Dystopian Illusions

A Story by Star Catcher

Just how do two girls change the world on their own? And would they be right in changing it? I seem to have written a lot of "the government takes over and decides what's best for everyone" stories when I was younger. This is one of the better ones.

The end is near.

This is what I am thinking as I search the dreary park, looking for the girl I know is here somewhere. It’s not a pleasant thought, and not one I really believe I’m thinking on my own, either. It started last night and kept me up, this distinct feeling that some sort of conclusion was very close. I’ve been trying to convince myself since then that whatever end is approaching, it will only mean bad things for me. But the panic that shoots through me, accompanying the feeling without fail every time, makes me think otherwise.

It is what has ultimately led me here, but I won’t admit that to anyone. The truth is, if the feeling is founded in any sort of legitimacy at all, I need to fix things. But more importantly than even that, I need to be with Liv.

As soon as I think her name, I finally spot her. She’s sitting on a rectangular block of uneven concrete that’s wedged up against the packed dirt. It looks like it wants to be a stone wall, but it’s failing miserably. I have stopped noticing it the way everyone stops noticing the things that are the most familiar to them. It works the opposite way with people, though; this is why I am staring intently at Liv, assessing her. She doesn’t look well. Suddenly a huge mountain of guilt crashes down on me, but it’s not because of what she’s mad at me for. Instead, I feel as though I have abandoned her, and the fact that I know to the core of my being that this is true makes it hard to move my feet, to sit down beside her, to not wish I hadn’t ever been born for her sake.

The color of her face keeps changing, back and forth between a light green and a deep red. It suddenly occurs to me that right now, mad certainly isn’t the reaction I’m causing in her. “Feel sick?” I ask. The words taste bad, as if I have swallowed something spoiled.

She looks at the dirt beneath my feet. “Every day,” she whispers.

She means every day of the eight days we’ve been separated. Every day of the eight days I’ve abandoned her. I feel as though I’m choking.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbles. “I should have listened to you. Maybe you were right, maybe he did–”

“Stop,” I interrupt, because I cannot bear to see her do this to herself. “I’m sorry,” I tell her, and I mean it more than anything I’ve ever said. Because words can’t express my utter remorse, I wrap my arms around her, hold her tight.

After just a few seconds, she turns and pulls me into a more regular embrace, acceptance I don’t deserve. I think about how by now she probably should be complaining about the fact that she can’t breathe, but perhaps she needs this crushing reassurance as much as I do.

We don’t talk for a long time, and when we do, we’re still hugging, because neither of us can bear to pull away from the other. She’s the one who breaks the silence. “Can we be sisters again?” she asks quietly.

I can feel my heart break at the thought that the answer to that could ever be a no. My breathing hitches. “Of course,” I reply. We’re not sisters biologically, but we are in all the ways that really count.

“I’m sorry that I–” she starts again.

“Stop,” I interrupt again. “I’m sorry. Sorry that I told him, when it should have been your choice. Sorry that I’ve left you to deal with all this alone, for this much time.”

“It’s okay,” she responds softly, and at that I start trembling. How can any of this be okay? She notices, and hugs me tighter. Then the tears come uncontrollably, and I don’t care, because I feel as though I am her other half as much as she is mine, and for now, we are both complete.

…

It’s an overcast day, and that’s alright for both of us, because we’re still healing and not quite ready for sunshine. In our city, we like to pretend it isn’t our fault that most days of the year, every inch of sky is covered up with thick cloud. Really, we’ve polluted the air way more than we should have, because at some point along the line, we just stopped caring.

The park isn’t all that high-end; nothing here is, really. It’s just a grassless area with a few large pieces of plastic and rusting metal that pass for swings and slides and monkey bars. While I watch the few kids here playing, still so close to Liv that our arms are touching, it dawns on me that this is a depressing time, though I’ve never thought about it that way because it’s been this way since I was very small. “We’ve been coming here for five years,” I say out of nowhere.

I glance over at Liv in time to see her nod. “It really is our place,” she replies.

Because I have started talking, or because I think I owe her for what I’ve done, or maybe just because I share everything with her already, I admit how I am feeling. “I sort of feel like…something’s going to end. Soon.”

