Michael’s eyes shine, and for a terrifying beat, I think he might cry. Instead, he swallows roughly and says, “Being alive in one of their institutions is better than not being alive at all.”
If only he knew.
Knew that only death can sweeten life, just as only pain can sweeten beauty. Without it, everything becomes meaningless—an endless trek across time, mired in mud and monotony.
If only Michael knew what it feels like to look at the ceiling of those camps day after day—to examine the way the cracks spread and wish for your heart to fracture the same way. To pray, over and over, for the cool relief of death.
I don’t say any of this even as Michael grows melancholy and desperate before me, his face silently begging me to let him in. His pleading is useless, for as comfortable as I’ve become in my numbness, I’ve also discovered it is only bearable alone. Knowing my true thoughts would do nothing to assuage his worry. It’d probably only get me committed that much faster.
“This was…fun.” I settle on the word lightly, though I couldn’t say if it truly fits. I don’t think I remember the true meaning of fun, though that isn’t an affliction that’s solely mine. Since the arrival of the plague, fun is something of a legend. “And now it’s over. Have a nice life.”
Michael opens his mouth before promptly closing it, like he’s decided I’m not worth the argument. And truly, I’m not.
He gathers his coat with one last simpering look and turns to the door, just as something heavy crashes in the hallway. His gaze snaps to mine and his hand freezes on the doorknob, as the crash is followed by the unmistakable thud of heavy, military grade boots. It’s clear from his alarm, Michael hadn’t actually followed through on reporting me to the military.
I usher him quietly away from the door and grab the revolver I keep stashed in my shoe rack. Michael stares at the gun, mouthing an incredulous,what the fuck, Willa,but I’ve already prowled silently to the door. Pressing my ear to the wood, I hear nothing but the roughshod beat of my own heart, pounding so hard against my ribs, it feels like they’ll crack.
They can’t have found me,I assure myself.I’ve been too careful.
I let my guard down too far with Michael, but I’ve been meticulous with everything else. Panic begins to burrow its way beneath my skin, hot and suffocating, as I filter through every decision I’ve made in the few months I’ve been here.
Another crash, closer this time, and oxygen floods my lungs once more as I realize the commotion is coming from across the hall. The soldiers aren’t here for me. But the cool wave of my relief is just as quickly overcome by consuming horror as I realize who they must be here for.
Zenni, my ten-year-old neighbor.
I came to this city with the same intentions I always have: keep to myself and don’t get attached. People are like plants: they dig their roots into the soil of you, snare them around your heart and bones. So quietly, you don’t realize it until, one day, you wake up and realize you’re mired permanently in place.
For me, being free to leave isn’t a matter of preference, but of life and death. I have to be able to run at a moment’s notice, so I never allow myself a reason to hesitate.
Zenni was different. I moved into the building in the middle of the night hoping to hide from prying neighborly eyes, but Zenni, whose parents both worked night shift at the nearest camp, had been roaming the halls. She took one look at my pitiful duffle bag stuffed full of the only things I actually owned, and immediately homed in on the most precious of them: three books filled with fairytales.
She’d followed me into my apartment, not seeming to mind the fact that I had no idea how to speak to children. Or anyone, really. And I’d let her in—maybe because her big brown eyes reminded me so acutely of my little sister’s it made my chest ache, or maybe because it had simply been nice to have someone to talk to after spending so long alone.
Zenni asked a thousand questions about the books, each one embedding under my skin and cracking the glass I’d armored myself in. After over two centuries of the plague, children are rare, especially one of Zenni’s age. They all either succumb to the mysterious sickness or are swooped up into the Amelioration camps before it can take hold.
None of them have the luxury of caring about stories anymore. No one does.
So when she asked to hear one, I’d obliged her. That night, and every night after, when darkness fell and her parents left for their shift, she’d appear at my doorstep, eager for another fairy tale. I’d begun to think of Zenni, with her wild ringlets and even wilder mouth, as invincible to the plague’s effects in a way a million other children weren’t—in a way I still bitterly wish my sister was.
I must have been wrong.
There’s a scuffle followed by a lone scream, and I frantically try to remember the last time Zenni asked for a story—or the last time I even saw her—and come up blank. Have I been so caught up in my own selfish shit that I missed her struggling? It isn’t like I have a ton of friends to keep up with. There’s always only been the kid across the hall, and somehow, I failed to see the plague slowly destroying her from the inside out.
Zenni screams again, the muffled sound reverberating through the hollows in my heart as I grip the cool metal of the gun tighter.
“Willa, what are you doing?” Michael hisses desperately from behind me. “You can’t shoot the soldiers! They’rehelpingher!”
Zenni’s mother pleads for more, her voice teary and panic-laden. And I understand it—those committed to the camps rarely come back out.
If they do, they’re heavily drugged. Hollow. Never the same.
Zenni screams again, louder this time. Then everything goes eerily silent, and I know they’ve injected her with a sedative. Blood roars in my ears as I stare down at the gun, the gray metal contrasting against the warm olive-tone of my palm. My breaths come in rapid wheezes, and the quiet of the hallway rings against my ears as I listen to the soft rustle of Zenni being carried away.
Head swimming, I stash the gun back in the shoe rack and attempt to gulp down the nausea climbing my throat. Pressure mounts behind my eyes and I press my fingers into them, trying not to imagine the soldiers loading her unconscious form into the back of a military vehicle.
I try to be just like the unsound—the plague-ridden survivors—and not imagine anything at all.
But no matter how aptly I focus, the visions flood me anyway, as clear as if I’ve painted them on my eyelids. Of bright, happy Zenni being locked in a padded cell. Wrists and anklesbound. Injected with a pharmacy of drugs. All to stave off the hopelessness of the plague.
