Survival of the Fittest

A human being’s exceptional will to live, even in the most dire of circumstances, separates us from every other species on this planet. It is fundamental, foundational, something that we are indeed born with and spend each day on this Earth vehemently fighting for, through any means necessary. Morality, right and wrong, our so-called “complexities”, all that goes flying out the window when we are faced with the potential of our deaths. Because in that moment, when all hope seems lost, and we are left, staring down the barrel of the end of it all, all we can think of is ourselves, how terrified we are of the unknown, and of what comes next. All we can think of is how we don’t want to die. And yet, how strange it is, that we end up being the greatest threat to our own survival. How utterly fitting that we are to be the architects of our own demise.

The heart-shaped locket slammed against my chest as I ran, cold and heavy, as I checked my bearings once more on the little watch on my left arm. Only a few miles left and I’d be there. I could hear the sounds of gunfire and bombs behind me, and though my lungs ached with every step I took, even with the breathing mask that was attached to my nose and mouth, I knew I couldn’t stop. They’d know by now that I’d taken it, taken the locket with me. They’d know that someone had betrayed them all, and I couldn’t risk taking a break, not even to ingest the energy pills I currently had stuffed in my pockets.

A flash of lightning lit up the sky in a hauntingly beautiful display, and for a moment, the landscape shown, bright and terrifying all around me. The dark, ashy dirt seemed to stretch on forever, the only source of elevation, a small glint of Dome City 5, where my journey would finally conclude. I’d never known a world that didn’t look like this, barren and bleak, the heavy black clouds above a near constant. War, overconsumption, greed, and power, just a few of the “complexities” that our species had thought up, had ravaged the planet of everything that had once made it habitable, that had once made it the beautiful place all those old poets and artists had written about with such romantic, superfluous words.

The seas had swallowed up the majority of the land, while horrific storms and fires had taken care of the rest. All that remained now, were small civilizations, built to withstand the effects of the Earth’s wrath, under indestructible domes that housed those of us who could give the powers that be, any value. The rest of us were left to fend for ourselves, which usually meant a slow, torturous death inhaling the poisonous, toxic air that existed outside the protection of the domes, or what the governments called, natural selection. After all, there wasn’t any room inside the domes for anyone who could not provide something invaluable to our species’ survival.

That’s why it was a wonder they picked me of all people for a mission like this. I’d been underground, locked inside one of their highest security vaults, for breaking into Dome City 5 to try and steal some supplies, like extra breathing masks and energy pills, for our encampment when they’d caught me. Nine months’ worth of planning, pouring over blueprints, sleepless nights of worry and days full of physical prep for the journey had all amounted to two years inside a six by six cell, with nothing but my raging thoughts for company. I didn’t even know why they’d bothered keeping me alive, after all, resources weren’t exactly easy to come by these days. But one day, about six months ago, everything had changed.

“Dome City 10 has stolen the launch codes to the pods,” a very severe looking woman, with slicked back white hair sat across from me inside a window-less, startlingly white room. They’d handcuffed my arms and legs to the metal table, which I saw was bolted to the ground. As if I could really go anywhere. We were miles underground and the woman was armed to the teeth with weapons.

“That’s unfortunate,” I replied dryly, trying to wriggle my toes inside my shoes. The tightness of the restraints was making my foot fall asleep.

The woman arched a perfectly shaped brow.

“We want you to get them back for us,”

I stared at her, completely thrown by this request.

“Why? Those big, burly security officers of yours lose their nerve?”

Her eyes tightened briefly before she spoke again.

“Have you never wondered why we’ve kept you alive all this time? Why a lowly nomad like yourself gets to stay inside one of our most secure, heavily armed prison cells?”

The way she talked, you’d think I was enjoying a vacation in some kind of sea-side resort before the Wars. She didn’t wait for me to respond.

“No one has ever managed to get through the dome before. The security’s higher than these vaults for one, and for another, you’re just a simple nomad. We knew you were…special. And we knew that we couldn’t waste a talent like yours by putting you to death so, we kept you around for a rainy day. And today…it’s started to pour.”

“Do I have a choice?” I asked after a moment of tense silence.

The woman smiled, though her eyes remained as cold and calculating as ever.

“You always have a choice, Ms. Roy. But we are not unreasonable. Your acceptance would guarantee your freedom. And a seat on one of the pods out of here,”

My mouth fell open in shock.

