‹ Prequel: Power & Control: The Common Good
Sequel: Tie a Knot & Hang On ›
Status: completed! comments and critiques still welcome!
Fear Itself
The Sky is Falling
The sky is falling, the sky is falling.
No light enters the abandoned metro tunnels. It never did, of course. Light cannot penetrate solid ground, nor can light exist when there are no windows or sunlight. The only sunlight the boys and I ever saw came from the top of the stairs at the entrances and exits: the few that exist, anyway. It’s been decades since the public used these tunnels. I’ve read in history books that they were once bustling transit spots, offering transportation for cheap, but the League has since done away with public transportation. Travel occurs by feet or by bike now; if one acquired enough money, they could buy a motor scooter, something akin to a motorbike or a vespa. The wealthy could afford cars. My father has a car. I had never considered us wealthy until I saw the state of London’s west side: the slums, where the majority of the population lived. That was when I knew how lucky I had it at home, regardless of whether or not I was trapped, but somehow, I preferred the dark, grimy feeling of the metro tunnels. Perhaps it was because for the first time ever, I had friends.
My friends, in fact, are walking beside me this very moment, but nobody is speaking. Sam, our faithful but incredibly nervous leader, walks to my right. His golden brown hair is shaggier than usual, falling to his ears in untamed waves. His jeans are tearing and fraying from the usual wear and tear. His t-shirt is layered with a dull, brown sweatshirt to hide any exposed skin from the cold. Winter has set in, but winter clothes are expensive.
Alex walks on my left. Alex is dressed like Sam. I’m the only one who has a winter coat; I only have it because I stole it.
Fluorescent lights hang in the nearby platforms, offering a soft, artificial, yellow glow whenever we emerged from the tunnel itself into what used to be a loading dock of sorts. We pass the platforms, paying little mind to the flickering bulbs and the softly swinging wires connecting them above. The platform disappears behind us, and we find ourselves shrouded mostly in darkness. Small, rectangular lights glow a dim orange from both sides, allowing us to see the bare minimum: parts of the concrete walls scarred with decades-old graffiti and pieces of the cold, metal tracks beneath our feet.
As we press on, the normal smell of faded booze, smoke, sweat, urine, and stale cardboard that has become imbedded within the walls is replaced the staunch odor of gasoline. My nostrils sting at the mixture of carbon monoxide and soot. My friends have noticed it too. We all stop. Sam is beside me, and Alex stands but a pace ahead. That smell, I wonder. What is that smell?
Sam sniffs the air, nose flaring. His eyebrows furrow, and he chuckles softly, “What’s with the Kerosene breeze?”
I shake my head. “Shh,” I hush him. My eyes drift upward as the sound of engines piercing through the sky echoes downward. Alex is watching me. I know he’s thinking; he’s always thinking, but I can see the confusion in his eyes. He’s looking to me an answer none of us have, but soon there is a soft rumbling from below. My china blue eyes drift downward to the tracks. Bits of rubble and pebbles dance around my feet, shaking and shifting on the ground. Before I can utter a word, a loud bang sounds from miles behind us, far enough that it perhaps sounds like a dull thud, like a rock smashing against the ground, but as I turn my head, flames burst from behind, replacing the darkness with bright orange glow. Heat blasts down the hallway, and suddenly it feels like the fire is licking at my spine, singeing my skin. Bits of debris fly as well, but our arms fly up to defend or faces, pebbles and bits scraping against the fabric of our sleeves.
When the blast subsides, we stand stock still. What was that? Where did it come from? So many questions ring through my head unanswered, but as a second crash sounds further down the tunnels, we realize that there is no time, so we run. We run, and we run, and we keep running because there’s no other choice. Blasts continue to sound, growing closer and closer. Beads of sweat run down my neck, soaking up in my golden blonde curls. We race down the tunnels in unison, but we’re terrified. I can see it in the faces of my friends; I can feel it running through my blood. We had prepared for a lot of things, but we had never prepared for this.
We had never prepared to face certain death in our own home; we had planned to face it many times before: when we robbed the military warehouse, when we caused a riot at the Atlantis testing facility, and especially when we decided to plant explosives in the bottom of League Tower #1. There was always the looming prospect of imminent death: being captured and interrogated, being shot on the spot, getting caught in the blast radius… but we never planned to be running for our lives in the tunnels leading to our own home base.
