A/N: This is just a little something I wrote for an English project on the novel. I know the events it references can be a little vague; I'm sorry if I confuse anyone! As this is my first entry to this site, I welcome any concrit. In fact, please try to help me improve!

Disclaimer: I do not own any part of the novel 1984


Italics: Julia

Regular: Winston

Today, something peculiar happened. Miranda, my coworker, was walking with me to the Two Minutes Hate. We didn't talk, of course. Even though we have worked together for 3 years, we never really talk. She's hopelessly dull. I'll say, "it's a beautiful day." And she'll say, "of course."

So, there we were, in companionable silence, if you want to call it that. I was trying to match my footsteps to hers. I was looking straight ahead, and could just see her feet out of the corner of my eye. I skipped a step, and there we were, together in unison. I kept my sight on the ground. Left, right. Left, right. She stopped. I stopped. I looked up.

The man was a member of the inner party, I could see. O'Brien. He was portly and round, with a ruddy complexion and a double chin. His eyes were too watery, and his hands too small. His body almost took up the entire corridor. I wanted to grimace in disgust, but my face held back the instinct. After a whole life of guarding my expressions, it took more effort to show emotion than to keep my face blank. And so, I looked at him blankly. But not stupidly. I wasn't stupid. I was not a prole. Proles were the definition of stupid. Stupid was the definition of proles. I was not a prole.

"Julia." he began. I nodded. "Would you walk with me?" I nodded again.

Miranda, who hadn't moved in the exchange, started walking down the hall again, alone. O'Brien and I followed, in silence. I matched my steps to his. Left, right.

She loves me. I can't believe I ever thought she was a thought police. Just looking in her eyes, I can finally see someone who understands. Someone who knows how I feel, someone who also chants 'down with Big Brother' in their mind! It almost seems too good to be true. Almost. But she knows how it is. She knows how it should be. She knows that taking this giant risk is the only way to be us. It's the only way to be human.

I've been impatient, these hours. I don't know what to expect when I see her in the square. I wish I could just yell to everyone that I don't care! The dark-haired girl loves me, and I will love her. Someday, I will go back to Victory Square, and shout to everyone that I LOVE HER! And then, take my own life. It's the only way to be free. Even if it is said that I never existed, people will know. Winston Smith will have gone down on his own terms. There is no way the thought police will be able to catch me. I will be great.

But… what if I don't succeed? What if I do not die? What if the thought police capture me?

I will never tell anyone that I love the dark-haired girl.

Winston Smith. If I could, I would say that name a hundred times over. A thousand, even. It rolls off my tongue like water, like the gentlest breeze… he is magnificent. My equal. Someone who understands me!

When I first saw him, I knew. We were meant to be. I guess you could say it was love at first sight. Imagine the possibilities! We will be there, in love, right under the party's nose. They will never notice a thing, the idiots. I think the thought police are a sham! They are some made up thing made to scare us, and it isn't going to work. It isn't going to work for us.

Today, in Victory Square, I gave him directions to a clearing I found once on a hike with my spy troupe. It is perfect. We will be perfection, there. The flowers, the sky, the sun… it will be as if the Party never existed. I can't wait to talk to him. To know him. He understands! He knows!

Julia… Julia. Her name. A beautiful name. Today, despite my self-assurances, I almost expected the thought police to capture us together. It's stupid, I know. We wouldn't have been caught; not in the golden country. The Party doesn't exist out there, not while we're together.

It was almost like a dream, when they were together. I half expected to wake up at some point in it; and then I would ask myself if I had talked in my sleep, as I always did, every morning. So far, I have not once muttered a sound in my slumber. I was afraid that if this were a dream, then it would have been the one time I talked in my sleep freely.

What amazes me the most is she doesn't care about my appearance. I am not pleasant to look at, I know, and yet, it doesn't bother her. In these times, I don't think anyone really cares about attraction anymore. With us, we have found a kindred spirit, and latched on.

I almost gave myself away today. When arranging things for Hate Week with the Anti-Sex League, I smiled. Not just a grin, but a full on, teeth-baring smile. And then, to top it off, I mouthed his name. Winston. I don't know how I could have been so absent-minded. It's stupid of me. Luckily, no one around noticed, but there was a telescreen, right in front of me. How stupid I acted!

I haven't done something like that in years. Knowing my luck, my door will probably be knocked down in 3…2…1…

Nothing.

Ha! Stupid thought police. Stupid, fake thought police. I should be proud of my actions. No thought police will catch me. I can be stealthy. Winston and I can evade.

He told me, at our last rendezvous, that when he had first seen me, he had wanted to rape, murder me. He hated me. He thought I was a thought police! That made me laugh. He thought I was the perfect party member. If I can trick someone like him, who's to say I couldn't trick Big Brother himself?

Charrington's room is our sanctuary now. If I just close off my thoughts and forget everything, just for a moment, I can almost believe it's our home. Our room. Our life. It makes me spin stories in my thoughts, stories of me and Julia being idiot proles, but not caring one bit… with Julia complaining over the stupid war, and how she can't find any saucepans. Sometimes, though I berate myself later, I wish I was a prole. I truly, truly wish that I didn't have a care in the world or a thought in my head, and I could smile and play and laugh. Oh, what I'd give to be a prole in those times. What I'd give to be free… what I'd give to be a drunkard in the streets, with his head between his knees and his thoughts racing out to never be heard again… what I'd give.