“You would give me, a nomad, a seat on a pod?” I asked, my voice dripping with disbelief. The woman grabbed a small tablet out of her neatly pressed blazer pocket and slid it over the table to me. And there it was. My name, my date of birth, complete with the official Dome City 5 registration citizenship stamp, and a ticket, right underneath for Pod F4657.

“So, what do you say, Ms. Roy?”

The next few months were spent much like I’d spent the last nine months before I’d gotten arrested, getting my strength back, memorizing the blueprints of Dome City 10, and preparing for a mission I knew deep down I might never come back from. But the alternative, my freedom, citizenship, and most of all, the ticket out of here, was unimaginable, inconceivable for a lowly nomad like myself. I’d dreamt of it of course, on those nights when I thought it might be the end, when the storms raged over the little cave we all slept in, when we needed stories full of desperate hope to get us through. When we’d started to run out of energy pills and that clawing, claustrophobic fist of death seemed so close to squeezing the last bit of life out of all of us. But that’s all it had ever been. A desperate tale we’d told ourselves to make it through the dark nights, and even darker days. But this was real. This was an actual chance, to make that fruitless dream into a reality, and I knew that I had to do everything in my power, for all my friends who I knew had wasted away about a month after I’d been caught, for all the other nomads who never had a chance. I had to at least try.

Bang!

I jumped, tripping over my legs, and fell painfully to the ground. Whirling around, I grabbed one of my many guns strapped to my belt and squinted into the darkness, trying to make out where the shot had come from. If only I hadn’t lost my night vision glasses inside Dome City 10.

Bang!

There! Aiming my weapon, I shot once, then twice, before hearing the satisfying thud of my target fall.

Bang, Bang!

Swearing profusely under my breath, I aimed again, desperately hoping that this time, I’d make the shot. Another thud. I squinted around me again, moving my weapon slowly, my heart beating erratically in my chest. There, movement on my left. I aimed and shot, over and over, until everyone around me was dead. With a familiar twisting in my gut, I got up gingerly, grabbing an energy pill and stuffing it into my mouth, trying hard not to think about who all I’d just shot. They had to have been nomads, like myself, with how few of them there were, and judging by the looks of them, they couldn’t have been older than fifteen. Bile rose up in my throat, guilt clawing at my heart, my very bones, but I shoved it down, and continued running, Dome City 5 drawing nearer and nearer in my line of vision.

I’d already made my peace with guilt. I had to when I had accepted the mission. Because Dome City 10 had stolen the launch codes for a reason. They’d figured out a way to reverse the poisonous effects of the air around us, they’d figured out a way to make life on Earth habitable once again. And it was a long, arduous process, but still, it was a solution. The only problem was that no one else was willing to try. They’d been hard at work you see, devoting all their resources, their time, and brilliant minds, into a plan b, a way out of this world, and into a new one. The Colony had already been built, and they were ready to start living, truly living not just surviving, once more. And I was helping them do it, helping them do what they had already done to Earth, to another planet, because at the end of the day, I knew we’d learned nothing from all the mistakes we’d made.

As Dome City 5 drew closer, several armed security officers in tanks came rumbling toward me. I staggered, the exhaustion from the whole mission finally catching up to me as they jumped out, grabbing me and placing a warm blanket around my shoulders.

“Well?” one of them asked expectantly.

I showed him the locket wordlessly, and he grabbed it from my neck, the clasp breaking against my skin, nicking the back of my neck. As I entered the tank and we started moving once more, the woman who’d given me my mission all those months ago approached me, holding the locket tightly in her hands.

“Congratulations, Ms. Roy. You’ve just earned yourself a ticket to freedom,”

I swallowed hard against the roiling guilt, the feeling that I’d just done something that I knew would cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of human beings left on this planet, for the privilege of survival, for the privilege of my own freedom. But I knew deep down that I’d do it all over again, no matter what the cost. Because I was a human being after all. And there was only one thing we lived for, one thing we continued to fight for, no matter how dire the circumstance, no matter how right or wrong it may be. Survival was worth fighting for.

After all, nothing else could exist without it, not me, not my guilt, not any of us. As we entered Dome City 5, I took a deep, fortifying breath, and for the first time, it didn’t feel like it would be my last. I had done it, and some primordial part of me, the part that existed underneath all the bravado, all the emotions, the humanness of myself, roared in desperate triumph. And I felt it reverberate through my entire body, the relief, the overwhelming euphoria mixed with dread and despair. I had survived. And I’d never felt more human for it.