I certainly never planned to run so fast my knees ached with every step. My heart feels like it is going to burst straight through my ribcage. My arms pump at my sides, propelling me down the tunnels, away from the flames and the chunks of the ceiling that crash just mere inches behind us, barely missing. Where are we heading? I have to remind myself. The closest exit is this way. I can see it approaching in the distance. It’s right there. I could reach out and touch it. It is so close. The light is growing larger, spilling out into the tunnel. We can run right through that door and out into the dried up canal. We could escape. We’d be free. I want to sigh with relief, but just as we step within reach, a crash sounds above us. Debris falls, knocking us back a few feet. All three of us skid across the ground. My chest heaves and a cough escapes my mouth as our skidding bodies send dust flying around.
We scramble to our feet, tripping and stumbling in the other direction, attempting to make an escape, but the ceiling gives out, leaving another heap of flaming debris in our wake. We are trapped. Sweat pours from my skin: a mixture of nerves, physical strain, and the intensifying heat of the nearby flames. I cough again, and I cover my mouth with my arm, burying my face in the crook of my elbow. Despite the fact that I’m currently quite sure I’m going to die down here, I don’t want to take any chances. A good friend once told me that I needed to learn how to survive; I figure that not dying of carbon monoxide poisoning after my unlikely escape would be a good start.
My eyes dart around, trying to find a possible exit, but we’re blocked on both sides in the middle of a tunnel quickly filling with smoke. I find myself at a loss. My eyes sting with tears as reality sets in: there’s no way out of this mess. Sam is trying to think; his eyes are wide, staring at the ground, hands running through his hair, clutching and grasping at his scalp. I shake my head slightly, but I soon feel a tug on my free arm. “Tali!” Alex calls out over the roaring sound of flames and jet engines above. I turn my head, my hair following a few seconds behind. Within seconds, I can feel his hands on my waist, and I am sent hurling through the air over the debris. The flames brush my skin, but I move quickly and find myself tumbling across the ground on the other side. The metal from the tracks collides with my ribs.
I groan and try to push myself to my feet, but Sam lands on top of me. He mutters an apology through a tight cough. I pry myself out from under him and lift my head to see Alex flying out from behind the wall of fire. In one swift motion, he grabs my arm. I grab Sam’s, and we are both pulled to our feet. Once again, we are running.
The next exit is just ahead, but the walls are crumbling around us. The ceiling is giving out, and my feet are numb from repeated motion. Strands of hair are matted to my face, now smeared with dirt, debris and ash. Alex’s light brown hair is frosted with soot. Sam is lagging behind me, so I tug him forward just as the right wall collapses, nearly on top of his small frame. The light approaches, and a soft, half-hearted laugh escapes my throat. Alex rushes toward the archway, and we duck under it, our feet pounding against the steps, rushing upward toward the sunlight. Cool air rushes toward us—or perhaps we are rushing toward it. It soothes the small patches of burnt skin on my arms where the fire ate through my winter coat.
I am in pain, but it could be a lot worse.
We break from the underground to the surface. I double over, gasping for air, and trying desperately to catch my breath. We’re okay. We’re safe. I want to laugh. I want to make a joke, but as I lift myself to chuckle at Alex, I noticed that his face is fixed forward, eyes frozen, trembling. I don’t have time to turn my head before I hear an all too familiar voice approaching us.
He’s fastening the cuff links on his three piece suit. His brown hair is slicked back clean and even, brown eyes piercing into my mind. I can feel the fear gripping me, taking over, as the monster known as Clinton Kennedy, Commander of Earth, saunters toward us with a sinister smirk on his face. He knows he’s safe; he knows he’s in control. After all, there are five League Militiamen dressed in camouflage uniforms, pointing their assault rifles right at us.
