I wish I could remember this world as it once was before the invasion, before the fall of humanity. I've read about the old times in books (illegal now, of course) and the hopeful plans they had for the future make me smile (weakly) in wistful pity for them.
I took a walk the other day under the guise of going out to get a food pack. But I really just wanted to get out of that stuffy apartment. Even the sun feels artificial, hell, it could be for all I know. Almost everything is fabricated these days, so why should the sun, the very sun, be genuine?
Anyway, I have a habit of digressing. Pardon me.
I was on my way to the plaza when I heard the deep and authoritative voices of Civil Protection. Being curious, I snuck over to the source of the commotion: an alley between two inconspicuous buildings. There in the alley stood a few Combine and three citizens. Two blue-clad citizens were leaned up against the brick of one of the buildings in submissive stances. The third was lying face down on the ground; motionless with blood spatters soiling the dirt beneath his head. Then the citizen nearest me turned his head and caught my startled gaze.
The look of fear in his eyes is something I will never forget. In that moment, he was pleading with me to intervene, create a diversion, to do something, will you!
I couldn't help it, I turned and ran from the scene.
I knew police brutality, but not to this extent, never as a firsthand eyewitness. I mentally chastised myself; I knew better, I knew that all the goings-on initiated by Civil Protection were not protective in nature, at least not all of them.
I just kept running, no matter how suspicious it may have looked. And ironically, as my lungs burned from the sharp intake of the cool morning air, I felt alive for the first time in forever. Here I was, almost flying down a back street and sure to draw attention to myself, but I couldn't help but smile from the feeling of freedom.
Eventually, I slowed down as I neared the plaza. The familiar scene of the train station and the looming screens atop metal poles greeted me. Breen's face was stretched across the screens as usual. But then again, where wasn't he these days? I see him constantly; on the television in my apartment, the screens here in the plaza, even in the resistance graffiti in some of the forgotten parts of City 17. He always has that look of ownership written on his face, as if we are his younger siblings and he is issuing that cordial reprimand which always has a vaguely threatening undertone hidden just beneath the surface.
On days like this, I can feel an undercurrent of rebellion somewhere within me. I have no idea where it comes from, but it flows from an unknown source, like a sound where you can't pinpoint its origin. Sometimes it increases in frequency, transmits in a higher, more insistent pitch than before and drives you insane. But more often it is just a buzzing in the background; easily ignored but always there. This undercurrent, this sound, whatever you want to call it; it makes me want to do monumentally prohibited things.
Like acquire a gun.
Like sing in the public square.
Or distribute subversive propaganda.
Or start a revolution.
Despite all this, I made my silent and obedient way into the station to pick up my ration like the good citizen always does.
Later, when twilight descended over the city, I crept up to the roof of my apartment building. I took careful steps on the stairs as to not wake anyone behind closed doors.
I emerged on the roof with my head full of restless thoughts and a heart of heady discontent. I sat down and leaned against the ledge at the building's ledge and looked up to the stars above. They always seem calm and constant, as a contrast to their cores in never-ceasing turbulence. But that must be how we citizens of City 17 appear. With a calm exterior, you can hide any kind of inner universe within yourself. It's become an art, really. An art of survival. Because if you betray any of those thoughts, you'll end up spirited away to the Citadel where you'll end up either dead or worse.
But still, how easy would it be to just drift up there and just be? How easy would it be to drift away and be lost in that envelope of crushing silence?
The answer, is unfortunately not that easy, keep on dreaming.
Sometimes, I get angry at the people who fell in the Seven Hour War. Why couldn't they have fought longer? Took one more shot? Held one more fort? But then I come back down from the rage and realize that they were brutally surprised by the otherworldly invaders and did well to last the seven hours they did.
I closed my eyes and listened to the silence. Nighttime was the one time in City 17 where you could be still and almost fool yourself that this quiet town was every square kilometer of normal, when in fact every centimeter was far from what it could be, what it should be.
In this brief moment of (relative) peace, I suddenly remembered a shadow I had glimpsed back in the alley earlier today. It looked something like a man in a bulky suit. Orange, it may have been. And he was holding something in his hand...something that resembled a tire iron, or maybe a crowbar. Though his face was obscured, I was pretty sure he was wearing glasses. But the shadows were dense in that back alley, not to mention the arrest scene I had originally happened upon. It was probably just my imagination running wild in the heat of the situation.
Yes, I think that's what it was. Anyways, if he was real, I doubt he'd get too far before Civil Protection got to him.
And I still can't shake this dire feeling of revolution.
A/N: This piece was meant to sound like someone was speaking it aloud, so forgive any choppiness. I really have a strong attachment to this one and I don't really know why.
If you read, please review, you know the drill.