She looks at me, and I can tell she doesn’t think I’m crazy. “Like what?” she asks.

“I don’t know,” I respond, the words disturbing me.

We’re silent for a moment, watching the kids. “Is it bad?” she asks.

I suddenly realize that bad news is the last thing she needs. But I can’t lie to her, she’d see right through me. “Yeah,” I confess. I won’t tell her how bad, though, that’s something.

“You haven’t been at school,” I say, after a few more moments of silence. It’s not the right thing to say. I can’t ask where she’s been, because I already know.

“I’ve been out,” she responds, her voice suddenly quiet again.

I feel a lash of self-hate for bringing up the very recent pain once more, but under that it hurts to have confirmed the suspicions I had felt whenever I’d seen the too-empty spaces in the desks in classrooms where she should’ve been.

I lay my head against her shoulder. A feeling of relief fills me, stronger than I thought the emotion could get, and I sigh. “Missed you,” I say.

She sighs as well. “Me, too.”

We stay like that for a long while, until the clouds start looking darker. “My parents don’t know I’m here,” she tells me, unwillingly.

I straighten up. “Want me to walk home with you?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “I’ll be fine,” she responds, and I can’t tell what she’s really saying, even though I usually can.

I hug her fiercely once more. “Goodnight,” I say, “not goodbye.”

“Goodnight,” she responds, and I swear we can both feel the good part of it down to our bones.

I watch her walk away, and I’m only able to turn and go in the other direction because I know she isn’t walking away forever. But then that stupid the end is near feeling comes back, and I’m not so sure anymore. I shudder, but head for home anyway.

…

When I get home, the feeling leads me to do something else. I pick up the phone and dial a number I’ve memorized. It rings twice, and then picks up. “Hey, Danielle,” a male voice greets, obviously having checked the caller ID.

“Hey, Brec. Are you free tomorrow?” I ask.

“Yeah, why?”

“You want to go on a date or something?” Brec and I have been ‘dating’ on and off for about three years, but it’s a rare occasion that we go out on an actual date.

“Sure,” he responds. He sounds surprised, and I don’t blame him. “Uh, what kind of date?”

“How about dinner?” I suggest, because it’s the first thing that comes to mind. “That Italian restaurant?”

“Sounds good to me.” He pauses. “Who’s driving?”

Brec is sixteen, but he doesn’t have his license yet. “Uh, how about my dad?” I don’t care at this point. I just want to see him.

“Alright,” he agrees quickly. “What brought this on, anyway?”

“I don’t know. I just want to see you,” I reply, echoing my thoughts.

That makes him happy. “Aww,” he says, the way one might respond to a kitten. “You could’ve waited for school on Monday,” he continues, lightheartedly.

I can’t think of a way to express to him that Monday isn’t close enough. It’s Friday, and the weekend in the way seems like an eternity when I think about it. “I wanted to see you for a longer amount of time,” I say, which is true.

“You could have come over here, or I could’ve gone over there,” he replies, meaning our houses. We do that a lot.

“I guess I felt like being more official,” I respond. I wonder if I’m overreacting to the strange feeling, but it’s stronger than ever and I can’t feel stupid with the panic rising up.

Brec laughs, although I didn’t mean my statement to be humorous. “Okay, then. If that’s it, I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Yeah, tomorrow. Six?”

“Sure.”

“We’ll come pick you up.”

“Alright. Love you, Elle.”

I roll my eyes at the nickname, although it’s a wasted effort over the phone. I don’t think the nickname fits, but he finds it cute. “I love you too, Brec,” I reply, and the words are sort of breathless.

“You okay?” he asks.

Damn. “Yeah, just kind of…messed up. Over the whole Liv thing.” This is true, but it’s not the reason I’m almost hyperventilating.

“Oh,” he replies, his voice flat. I’d already given him the whole story about how I had told Brian that Liv had a sort of depressive episode and ended up truly and horrifyingly cutting herself for the first time ever. How it tore us apart, because she felt betrayed that I would do that to her. How I was only angry at her for about an hour before I fell into the tiniest pieces I’d ever been in. How I couldn’t bring myself to see her because I was scared, because she probably didn’t want to see me, because I was trying desperately to forget what she’d done and how I’d reacted.