“You’re under arrest,” the Commander sneers at us, his face cracking into a grin. “Though I’m sure you’ve gathered that. You’re smart for plebeians, you know,” he mused. “Smart enough to hide in the tunnels, smart enough to hack into television broadcasts,” Kennedy paused and his smirk melted into a scowl. “Smart enough to blow up my office.” I heard that Kennedy enjoyed monologuing; Avery knew from his previous encounters with the man. I had tuned him out, suddenly more concerned with the fact that I was about to be shipped off to my death in the cold, silver truck parked nearby. My eyes fall upon Dean, who is wearing his best pokerface, but there is a subtle twitch in his eyes: he may as well be crying. It’s enough for me to sense his guilt.
“Cassidy,” Kennedy snaps, and Dean comes to his side. “You have the honor of cuffing your brother. Guards, you can handle the other two.” My eyes sting with tears, blurring the image of Dean locking cold steel around Sam’s wrists as a guard locks my arms behind my back. We are prodded with guns and shoved into the back of the van, accompanied by four soldiers. The last is charged with locking the back doors before he climbs into the driver’s seat, right beside Kennedy himself and Dean, who keeps his eyes forward as though he can’t bear to peer through the plexiglass behind.
I blink a few times, and tears run down my face, but I can see. I can see the inside of a car, the back of a van with just enough room for the three of us, and as I’m forced inside, I bite my lip to quiet myself. I watch the doors close with a sudden realization that we may have escaped death in the tunnels, but we aren’t going to escape it in the interrogation room, the basement of League towers where thousands of “rebels” have met their untimely death at the hands of ruthless executioners.
I see the hopeless expressions on the faces of my friends. Sam’s gaze doesn’t leave the floor. I know he’s thinking. He’s always thinking. His curly brown hair is covered in ash and soot. Dirt is smeared across his face, but his brown eyes are lost in thought, dazed and fixed on the metal floor below. Alex lifts his brown eyes to meet my blue ones in a hopeless gaze. I try to smile, try to silently tell him that everything is going to be all right, but we both know that it won’t be. We know that this is the end. This is the end of us, the end of life, the end of the Brotherhood, and even the end of freedom.
But we’ve fought for so long, I just don’t want to see that become meaningless. I glance to Sam and back to Alex. He shakes his head and drops his gaze to the floor as well. Instead, my eyes drift to the windows, watching the canal and West London disappearing behind us. My eyes catch a silhouetted figure at the edge of the canal, vanishing in the distance, and I begin to wonder how I got here in the first place.
No light enters the abandoned metro tunnels. It never did, of course. Light cannot penetrate solid ground, nor can light exist when there are no windows or sunlight. The only sunlight the boys and I ever saw came from the top of the stairs at the entrances and exits: the few that exist, anyway. It’s been decades since the public used these tunnels. I’ve read in history books that they were once bustling transit spots, offering transportation for cheap, but the League has since done away with public transportation. Travel occurs by feet or by bike now; if one acquired enough money, they could buy a motor scooter, something akin to a motorbike or a vespa. The wealthy could afford cars. My father has a car. I had never considered us wealthy until I saw the state of London’s west side: the slums, where the majority of the population lived. That was when I knew how lucky I had it at home, regardless of whether or not I was trapped, but somehow, I preferred the dark, grimy feeling of the metro tunnels. Perhaps it was because for the first time ever, I had friends.
My friends, in fact, are walking beside me this very moment, but nobody is speaking. Sam, our faithful but incredibly nervous leader, walks to my right. His golden brown hair is shaggier than usual, falling to his ears in untamed waves. His jeans are tearing and fraying from the usual wear and tear. His t-shirt is layered with a dull, brown sweatshirt to hide any exposed skin from the cold. Winter has set in, but winter clothes are expensive.
Alex walks on my left. Alex is dressed like Sam. I’m the only one who has a winter coat; I only have it because I stole it.
Fluorescent lights hang in the nearby platforms, offering a soft, artificial, yellow glow whenever we emerged from the tunnel itself into what used to be a loading dock of sorts. We pass the platforms, paying little mind to the flickering bulbs and the softly swinging wires connecting them above. The platform disappears behind us, and we find ourselves shrouded mostly in darkness. Small, rectangular lights glow a dim orange from both sides, allowing us to see the bare minimum: parts of the concrete walls scarred with decades-old graffiti and pieces of the cold, metal tracks beneath our feet.
