Year 2830

I was sat on the church roof again swinging my legs through the air, denying gravity’s will to push me off. I came up here for the view, being tall is the only thing I like about the church. How religion survived the ‘pocalypse I do not know. You’d think people would have given up faith in the gods when their world froze. Some fools will tell you it was the Gods way of ridding the world of evil, but if that’s true then the Gods need to find a new jobs because there is plenty of evil in Echo. Women raped, children kidnapped, babes rations stolen and even ...mothers... murdered.

I hate life here. Often I pretend I can see the sky. I look around and use my imagination to paint the walls blue like the pictures in the old books. My mind erases the humongous “BUNKER ECHO” and replaces it with images of clouds. Sometimes I try to add birds but none of the books have any pictures of birds and I end up creating a hovering blob which changes shape whenever I look at it. Heck, I don’t even know how large a bird is.

I was awoken from my daydreaming by a voice. It was muffled but I could recognise my brother’s voice anywhere. For a second I thought he was on the roof but a quick glance around told me his voice was coming from below. I moved so I could look through the glass skylight (It seems odd to still call it a skylight when no one has seen the sky in hundreds of years). I could see the most of the inside of the church (The rest was blocked by a stupidly large golden chandelier). There was only two figures in the hall. One wearing a black cassock the other wearing a hoodie. I guessed the latter to be my big bro. I pushed the glass gently. At one point these windows would have been controlled by pistons and Elektric, now the mechanism lays unused. The window opened and sprinkled rust and dust on the unaware two below.

“It cannot be done” said the priest. From the voice I guessed the priest to be Father Godwin, quite an appropriate name for a man of God despite his lack of faith. To put it bluntly Father Godwin only became a priest so he could take from the Collection Plate. In later years he also found out that people trusted him. They told him their secrets through confessions and being the saint Father Godwin is he soon started to sell these secrets. Knowledge is valuable. If you needed answers, Father Godwin was then man you went to.

“There must be a way, it cannot go one like this.” Kay sounded desperate.

“Many men have come searching for the same answer and alas, I told them the same.” Although Father Godwin is a fake he plays his role very well. I guess if you act like a holy priest and talk like a holy priest then people will believe you are a holy priest. How else could he get people to confess their profitable secrets? “I shouldn’t even be discussing it with you. If the wrong people found out...” He didn’t finish as if my brother was supposed to know what he was talking about.

“Father, I understand the risk. I am willing to go, just get me up there.”

“I do not have the authority to do that... however, I may have something that will interest you.”

“What is it?”

“Two rations”

“Greed is a sin you know Father” but he still gave them to the priest.

“You’ll find that being a priest has given me the power to forgive my sins in God's name. Think of it as a holy perk.” He motioned with his finger for my brother to follow him. They walked up to the large stone font and Father Godwin kicked a side of its square base. I winced as his foot made contact but instead of breaking his toes, he broke the font. As he moved his foot backward the base followed it. Or rather a part of the base did. Turns out there’s a secret draw there. I guess that’s another perk of being a priest.

He bent down and fished something out the drawer. It looked to be a page of a book but I couldn’t make out the writing from my window. He passed it to my brother.

“This cannot be”

“It has been printed in the ink of the ones who built Echo” Godwin stated. Most people believe that anything printed using the machines of the Ancients must be true.

“Have the Leaders seen this?”

“Where do you think the page is from?”

“The Journal?” The Journal is a book kept by the Leaders. It collects every important piece of information from the Ancients. No one other than the Twelve Leaders has read it. I don’t know how he got hold of it. “How?” My brother shared my question.

“Some secrets are best kept secrets” He held out a hand and my brother returned the page. “If this plan of yours works and you don’t end up dead then...”

“WHAT!” My hands were too slow to cover the outburst and both men looked up at me.

I tried not moving. Sometimes the eye will see you but the mind will dismiss the sight, after all, inanimate objects cannot speak. Unfortunately though a head silhouetted in a skylight is not hard to miss.

“Who’s there?” Evidently my brother didn’t recognise my voice which both angered me and relieved me. I could still get away without either of them knowing who I am.

I looked around for an escape route. I thought about zip-lining down the cable which the Ancients used to communicate using Electrik but that seemed to predictable, no doubt the priest and my brother would be waiting at the bottom. Instead I did the unexpected.

I looked back into the church, empty. Gently I lowered myself down into the church, my hands clinging to the edges of the windows. You couldn’t find many 16 year old girls who could lift their body weight this way. When my foot reached the top of the chandelier I let go and swiftly grabbed the chain holding it to the ceiling. Up close I could see where the golden paint was chipping off to reveal the truth that it was only iron. Clearly the chandelier didn’t appreciate me finding out its secret because it moaned and swung about under my weight. Once it finally calmed down I let go of the chain and crawled across the iron work to the edge. I grabbed hold of a tapestry and climbed down ignoring the disapproving stare of whatever religious icon it depicted.