“Are you okay?” Brec asks, and I suddenly realize I am crying again. Anger at my own idiocy pulls me back to reality slightly, and I wipe the tears away as quick as I can, which isn’t fast enough. No I feel like saying. No, nothing’s f*****g okay.

“I saw her today,” I say instead. “I think we resolved things, for the most part.”

“That’s good,” Brec replies, easily reassured.

“I have to go,” I lie, but in a way I really do have to. I can’t talk normally anymore, and I won’t be able to shrug off any more questions about whether I’m okay, not if he really starts to mean it.

“Okay. I love you,” he says, and I can feel the affection despite the distance between our houses.

“I love you too,” I mumble. “Goodnight.” I don’t wait for a reply, hanging up. I trudge upstairs to my room, figuring I’ll ask my parents about the date tomorrow, instead of having to face them like this.

I don’t fall asleep for hours, because I’m consumed by fear and doubt.

…

My dad drives Brec and me to the restaurant, but he also eats with us. I wonder how I’d overlooked the fact that he’d have to, really. It’s sort of awkward at first, but then we’re talking easily enough and my dad’s making bad puns and we’re laughing at them because it’s better that way.

Even though it’s sort of fun, I realize that this is a mistake. I need to be alone with Brec, to cherish him.

When my dad gets up to use the men’s room, I act before thinking. “Do you want to sneak out together, right now?” I ask.

Brec stares at me, wide-eyed. “Are you serious?”

I grab the sleeve of his sweatshirt and get up, pulling him up with me. I nod.

“Okay,” he agrees, and I can tell he’s frightened, confused, and excited at the idea.

I take his hand in mine as we walk out the doors, trying to look casual. As soon as we’re outside, I start running, his hand still in mine, and he quickly matches pace.

Instinct has taken over, and instinct guides me to the same park I sat and talked with Liv yesterday. Instead of going onto the actual park grounds, I pull Brec into the shadow of a nearby house, so we can’t be seen from the street. We sit together, our hands still linked. We both breathe heavily for a while, and then Brec starts to laugh.

I join with him, and the sound is superficial, scared. I get up and throw my left leg over to the other side of him, straddling him and sinking into his arms. I kiss him deep, and he responds with intensity. We don’t stop until neither of us can breathe anymore, and then we remain in each other’s arms.

“I love you,” I say, when I really want to say I needed this.

“I love you too,” he responds, and I feel safe, here in the darkness. The night feels blacker than it should be, but it acts as a blanket, bringing warmth and comfort.

“Why did you do this?” Brec asks.

I don’t respond, because I honestly don’t know myself. Instead, I kiss him again. It’s just as intense as before, and he tries to pull me closer, although that’s impossible.

Brec’s voice is shaky when he speaks again. “How far do you want this to go?”

I realize what he’s implying, and I wonder for a brief second if I could. If I should. “Not yet,” I reply, my head pressed up against his chest so I can hear his heartbeat. I’m the type that waits until marriage, although I certainly don’t feel like that type right now. “I’m not ready.”

“Okay,” he sighs, rubbing circles in my back. Because we’re so close, I can feel how badly he wants to, and for a moment I feel sorry for being so close. But I can’t bring myself to pull away, not when I need him like this.

“Thanks, for all this,” I say. I try to nuzzle myself closer, but of course I can’t.

He laughs, low and short. “You’re welcome.”

A kind of completeness completely different from yesterday’s type fills me, and I realize how lucky I am.

…

When I finally return home, my parents assault me verbally. The shouting both terrifies me and bounces off of me meaninglessly. When I have room to speak, I say, “I just needed time alone with him, we didn’t have sex.” I try to go to my room, but they pin me there, shout questions at me. I say it wasn’t his idea, that it had to be right then, and I don’t know why, and that I am an idiot and they can ground me if they like. They agree with that and then set me free, although they are still fuming. I go upstairs, and all I can feel is numbness and a dull relief.