As we press on, the normal smell of faded booze, smoke, sweat, urine, and stale cardboard that has become imbedded within the walls is replaced the staunch odor of gasoline. My nostrils sting at the mixture of carbon monoxide and soot. My friends have noticed it too. We all stop. Sam is beside me, and Alex stands but a pace ahead. That smell, I wonder. What is that smell?
Sam sniffs the air, nose flaring. His eyebrows furrow, and he chuckles softly, “What’s with the Kerosene breeze?”
I shake my head. “Shh,” I hush him. My eyes drift upward as the sound of engines piercing through the sky echoes downward. Alex is watching me. I know he’s thinking; he’s always thinking, but I can see the confusion in his eyes. He’s looking to me an answer none of us have, but soon there is a soft rumbling from below. My china blue eyes drift downward to the tracks. Bits of rubble and pebbles dance around my feet, shaking and shifting on the ground. Before I can utter a word, a loud bang sounds from miles behind us, far enough that it perhaps sounds like a dull thud, like a rock smashing against the ground, but as I turn my head, flames burst from behind, replacing the darkness with bright orange glow. Heat blasts down the hallway, and suddenly it feels like the fire is licking at my spine, singeing my skin. Bits of debris fly as well, but our arms fly up to defend or faces, pebbles and bits scraping against the fabric of our sleeves.
When the blast subsides, we stand stock still. What was that? Where did it come from? So many questions ring through my head unanswered, but as a second crash sounds further down the tunnels, we realize that there is no time, so we run. We run, and we run, and we keep running because there’s no other choice. Blasts continue to sound, growing closer and closer. Beads of sweat run down my neck, soaking up in my golden blonde curls. We race down the tunnels in unison, but we’re terrified. I can see it in the faces of my friends; I can feel it running through my blood. We had prepared for a lot of things, but we had never prepared for this.
We had never prepared to face certain death in our own home; we had planned to face it many times before: when we robbed the military warehouse, when we caused a riot at the Atlantis testing facility, and especially when we decided to plant explosives in the bottom of League Tower #1. There was always the looming prospect of imminent death: being captured and interrogated, being shot on the spot, getting caught in the blast radius… but we never planned to be running for our lives in the tunnels leading to our own home base.
I certainly never planned to run so fast my knees ached with every step. My heart feels like it is going to burst straight through my ribcage. My arms pump at my sides, propelling me down the tunnels, away from the flames and the chunks of the ceiling that crash just mere inches behind us, barely missing. Where are we heading? I have to remind myself. The closest exit is this way. I can see it approaching in the distance. It’s right there. I could reach out and touch it. It is so close. The light is growing larger, spilling out into the tunnel. We can run right through that door and out into the dried up canal. We could escape. We’d be free. I want to sigh with relief, but just as we step within reach, a crash sounds above us. Debris falls, knocking us back a few feet. All three of us skid across the ground. My chest heaves and a cough escapes my mouth as our skidding bodies send dust flying around.
We scramble to our feet, tripping and stumbling in the other direction, attempting to make an escape, but the ceiling gives out, leaving another heap of flaming debris in our wake. We are trapped. Sweat pours from my skin: a mixture of nerves, physical strain, and the intensifying heat of the nearby flames. I cough again, and I cover my mouth with my arm, burying my face in the crook of my elbow. Despite the fact that I’m currently quite sure I’m going to die down here, I don’t want to take any chances. A good friend once told me that I needed to learn how to survive; I figure that not dying of carbon monoxide poisoning after my unlikely escape would be a good start.
My eyes dart around, trying to find a possible exit, but we’re blocked on both sides in the middle of a tunnel quickly filling with smoke. I find myself at a loss. My eyes sting with tears as reality sets in: there’s no way out of this mess. Sam is trying to think; his eyes are wide, staring at the ground, hands running through his hair, clutching and grasping at his scalp. I shake my head slightly, but I soon feel a tug on my free arm. “Tali!” Alex calls out over the roaring sound of flames and jet engines above. I turn my head, my hair following a few seconds behind. Within seconds, I can feel his hands on my waist, and I am sent hurling through the air over the debris. The flames brush my skin, but I move quickly and find myself tumbling across the ground on the other side. The metal from the tracks collides with my ribs.
