Free

Sitting around a fire no longer feels absurd. Spending most of your life in a major city, it’s seeing a fire like this that would have been strange before. A fun ‘campfire’ then, maybe. Just a fire now. A sharp glint hits my eye every so often from across the flames. I shift to my left and my gaze lands on a diminutive girl, no more than twelve or thirteen, wearing a large, heart-shaped locket, much too big for her. She’s crying openly without any shame. I hadn’t noticed her before earlier today. I look away.

This day has been difficult. Particularly for newcomers who were only a day or two into traveling. Traveling with us, anyway. If they hadn’t already been on the move they wouldn’t have even made it this far, to us. We might have a chance to keep them safer while they sought friendlier land. We might. But not today.

The sirens had started not long before sunrise. Time to go. There was a time you’d hear a siren and think to shelter in place. Not these days. Now, you run. We rushed to our vehicles in grim silence. We didn’t expect this so soon. Prepared for it, always, but the last message relayed was that The Free were at least a full day behind us.

Free is what they called themselves. Free from the horrors of an independent mind. Captivated or captured, depending on who you asked. And then later controlled somehow, though we have yet to learn exactly how. Something in their water supply? Some kind of mind control? No one was certain. But it was only after they had first chosen to be there. The first few waves of followers, at least, then people connected to them began to disappear with strange excuses made for their swift departures. They would turn over everything they had for ‘the defense of our country’. The sight of the amassment of a private army didn’t go over well with the rest of the world. Things were tense, to say the least. It went over even less well within our own society. We needn’t have worried about the rest of the world. We found the path to destruction all on our own.

Before we even made it a short way down the road I could hear The Free tearing down the highway parallel to us. We tried to keep to the smaller city roads where we could try to disappear. We had just passed an exit and they had already spotted us from above. They flew down the ramp and followed us. We split up quickly but there were plenty of them, two or three cars to every one of our four. The sun was rising quickly as we tried desperately to stay ahead of them.

I steadied my breath as we rounded a corner on to a street much too narrow for them to follow us down with their large SUVs. A few more turns and we were able to slip into place between long forgotten cars parked on the sides of the streets. Everyone ducked down low and covered up with scratchy old blankets in dark colors that made for decent camouflage. Hopefully enough as the sun rose higher and higher. Over the next few hours we waited silently. We heard their large cars passing by for quite some time. When it was finally over ninety minutes since we’d heard a car pass by, we deemed it safe enough to drive to the meeting point for this area.

We arrived to find all three of our companion cars waiting. But the driver of one had a hardness to his face.

“Lost two,” was all he said with a sigh. The people left from his group included the girl with the locket. She was distraught, inconsolable. But no time. We had to keep moving. She had to be picked up and placed in the car before we could carry on. Quickly murmured exchanges revealed the two lost were her family, a younger brother who had bolted from the vehicle when they were nearly cornered, and the father who had run after him. Their mother was long gone before this.

A difficult day.

But it’s late now and the girl is crying out helplessly, the only pause when she stops to gasp for breath. The driver has a still, mask-like face. I long to show how deeply I feel for these people, but like the driver, the best one can do is put on a stiff expression and try to let it go as quickly as possible. I glance at the girl again. She shakes as she sobs. I feel an urge to comfort her but I hesitate and look away from her again. She’s surrounded by the other new travelers, all doing their best for her, offering her what little extra provisions they have and promising they will take care of her now. But she’ll have to learn to be independent, and quickly, otherwise she’ll be the next to be left behind. As cruel as that may seem, that’s just the way it is now. I’m tired, I move away from the fire and find a place to rest.

Sirens again. This time much earlier, the sky is still an inky black, and you can never see the stars for the hazy smog anymore. We try to move quickly and quietly through the darkness but it might not be enough this time. I can hear them already. Bright headlights break upon us. Some barely make it into cars while others are too late, we hear them crying out as we take off at top speed. I’m lucky this time. For the moment, at least. We make it a few blocks down the road and I start to unclench my jaw and look back at who made it into the car. The girl is there, and other semi-familiar faces, all pale and drawn with terror.

A sudden impact, screaming of metal on metal, a blurred carousel of the dull colors that make up the abandoned city. One of the huge, gleaming SUVs has rammed us from the side. The car spins. My head spins. I try to reorient myself when the car finally stops lurching. I can’t get my door open. Shattered glass is everywhere. Some passengers are groaning with pain. Some are altogether silent.

I see vehicles surrounding us. Figures in white approach. This is the last time, I thought. I reach weakly for the taser on my belt as the figures get closer. My hand is easily swatted away through the broken window. The doors are pried open and we are dragged from the car, one by one. They know the damage they’ve done. We won’t put up a fight. But they rip weapons from our belts, pockets, and boots anyway, though all we have are knives and tasers, more or less defenseless against their advanced weaponry. They speak, though I can’t understand the words, my ears now ringing. I think this is it. The end. I knew it would come sooner rather than later given my choice to take part in all this. Nothing to save me now. They pull the girl from the wreck and lay her next to me. Her eyes are wide and glassy, unblinking. The locket is broken open. She is no longer crying. A sharp blow to the back of my head. My world fades to black.

Suddenly my eyes snap open and everything is overwhelmingly bright, I almost can’t stand to look. But my eyes adjust and I look down at myself. No bruises or cuts. No signs of the wreck. I appear strong and healthy. My clothes are all white. I’m in a tidy room, akin to a cozy studio but all chrome and white, modern. Everything is cleaner than I have seen in years, since the fighting began. Strange, but it doesn’t unsettle me for long. A soothing voice comes over an intercom system on the wall, interrupting quiet, serene music I hadn’t noticed at first. “Welcome. Be at peace. You are Free.”

And with that, my mind started to go quiet. I was no longer wondering where I was, how I got there or why. How I was healed and in this place. Why I was in all white, why I was in this little studio room by myself. All I felt was a calm easiness in my mind being empty of questions and concerns. Waiting to be instructed on how to conduct myself, where to go next, what to do. I knew instinctively that I need not worry. About anything. I just needed to wait, patiently and peacefully. My time would come, I would be useful in some way. But I didn’t need to worry. Not anymore.