The Rebellion

She pulled me for what felt like forever. The wind felt like needles brushing up against my face as we ran through the icy midnight woods. My legs hurt and my feet were numb from running in only socks. We finally stopped in the middle of the woods. I watched the heat in the air disappear and reappear as I panted trying to catch my breath. She handed me Aiden, my brother, and started to dig into the snow and dirt along with four of our other neighbors. The rest of us just stood there shivering. It was dark with only the moonlight from the full moon to guide us. I begged her to explain what was happening in a whisper, but she kept demanding I be quiet.

Finally, they stopped digging, revealing a square metal hatch in the ground that had a panel on it. Mr. Hanes typed in a code in the keypad under the panel causing it to pop up kind of like a car trunk. Mr. Hanes and Mr. Porter both helped their wives and kids, me, and my brother into the hole first. Then my mom, themselves, and the Crowes came down too. It started off tight and dark. We all came down on a ladder. It felt like we were just stuck in a box in the ground. At least it was a little warmer, the hatch created a breeze and a little snow fell on us. Then air felt limited when Mr. Porter closed the hatch on his way down. Doing so caused two emergency lights on each side of the box to kick on. When that happened, it revealed a door. I noticed the door had no handle, but there was a little black keypad with white buttons on the left side of it. My mom typed in a code on it causing it to beep then the door opened just a little making a pshhh sound like air was releasing. Mom pushed the door open wider and led us into a white room with a lot of lights. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust, but once it did, I noticed that there were two showers blocking the path to the door on the other side. No handle, just another keypad.

Then, we heard sirens. They were faint but they sounded like tornado sirens. This is a bit extreme for a tornado. I thought to myself. All the adults started to freak out. My mom, Mr. Hanes, Porter, and Crowe all started to talk a little, then they explained that the men and boys all needed to turn around facing the door we came in at so that the women and girls could shower. Then they would follow once we were inside. So, my mom and all the other women started to undress. They told me and Sarah we needed to undress too, but we hesitated. We didn’t want to.

“Now!” all the grown-ups exclaimed urgently.

I passed my baby brother to my now naked mother, and she undressed him as I undressed myself. Sarah slowly started to undress, but she began to cry.

“It’s okay” I whispered to her even though I had no idea.

We all took turns in the decontamination showers and there were other clothes on the other side for us. My mom typed in the code and let us inside the other door. Once we were in, we stood there waiting for the boys. I glanced over the hallway and counted eight more doors. All had handles except two. What the hell is this place? I thought. We walked to the end of the hall to one of the doors with only a keypad to enter. We walked into the room and waiting on the other side was a huge oval shaped table and two monitors mounted on the wall. Mr. Hanes, Mr. Porter, Mr. Paul Crowe, and my mom stood in front of us all with a look I had never seen in real life before. Only in movies when the main character just lost their whole family. They all looked at each other and Mr. Crowe nodded, and they all sighed like they all agreed. Then Mr. Crowe started to explain.

“As of tomorrow, there is no U.S government. There are no more individual countries.” There was murmur after he said that. Everyone, me included, was confused.

“This is a government bunker that officially doesn’t exist. Its purpose was for nuclear fallout or some sort of bioterror attack. We brought you all here because we fear that not everyone will merge into this new society peacefully and we have no way to know if we will be attacked. We felt that we should bring you all here because it should be safe from anyone finding us for at least a year, but best case we could live here ten to fifteen years.” He explained.

“Years?!” “We have to live here?” “What about our parents? Mine are very old.” Everyone started to freak out.

“What about daddy?” I asked.

“Your father knows where we are and will meet us here.” My mom explained grabbing my hand.

It feels like the world is ending. Who cares if there’s no government? I started to cry. I couldn’t believe this was happening.

“You all know we work for the CIA, but.” He started to explain more about what was happening, but I couldn’t hear him.