I guess this yearning is part of the reason I still grasp onto the idea of the brotherhood, and yet the tighter I grasp, the more it slips through my fingers…

O'Brien. O'Brien. Where is he? Where is this place of no darkness? I need it. I crave it. O'Brien is my savior… my redemption. He is the key… if only I could find the lock…

Sometimes I wonder if we're doing the right thing. Is the Party really so bad? Is it really so oppressive? And yet, as I ask myself these questions, I scoff at myself. No, no, that's ridiculous… quit being delusional. Think of what you could do without the Party! Think what you could be!

Sometimes, I almost regret my past. Sometimes, I ask myself, "what if?" And yet, I can think of no other ways my life could have turned out… I am who I am. I do what I do because of me. There's no turning back. Then why—WHY--does it sometimes hang over me like a great raincloud, about to drench me to the bone? I don't know what else I could be… maybe I could truly be how others see me… maybe I could really be the perfect Party member. And yet… no. I scoff at myself yet again. Wondering will do nothing. Only action will. But, sometimes it's hard not to wonder when you don't know what actions to take…

O'Brien has not forgotten me, it turns out. To be honest, I was not expecting his "message" at all, really.

Even though it is wonderful, wonderful! I cannot help but feel apprehensive. It will seem very suspicious, I think, even though O'Brien made a better excuse than I could ever have hoped to… there's just something, at the back of my mind, that feels like I'm doing something wrong. Well, I am, really. It's just… I've been breaking all the rules to be with Julia, and yet I don't feel any remorse or regret at all. But seeing O'Brien seems dangerous, as if there are thought police lurking in the corners of his home.

I'm being stupid. O'Brien will take every precaution to make sure Julia and I are safe, and I must not worry. O'Brien will take care of us. It will be fine, and all our rebellion will finally come to matter…

The Brotherhood. Oh, I hope on the Brotherhood.

Walking back from O'Brien's apartment, I couldn't help but feel a bit miffed. The Brotherhood? I've always doubted its existence, and now I've seemingly joined it.

To be honest, I don't know if I went through with it for Winston's sake or for mine. What is the Brotherhood, really? It scares me that I do not know the answer to that question. To become part of something I do not even understand… for me, that is impossible. Unheard of. And yet… it's refreshing. I may not know exactly what I'm getting into, but I know it will work. I will find a way, in this Brotherhood, to stab the Party a blow to its very heart—to its very soul. I will take my knife, sharpen until the edge tapers into oblivion… and, like the greatest assassin the world has ever known, I will slip my blade in and twist… twist… until the very core of the Party is bleeding a thousand deaths and I will be the victor… I will take back what is rightfully mine. I will have my life. No one can take me. We are the living!

We are the dead. We are the betrayed. We are the ones who had a perpetual cover upon our eyes, and having it lifted have seen the webs of treachery and stealth and lies and pure ruthlessness that brought us here. We are the dead.

My body hurts like I have been crushed under the hand of a giant, slowly turning his fist until I am crushed and broken and hollow and oh I cannot breathe—It is not my fault! I only did what was right! And yet that giant fist is coming down again and again all over and oh everything everything is on fire my lungs are collapsing my hair is ripped out my hands are useless my eyes are open and yet I cannot see… I yell out names I have never even heard and ones I love and ones who I thought I had forgotten years and years ago… and yet it is not enough. The fist is uncurling its fingers, cracking its knuckles, for it has only just begun…

Room 101. What is in that name? What does it contain that is so terrifying that even though I know none of what goes on there it still strikes fear into my heart greater then any I have ever felt?

I am seated in a chair in the middle of a dark room. Room 101. I cannot move… I cannot escape. O'Brien circles me like a hawk, eyes boring into my back until I can scarcely stand it.

"Traitor!" I spit out, though it has lost its vigor from the first time I spat it such a long, long time ago…

"Traitor" he says right back, and yet his voice leaves no question as to who he's addressing it to…

He speaks to me. I listen, but a second later I cannot recall his words, but I feel their meaning, deep inside. He moves towards a table, and as he pulls back a cloth covering a container, I stare for a moment. And then I scream, trying to get away, but no… I cannot! I scream louder and louder, as he brings it closer… and I swear, my heart is about to burst…

When I saw Winston again, all those weeks, months, how ever long it had been, I sighed. My exhale was full of pain and regret and betrayal… oh, how I hated him. Get away! I want to scream. Leave! Yet, though the yelling in my mind is deafening, he cannot hear it… and walks beside me. I hate him. I hate him. I hate myself. He puts his arm around my waist. It feels foreign. We sit down in two chairs, and I look at him. His face is haggard and rough looking, and his nose is read bloated, taking up too much face. He has the look of a tortured man. I know you could say the same for me.

"I betrayed you," I said.

"I betrayed you," he said.

It's almost funny how, in a split second, someone you thought you loved can suddenly become the embodiment of hate and spite and cruelty… and in that second, you no longer love them. Fate is cruel. Fate is unyielding. And you can never, ever run away from it.