Disclaimer: I don't own "V for Vendetta" or any of the characters affiliated with the graphic novel (okay...comic) or the movie. Thank you.
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"But it is just in that cold, abominable half despair, half belief, in that conscious burying onesleve alive for grief in the underworld for forty years, in that acutely recognized and yet partly doubtful hoplessness of one's position, in that hell of...resolution determined for ever and repented of again a minute later--that the savour of...which I have spoken lies."

"Notes from the Underground", Fyodor Dostoevsky.
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"How may I help you?"

"I'm looking for…um, one-nine-eight-four."

"You mean 1984? As in, the book?"

"Yes."

"Oh. Well, follow me." I motioned the small, beady-eyed old woman, face burrowed in a scarf, forward. She looked my way and out the door nervously, a gesture that made it clear she thought she was going to get caught by Fingermen. Clearly she had been one of the abused. Maybe it hadn't occurred to her that they were gone.

But it was like that with a lot of people. They would come in, back hunched against the door, gaze shift, and nervously whisper the name of a book, as though it was a secret that any utterance of such would get them black bagged. When I would gently assure them nothing was wrong, the feeling waned…somewhat. But that was the side-effect of violence: fear. Paranoia, distrust. It was what had been bred into the children, and beaten into the parents. It was the generation.

"Here we are," I said, sliding a finger gently along the spines of novels of the shelf until I came across the small, leather-bound Orwell classic. Worming a forefinger into the narrow aperture above it, I finally picked 1984 out and passed it behind me. A small, liver-spotted hand cautiously took it from me and a quietly, almost inaudible "thank you" was heard.

I turned around with "you're welcome" on my lips, but the woman was gone, vanished somewhere amongst the shelves upon shelves of once-banned literature. For a brief moment I felt an old fear grip at me, but then just as fast as it had been, the emotion was gone.

The memory behind it, however, was far from disappearance. Far, far from it.

Darkness. On all sides. Can't think straight. Don't know where I am, what just happe—

Oh god.

Black bagged, black bagged, black ba—

Light. It's too bright. Can't adjust, can't think straight...Can't do bloody anything.

"Evey Hammond, you've been charged with treason and accessory to murder, the punishment for which, is death—"

Shaking now, uncontrollably. Body's going into fits.

Oh god. What have I done?

"—Unless you give us the whereabouts and identity of codename 'V'—"

But—I don't know who he is. I don't know where he is. Don't you understand that?

Lie. Save yourself. For God's sake, who is more important, you or him?

"—You can go back to your life, Evey Hammond."

Cold. Freezing. Shaking.

Who is more important? You, or him?

You, or him?

…Him.

"Process her."

"Effie?"

Not here, not here...

"Effie?"

I blinked, opening my eyes fully to realize I was shaking as though from a seizure. Not more than two meters away stood Tim, my boss, eyeing me worriedly.

One more blink, but slower, to allow thought process. There was an awkward pause before I tried to smile.

"Yes?"

Tim, with old worried blue eyes and a bald head, looked at me carefully.

"You alright, love? You were shaking like you had the fits."

Another smile from me. "I'm fine, Tim."

Tim, short, ancient dwarf that he was, glowered.

"Really," I repeated, "I'm fine."

"Uh-huh," he aid slowly, looking me up and down. "Tell you what," Tim glanced at his wristwatch quickly, before looking back at me, "Your shift is up in ten minutes." As I opened my mouth to protest, he continued, "How about you call it a day now?" My facial expression of protest slowly melted to one of irritation and helplessness. The old man sighed.

"Effie, let's be honest with ourselves. You're not in shape to work right now. You look like shit, and quite frankly, though you have a wonderful personality and are easy on the eyes, I think you're scaring the customers. Go home, Effie," Tim said gently. "Sleep. You look worse than me and I've been around a helluva lot longer than you."

I hunched my shoulders, ready to get defensive, then finally took into stock what my boss was telling me.

And he was right.

Deep intake of breath.

"Okay."

Tim looked relieved. "Good girl, Effie. Good girl."

I ignored the dog-like tones heard behind the praise and watched as the old man gave an inclination of his head, signaling he was going to go before he did so, waddling past on of the shelves and disappearing from my sight.

You or him?

