The Dark Trend

Either you’re trending or you’re not, it’s that simple in this world. If you’re not trending then you better find a way to trend, or at least that's what they tell you. I, on the other hand, was looking for a way to escape.

I stood opposite of what could only be described as a living portrait. With legs that nearly touched the sky, a perfectly symmetrical face, golden tan skin, piercing green eyes, and loose ocean wave hair, my best friend Rika lived and breathed goddess status. There were standards in this world and standing at 5’3, with deep chocolate skin, tight short curls, and a protruding middle I, Cece Hart, certainly was not even close to them, but Rika, now she was on a whole other level. She was perfection and then some, but somehow she was here with me in the lower ward ...not trending. I’ve asked her a couple of times about it but each time ended in tears, anger or silence. So yeah, I stopped asking. The world we lived in was cruel and trauma was always, just a flick away.

“Omg girl! We should totally start our own commune,” Rika giggled while jumping up and down.

“YESSS,” I squealed, jumping up to meet Rika mid-bounce. As our feet touched the floor, a veil of darkness enveloped us.

I hurled myself to the floor, slipped a small knife out of my boot, and pried open a loose baseboard. Rika stood above me frantically scanning the area. We had exactly one hour before the power returned and the green light on my wristband blared to life.

Everyone is issued a personal wristband at the age of 13. You could use your band to communicate to your network, monitor your trending status, and see whenever the administrators were recording. Which was almost always, except for the one hour a day when the green light faded to black and took all the power with it. Rika told me she had tossed her wristband as a symbolic ‘fuck you' to the system and if not for the pre-light vibration warning system, I probably would have done the same.

“Are you sure about this,” Rika stammered, “ ..no one knows what’s beyond the town lines and what if border control catches us. They’ll kill us!”

“Look at how we’re living, Rika,” I pushed through gritted teeth, “..we are already dead. This world is killing everything that makes us, us.”

I yanked the black backpack full of survival gear, food, and a change of clothes-free from the hidden compartment. I stood facing the direction of Rika's voice and felt through the dark for her arm. We did not have time for doubt.

“I don’t want to play their games anymore or wait until they decide our ratings make us expendable. Did you see what they did to Kirk,” I asked, “They sent him to those damn experiment chambers and he hasn’t been the same. He doesn't speak, he barely eats and oh yeah, he's missing half of his freaking limbs! Come on Rika. Is that living,” I paused briefly, allowing the words to hit their target, “..we can’t stay here,” I whispered.

The darkness made it impossible for me to read her emotions and the silence stretched out for a lifetime eating away at our precious seconds.

“Okay,” Rika muttered reluctantly.

I wasted absolutely no time launching us into a full sprint down the path that we had spent months mapping out on our daily “runs”. We reached the last light post at the edge of town, in what I’m sure was record time, adrenaline powering both of our strides. Rika released my hand and felt around for the key to the old abandoned mansion. She had flirted with Derek, the maintenance person, in order to lift his set of keys.

I heard the tearing of duct tape and paper. She slid her hand down my arm, locked our fingers together, and took off running towards the last standing building at the edge of town. With a couple of clicks, Rika had the door opened. We barreled into the abandoned mansion, slammed the door behind us, and slumped onto the floor. Our labored breaths echoed in the empty space. My body screamed as I forced air down my throat to satiate my burning lungs. That final dash had taken a toll on both of us but we couldn’t stop here.

“Come on Rika,” I said through wheezes, “we got this”.

I willed my limbs to move and fished out the flashlight from my backpack.

Rika grunted in response.

I clicked the flashlight on and squinted against the sudden shock of brightness. Once my eyes had adjusted I could see exactly why this mansion had been abandoned. The yellow flower wallpaper was barely hanging on, exposing the reddish-brown bricks of the foundation. I scanned the room quickly, making note of the black mold on the ceiling, the torn-up hardwood floor, and the shattered windows.

“Where are the weapons you stored,” I asked Rika.

I had no idea how she had managed to amass these weapons but I had no doubt being a living goddess had helped some. Rika reached towards the flashlight, “You wait here,” she wheezed breathlessly, “I’ll be right back”.

As she strode away from me, I watched the darkness devour the only light that I had. I sat stiffly, my palms flat against the wooden floors and back pressed against the door, and focused on settling my thundering heart.

‘CRACK’

My head whipped towards the sound and my “settling heart” took off racing, again. My attention zipped through the dark.

‘Whooshh’

I shut my eyes, desperate to escape the rising terror, only to be bombarded by the memory of a reanimated corpse from one of my old zombie movies.