All I could think about is where my dad is and don’t want to live underground, but I don’t want to die. After he was done explaining they showed us to our rooms. There was a huge room that was divided by four walls and curtains. Behind the first curtain were four twin size bunk beds. Two on one side with a dresser between them and a dresser on the very end and the same on the other side. The next curtain was the same and the last two had six queen sized beds with a dresser and a nightstand for each. Each bed, dresser, nightstand combo was separated by smaller curtains. Once we picked our beds, my mother called me back into the common room. There were sofas, books, CDs, board games, and a bunch of stuff that kind of seemed fun.

“I have to explain something to you.” She told me as we sat down on a sofa.

“I need you to really listen because I can’t repeat it and we can’t tell anyone. Just in case not all of us make it out. I don’t want them to turn on you.” She told me in a whispered tone.

She gave me a heart shaped locket and explained that it was solid gold and she opened it up and had three diamonds inside. She told me that the government will keep everyone poor and unless you were very rich you would become poor very quickly. She told me if we can’t live in the bunker anymore, I could use it to survive.

-9 ½ years later –

While I was gathering the laundry, I heard a faint noise so I walked into the hallway quietly to see if I could hear it again, but I paused in shock when I heard where the sound came from, the entrance. I stared briefly at the door that hadn’t opened in nearly a decade. The little girl inside of me hoped it was my dad finally coming for us, but rationally I was scared. Has the government finally come to collect us and take us to a world we haven’t met yet? I ran into the common room to try and warn everyone about the noise, but as soon as I walked in, they were right behind me. Men in uniforms I had never seen before. I assume militia. They had big guns pointed at us and only one of them spoke.

“By the order of the World Government you are all under arrest and will need to surrender peacefully or meet a fatal consequence.” He stated, glancing around the room.

They put zip tie cuffs on all of us except the children. I noticed on the way out that they broke the decontamination showers on the way in. They took us above ground, and it was bright and warm. A warmth had almost forgotten. The air was crisp, and I could smell flowers in the distance. They drove us to the militia station. I felt so sick. It had been so long since I rode in a car. I cried the whole time watching the buildings and trees pass by. The world looked so different, but the same. There were so many people on the street that looked like they hadn’t showered in weeks, and they wore rags. They took us through a lot of interrogations. Basically, they wanted to know how we got there and how long we were down there. Aiden was only ten and my son, three. They barely even know what the world was like before and none of us don’t know what the world is like now. We all were terrified and confused.

By the end of it I got my son and Aiden back. They release us to two tiny run-down looking houses in the middle of what they called district 1. Me, my husband Jason Porter, his mom, Aiden, and our son all in one house. In the other house was Laura Hanes and Marcus Crowe and his wife Sarah Porter. Everyone who was in the bunker except my mom, Paul and Ben Crowe, Frank Porter, and Kyle Hanes. They were the ones who brought us to the bunker except Ben. We begged for them back, but our pleading fell on deaf ears. After a month in this hell hole, I found out that Frank, Kyle, and my mom were set to be executed in 6 months. The only way to free them was with $60,000 for bail, but I got nothing on the Crowes. So, I kept trying. I eventually found out they were instantly executed but couldn’t get the reason.

It was hard to tell Marcus, my best friend, about his dads, and we helped him memorialize them. We had to mourn quickly because we needed to save the others. I explained to everyone about the necklace my mother gave me and how we could only use it toward saving them or surviving off it. We deliberated a bit, but we all agreed that saving them was most important. We could figure out how to live in this new world better if our families were complete. Everyone pitched in with items they thought may have value just to make sure we would have enough money. We snuck into district 9, which was a much wealthier district from the one we were forced to live in, to sell the jewelry we had. It took 2 months to get there, but we finally made it. With my necklace, two engagement rings, and a few other miscellaneous items we were able to get $200,000. Enough to save our family and a little to live off for a while. We rushed back to our home district to pay their bail, but we were stopped in district 3 by the rebel army general, who wanted to make a deal. They took us back to their base; on the way they explained that the government would take our bail money and execute them anyway. Once we got to the rebel base, deep into the district, they asked us to wait in an upstairs office. The office had a window looking down at the bulk of the facility. It appeared to be an abandoned warehouse. It was big and full of people with weapons, food, and medical supplies. After waiting for about thirty minutes, we became impatient. As I was about to rush out to demand more explanation there, he was. The rebel leader, my father.