You or—

Jerked back to now-time as a man shoved his way past me, apologizing gruffly as he gravitated towards one particularly mind-numbing section of mathematics and the meaning of life, I said nothing, instead inching away from the various backs of books and worming out into the open. I moved back towards the "Employees Only" door and pushed through. Within minutes the umbrella was in hand, and, given another minute, I was gone, out the old glass door and into the rain. I blinked momentarily as the cold swept about me, small droplets of rain splashing my face. A quick memory shot by--

"God is in the rain..."

--And then it was gone.

My way back to the Shadow Gallery quite frequently went past Victoria Street and thus Parliament. Eight weeks it had been—eight and the rubble still sat there—gray, dirty and crumbling. I used to, like everyone else, stop right on the curb and stare at it over the iron-link fence, wondering what the entire disastrous sight meant to me, whether or not I should be afraid for the future, realizing, then, that had no control of the situation. I could only watch.

The thought terrified me…

…At first.

But, like before, I then realized that that was how it was.

The rain was coming down in floods, battering at the thin nylon material that was the umbrella, drowning out any other sound possible to the extent that all I heard was a low drumming. I continued to stand at the curb, ignoring the crowds pushing at and against me and instead allowing my eyes to rove the rubble. I had a feeling they would rebuild it—somewhat.

This new government, this youngling, was still trying to find itself, still trying to grasp what it was supposed to do. Hurriedly conjured two weeks after November 5th by various counties in England, each area voting their own forward, the administration was desperately yanking itself together, pulling on some strings that didn't even have a connection an jerking on others that were knotted horrifically together.

It was chaos.

But it was working.

"Fucking incredible, isn't it?"

A pause, and then my head turned slowly to see a gangly kid with vividly pinked hair staring at the mess. He glanced over at me to make sure I was listening and, when I was, moved back to gawking at the debris.

"I was born after Reclamation…" he began. I was feeling faintly amused by this very spontaneous and often unheard of stranger-to-strange conversation, but felt that neither of us were doing wrong.

"What was it like?"

I shot the pink boy an oblique look, not really wanting to continue the exchange, but then, at his expectant gaze, smiled thinly.

"Before Reclamation?" at his head nodding, "Oh….It was something like this," I said, motioning towards the ruins. "Rubble."

The kid gave me a confused look, and I had a feeling as I walked away that he was still staring at me, not quite knowing what to think of that statement. I didn't blame him—it was ultimately a strange and bitter thing to say, but what was the boy to expect from someone born before Reclamation?

Another intersection, cars zipping by without any thought process involved. I swiveled and started walking towards Westminster Bridge, the sidewalk deserted with only a few souls wearily pushing their way towards whatever destination appealed to them. I couldn't help but glance behind me, back at Big Ben, or the gap that was him. You adapt to it, granted. You realize that things change…Nevertheless, that gap sometimes seemed too empty to fill.

It had to have been twenty painfully long minutes before I reached Kensington, with cars parked on the curbs and the entire area seemingly bustling. Turning past one of the shops—teas, to be exact—I moved my way into the dark alley beside it and pushed forward. Within minutes I had seemingly vanished. There was a creak as I found the door and a groan as I shoved it open, and then I was gone.

Down the stairs my feet went--down those fitfully dark stairs, with the only light being that reflected off the pupils. I always got afraid that I was going to fall down a step, maybe jam my foot somehow, and roll down the rest of the stairs, sliding to a halt at the bottom, bleeding, humiliated and in pain. Due to the vivid imagery conjured, I habitually came down the stairs slowly, one hand braced against the wall, another in front of me, and feet carefully tiptoeing down each block with caution.

So far? No injuries.

But that wasn't to say I wouldn't hurt myself in the future.

There was a small grinding noise. My foot. I reined back and stood still for a moment, trying to keep myself from falling. Deep breath.

Then I began to move again.

In time, there was light at the end of the staircase. It definitely was a few floors before that light even began to glimmer, but it was there nevertheless. I picked up the pace a little bit, eyes now being able to see what was in front of them, and tapped my way to the source of sight.

The front door was open just a crack, just enough so that the light shining brightly beyond was obvious. I could've easily locked the door—I should've—but since when was someone going to barge into an old, piece of shit door in the middle of an alley, crawl their way down three stories of stairs in pitch black, and then open a door in the middle of nowhere?
Answer?

No one.

Except myself, and…V.

But V was dead, so now it was only me.