“Nope,” I yelped and pushed myself off the ground.

No way in hell would I wait, by myself, in a pitch dark abandoned, maybe even haunted mansion when my friend was just down the hall. I tip-toed forward, hoping my feet would find their way. I crashed into spider webs, table corners, brick walls and touched a suspiciously wet spot, but eventually, I found a faint trail of light.

As I started to round the corner Rika’s hushed voice floated through the air stopping me in my tracks, “Can you just pretend we don’t know each other, I want to film the capture for my followers. This is exactly the type of drama that I need to take me to the number one trending spot!”

I slowly peeked past the corner. Rika stood facing away from me, talking into a wristband! My heart sank.

“ I am tired of always being number two,” She groaned.

My head spun as I tried to make sense of what I was hearing.

“ I fucking slummed it outside in the rain for 2 days and somehow Lily is still number one. If this “power to the people, system disruptor bullshit doesn't take me to number one I’m going to lose my mind Philan'', she barked.

Her voice had contorted, erasing all traces of the sweet timid Rika I had known. The Rika who had helped me build a shelter in the rain after my ratings dropped too low to enter any of the lower residences. The Rika that had huddled under a single blanket with me and vowed to burn the entire system to the ground. The person that stood in front of me now was a complete stranger.

‘Philan’, the name nagged at my brain. I had heard it before. I searched my memories trying to -

The realization slammed into me like a punch in the gut. Philan was an administrator. Rika was trending and she had set me up. I clutched at my chest as I struggled to reach my next breath. My brain was firing at maximum overdrive.

We had done everything together, read all the same books, ate all the same foods and she even started styling herself like me after I was kicked out of my home.

“To show solidarity,” she had said.

‘Not solidarity,’ I realized, for the likes! I took a shaky step backward bumping into something that clattered to the ground.

“Cece..”, Rika said cautiously.

Was she calling my name? Was the bitch that faked her status and used me for likes calling my name? Had she really fixed her lips to utter my fucking name after setting me up, knowing full well that it would mean my death sentence?

The fog of confusion, hurt, and betrayal turned to ash, burned away by the intense rage exploding in my chest. A guttural scream ripped from my throat tearing into the silence. I launched my whole being at her, carrying with me every last excruciating second of my past 26 years.

My body crashed into hers sending us both barrelling to the ground. She fisted a handful of my hair yanking my head backward. I pushed against her hand with the back of my head giving her the distance she wanted and then suddenly jerked my whole body forward smashing my forehead into her teeth. The rage wrapped around me like a protective blanket. I barely registered the burning of my scalp or the pounding in my forehead. I straddled her body, gripped her arms, and trapped them beneath both knees. Rika screeched and thrashed beneath my weight.

“Get the fuck off me, you gutter trash”, She shrieked spitting blood up at my face.

Despite the discarded flashlight illuminating the old room, darkness crept in on the corners of my vision. I balled my fist up and brought it crashing down into her face again and again and again. I was out of control and if not for the beeping of my wristband reminding me that time was no longer a luxury, I don't know if I would have stopped.

I reached for my backpack, climbed up on shaky legs, and staggered out of the room abandoning the flashlight. They would be looking for me now and I refused to give them any more help. I was going to escape even if I died in the process.

I burst into the forest racing through the trees. Branches scraped across my skin leaving open stinging wounds, my lungs heaved from the strain but my feet kept moving up until a shooting pain rocketed through my body. I doubled over gripping my head, catapulting my body into a front flip. The ground and my feet were no longer connected. I was falling.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

“Morning stranger”, an unfamiliar accented voice chimed.

I wrestled my eyelids open squinting against the brightness, unable to make out the figures.

“My name is Jared. I am the mayor in this, here, town. Had to confiscate your fancy tech stuff. We don't do tech out here. It encourages vanity”, Jared continued, completely unphased by the fact that I was barely conscious.

As the fuzziness left my vision I surveyed the man I assumed to be Jared. He had buzzed hair and wore what looked like a brown burlap dress. Behind him stood a line of 5 other people with the exact same buzzed hair and burlap dress. My brows creased as a shiver ran down my spine.

“We all live a minimalist life, because well, we are all the same,” he continued, spreading his arms wide, “It's that simple. Either you’re part of the group or well..”, he chuckled as if he had told a joke, then abruptly stopped, his face void of emotion, “you don't want to find out”.

I stared at him wordlessly.

Jared’s blank expression faded into a crooked smile, that the line of people behind him mirrored. With no prompt or direction, they all spread their arms out and sang out in unison, “Welcome to Leverdan”.

FUCK.