much better reality for the bullied with the “It Gets Better” videos. She told us that we were beautiful in our way, because God makes no mistakes. That we were Born This Way….Taught us how to love ourselves for who we are and who we will be, because it really did get better.
The king was afraid of the lasting power that she kept even in this era…
He banned her and other music; he took over all of the record companies with the help of the corrupt congress. He now had ultimate power over the minds of teenagers; he could make them think whatever he wanted.
While I was looking through all of the music I found what looked like an mp3 player of the time. It was touch screen and pretty well preserved. It had somewhat of a charge, enough to look through it for a while. I found some videos on it. The video that intrigued me the most was a movie about a country with citizens that were afraid of the government. The government had its citizens in curfews and no one was allowed to speak ill of their leaders or face the consequence of losing their party status. It reminded me a lot of what was happening now, just that in the movie it wasn’t a monarchy, it was more of a dictatorship and the leader was hidden underground by the party leaders for fear of his assassination.
I was beginning to understand that the government was corrupt and that it was the duty of the citizen to rise up against their leaders and point out their flaws and remove them from government!
I seemed to have said that last part out loud since I started to hear a voice on the top floor.
“Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit!” I whispered as I heard the footsteps getting closer.
“Who’s there?” a man shouted as he came down the stairs of the trap door.
I got down on the floor and hid behind a filing cabinet that was next to the electronics I found. I could hear him moving closer to my door, I was so scared that I couldn’t stop shaking. I tried to stop, but I couldn’t, I had never been in this kind of trouble so I worried that if I got caught I could go to jail for a long time. I was so frantic that I tried to stop myself from being heard. All I could hear was his footsteps coming closer and closer into my door, I felt like just running past him and hoping that I could get away. I heard him opening the door so I just held my breath for as long as I could so he wouldn’t hear me. I was still shaking, but it wasn’t very noticeable.
He walked into the room and just stood there, I guess he was canvassing the room to see if there was anything out of place. He found the mp3 player; it was on.
“I know you’re in here! Come out and you won’t get hurt, just come out.”
I shouldn’t have come out, but I did, I was just a scared kid not wanting to get in trouble. I stood up a little and the cop saw me.
“I’m sorry; I’ll never do it again. Please don’t take me in” I cried. I couldn’t say much more because he hit me across the mouth with his baton.
“Shut up boy! No one wants to hear your explanation of how you got in here! You have no rights as a child here, boy. You belong to me tonight and there is no one here to save you.”
He started to beat me with his baton, each blow to my body hurt more than the last, he decided to hit me in the same spot over and over until he broke the skin. He broke my fingers one by one; he laughed at my pain; every time I screamed as he broke each of my fingers he would go back to one that was already broken and prolong my screams. As he was about to break my last finger he made me open my eyes to watch; I didn’t want to so he grabbed his baton and smacked me in the face with it.
“Open your eyes or you die!” he screamed.
I had no choice but to open them for fear of death. All I could see was his sadistic smile as he pushed my finger back slowly so he could savor my pain. I could feel the tendons ripping as he kept pushing my finger farther and farther back; he finally broke my last finger. I wished that would be the end of all this pain, but it wasn’t. He thought it would be fun if he made sure I couldn’t run away from him as he tortured me so he shot my legs multiple times, then he beat them until he heard the bone crack and then he beat them harder until they completely fractured.
“Stop! Please stop! I can’t handle anymore!” I cried.
“What? Why? The fun isn’t over yet little boy” he said with a sadistic smile.
“Let me go, please let me go!” I screamed.
“Not tonight.”
He started to beat me again. So much that he broke a few of my ribs. He wanted to make sure I couldn’t move for what he was going to do next. He started to laugh, he laughed for a while, after that he just stared at me. It was the first time I could make out his face. He was very pale, with blue eyes; his eyes looked so caring which gave me the feeling that he would stop, but that was just a mask he put on for the public. He had short blonde hair, it was darker than any blonde hair I’ve seen before, and I figured I could identify him that way. He was a slender man but extremely strong, which scared me knowing he would be the one to kill me.
“Are you going to kill me?”
“No, not yet” he smiled.
“Then what are you going to do?”
He grinned, “You’ll see soon enough.”
♠ ♠ ♠
Not finished