Pushing the door open, I shuttered my eyes to avoid being completely blinded, and stood still for a moment, allowing the luminosity of yet another hallway to wash over me. The Shadow Gallery itself was a labyrinth within itself. There was this hallway, which I had begun to call the Primary, led in a honeycomb fashion around the living quarters of the Shadow Gallery and netted itself down to the Underground—the very bowels of London. The Secondary hall was where I had begun my transformation, had staggered out of a cell in a fabricated lie to a reality that suddenly didn't seem frightening any more. I tried not to visit the Secondary Hallway. There was too much pain in there for me to grasp peacefully, grasp sensibly.

The Third hallway was the best of the three—it was a dead end. Tailing quietly behind the Secondary Hallway, past the cell blocks, the interrogation room and the "chamber", the Third did nothing but eventually wind down to nonexistence. Though ultimately nothingness is something that all people find rather depressing, to me the Third was strangely soothing. There were no more secrets in it, no hidden doorways or walls I had to hack through. It was just—the end.

My eyes had finally adjusted to the sickly green lighting that bathed the Primary in a dull, yet abnormally bright glow and began to walk forward, slowly taking in the drab cement walls and hard floor with a warm familiarity. It was quiet, away from the hustle and bustle of the above. Only my feet were heard clicking on the ground. Nothing more.

Yet another door appeared to the right, sticking out bizarrely from the generic and dull cement wall like a hot pink summer dress in the middle of the Artic. For starters, the two doors—French style but devoid of glass—were a deep mahogany color, almost the hue of blood. Secondly, there were two beautiful brass door handles that looked as though they were just new. And last—the door knocker. It was the most absurd of all three characteristics of the door. For one, it was a door knocker in the middle of bloody nowhere, and for two, it was a gold elephant's head, the knock itself clasped between the trunk and the mouth. It was very strange, and more and more I found myself wondering what the symbolism of the damn thing was. And then—ah—it appeared.

They say an elephant never forgets.

The owner of the Shadow Gallery never forgot, either.

I finally stopped reminiscing to reach for both of the handles. Giving them a gentle squeeze, I pushed open the doors and finally found myself completely and utterly relaxed as my feet moved themselves forward and landed on carpet.

Home.

My home.

The umbrella dropped to the ground, the shoes were kicked off, and the jacket, the only item I felt like hanging up, was gently placed on a coat rack not too far from the front door. Water dripped off it slowly, hitting the edge of a wood floor quietly.

I moved forward, feet shuffling gently on the carpet, and took in the sights. Nothing had changed since I left twelve hours ago…The piano was still in the center of the entire structure, the center of attention. Around it were the various rooms, some with doors, some without. The kitchen, the television room, the bedroom, the library, the extra hallway branching off to paintings and sculptures.

Yes, nothing had changed. Not at all. I began my usual march, peeking into each room and finally stepping into the kitchen, whereupon my eyes came upon an answering machine.

It was strange. There were no phones in this home. None at all. And yet, there was an answering machine.

Naturally one would assume that when there is an answering machine, there is a telephone address. And when there is a telephone address, there's an identity, something traceable.

That wasn't the case with this one, though. I figured that V had tapped into someone else's phone line and was stealing their signal, making this location thus unidentifiable. Two weeks ago I had glanced under the machine itself and found the phone address scribbled clumsily and with apparent confusion. It took me only a few minutes to memorize it. Afterwards, I told a few people that if they ever wanted to talk to me, the only thing they could do was leave a message.

I expected nothing on there—no one likes speaking to a computer, but to my surprise, a small "1" flashed in vivid red. I frowned, my brow furrowing, then slowly took a step forward and put a finger down on "Receive".

A moment's pause, then a robotic woman's voice rang out dully.

"You have: one new message. Delivered on: Friday, January third at six-seventeen."

I glanced down at my watch.

Hmmm. Just missed them.

The voice abruptly changed pitch, speed and delivery.

"This is Lieutenant Finch from the New Scotland Yard."

I blinked twice to make sure I wasn't hallucinating.

"Please call back as soon as possible, being the matter at hand it rather important. The number is—"

A finger raced down and stabbed at "end" suddenly.

Mine. The number itself was flashing underneath the message signal. I reached around frantically for a piece of paper and pencil and found myself scribbling the phone number on my hand in blue ink.

Taking a step backwards, I regarded my hand and the message machine warily, not quite knowing what to think.

The Grandfather clock chimed from the front room. I glanced behind me and then decided.

Since I didn't know what to think now, maybe I'll wait a few hours and then decide.

I pivoted on my heel and moved towards the Commons, and, beyond it, to the television.

I needed some mindless staring, anyway.