I groan and try to push myself to my feet, but Sam lands on top of me. He mutters an apology through a tight cough. I pry myself out from under him and lift my head to see Alex flying out from behind the wall of fire. In one swift motion, he grabs my arm. I grab Sam’s, and we are both pulled to our feet. Once again, we are running.
The next exit is just ahead, but the walls are crumbling around us. The ceiling is giving out, and my feet are numb from repeated motion. Strands of hair are matted to my face, now smeared with dirt, debris and ash. Alex’s light brown hair is frosted with soot. Sam is lagging behind me, so I tug him forward just as the right wall collapses, nearly on top of his small frame. The light approaches, and a soft, half-hearted laugh escapes my throat. Alex rushes toward the archway, and we duck under it, our feet pounding against the steps, rushing upward toward the sunlight. Cool air rushes toward us—or perhaps we are rushing toward it. It soothes the small patches of burnt skin on my arms where the fire ate through my winter coat.
I am in pain, but it could be a lot worse.
We break from the underground to the surface. I double over, gasping for air, and trying desperately to catch my breath. We’re okay. We’re safe. I want to laugh. I want to make a joke, but as I lift myself to chuckle at Alex, I noticed that his face is fixed forward, eyes frozen, trembling. I don’t have time to turn my head before I hear an all too familiar voice approaching us.
He’s fastening the cuff links on his three piece suit. His brown hair is slicked back clean and even, brown eyes piercing into my mind. I can feel the fear gripping me, taking over, as the monster known as Clinton Kennedy, Commander of Earth, saunters toward us with a sinister smirk on his face. He knows he’s safe; he knows he’s in control. After all, there are five League Militiamen dressed in camouflage uniforms, pointing their assault rifles right at us.
“You’re under arrest,” the Commander sneers at us, his face cracking into a grin. “Though I’m sure you’ve gathered that. You’re smart for plebeians, you know,” he mused. “Smart enough to hide in the tunnels, smart enough to hack into television broadcasts,” Kennedy paused and his smirk melted into a scowl. “Smart enough to blow up my office.” I heard that Kennedy enjoyed monologuing; Avery knew from his previous encounters with the man. I had tuned him out, suddenly more concerned with the fact that I was about to be shipped off to my death in the cold, silver truck parked nearby. My eyes fall upon Dean, who is wearing his best pokerface, but there is a subtle twitch in his eyes: he may as well be crying. It’s enough for me to sense his guilt.
“Cassidy,” Kennedy snaps, and Dean comes to his side. “You have the honor of cuffing your brother. Guards, you can handle the other two.” My eyes sting with tears, blurring the image of Dean locking cold steel around Sam’s wrists as a guard locks my arms behind my back. We are prodded with guns and shoved into the back of the van, accompanied by four soldiers. The last is charged with locking the back doors before he climbs into the driver’s seat, right beside Kennedy himself and Dean, who keeps his eyes forward as though he can’t bear to peer through the plexiglass behind.
I blink a few times, and tears run down my face, but I can see. I can see the inside of a car, the back of a van with just enough room for the three of us, and as I’m forced inside, I bite my lip to quiet myself. I watch the doors close with a sudden realization that we may have escaped death in the tunnels, but we aren’t going to escape it in the interrogation room, the basement of League towers where thousands of “rebels” have met their untimely death at the hands of ruthless executioners.
I see the hopeless expressions on the faces of my friends. Sam’s gaze doesn’t leave the floor. I know he’s thinking. He’s always thinking. His curly brown hair is covered in ash and soot. Dirt is smeared across his face, but his brown eyes are lost in thought, dazed and fixed on the metal floor below. Alex lifts his brown eyes to meet my blue ones in a hopeless gaze. I try to smile, try to silently tell him that everything is going to be all right, but we both know that it won’t be. We know that this is the end. This is the end of us, the end of life, the end of the Brotherhood, and even the end of freedom.
But we’ve fought for so long, I just don’t want to see that become meaningless. I glance to Sam and back to Alex. He shakes his head and drops his gaze to the floor as well. Instead, my eyes drift to the windows, watching the canal and West London disappearing behind us. My eyes catch a silhouetted figure at the edge of the canal, vanishing in the distance, and I begin to wonder how I got here in the first place.