I want all the blame to be put on me, for my parents not to have to get involved with Brec’s parents, but I know that will inevitably happen. And we likely won’t be able to see each other very often, except at school where they can’t separate us.

So when I go upstairs, I rummage around until I find an old, thick, and unused notebook. I tear out a page and start writing.

Dear Brec,

I’m sorry about Saturday night. That was stupid, and I have no idea why I did it, although it was amazing. I should have just waited until we could be alone together without going to such extremes. I’m sure you’re going to be in heaps of trouble, and I’m sorry about that. If you don’t want to see me again, I’ll understand.

Love, Danielle

I fold the piece of paper twice, and then put it in my purse. I decide that I’ll give it to him Monday, while we’re in the hall together.

When I crawl into bed, all I can feel is him. His arms wrapped around me, my body pressed tight to him, his breath in my hair. I can still hear his heartbeats echoing.

Since this is the third night in a row something has kept me up, I get the sense that I’ll be suffering from insomnia for a long time.

…

It’s horrible, but just because you’ve made a mistake doesn’t mean the world comes to a halt. And it’s Sunday.

I shower, dress nice, fluff my hair so it curls better. I look myself over in the mirror, and all I want to do is shatter the reflection so I don’t have to anymore. I settle for going downstairs to face my parents, which is a hell I figure I deserve.

They do worse than shout at me again. They simply give me looks that hurt me far more than words ever could. Looks that say, we’re ashamed to have you as a daughter, and I try to convince myself that they still love me. It’s difficult, with all the silence pressing in on me.

It just gets worse when we get in the car. It’s as if the silence is getting thicker, clogging up my throat, making it hard for me to breathe. “I’m sorry,” I blurt out. Instead of breaking, the silence pulls back, a slow motion instead of a sharp one. They don’t seem to know what to say to that. Their eyes flicker to me in the rearview mirror, and I stare down at the swirling patterns in my long skirt. The silence creeps back in, but it stays gauzy, a light mist. I could see hurt in their eyes, and I can feel that underneath they’re just as terrified as I am.

…

In church, I sing all the songs, I pray when I should, I listen to the sermon. But throughout the entire ordeal, I feel like I don’t belong.

When service ends, however, my mom catches me up in a big hug, and suddenly everything feels so much better. My dad joins, too.

“We forgive you, sweetie,” my mom tells me. I feel like these are the only words I’ve ever wanted to hear. She pulls back, sort of smiling, sort of not. “But don’t ever do that to us again,” she orders, and I am reminded of times when I was little and I would hide in clothing racks while we were shopping, and she would panic, thinking I’d been kidnapped.

“I won’t,” I promise.

Because I won’t get the chance to. The thought is abrupt, and the familiar panic swells in me with intensity. I break away from them and start toward the car, trying to ignore the feeling. I thought I’d escaped it.

I’d never had such luck, I suppose.

…

I ask to call Liv when we get home, and they let me. I tell her about the whole situation with Brec.

“Wow,” she says when I’m finished. After a pause, she adds, “You’re an idiot.” Because she laughs afterwards, I know our friendship is going to be just fine.

I join in her laughter. “Yeah, I am,” I agree. “How’s life on your end?”

“Things are slightly better with Brian. I had to promise not to do that to myself ever again, though, about a hundred times,” she sighs. Brian Fletcher is Liv’s boyfriend, and things between them are very serious.

“I’m sorry,” I reply, a knee-jerk reaction.

“It’s okay,” she responds just as fast, and I figure it’s the same way on her end.

I think I might start crying again, and I’ve had enough of that to last me a long while in the past few days. “Is it really?” I whisper.

There’s a long pause. “I was just being stupid,” she mutters. “I’ll be fine.”

“I never even bothered to ask what was wrong,” I realize, my voice thick with regret.

“Does it matter?” she asks.

“Of course it matters,” I reply.

There’s another long pause. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she finally says.

“Okay.” I’m not going to pressure her after doing so much wrong to her. I wonder if she wants me to corner her, to make me tell her, to show her I care. I decide that’s not her. I decide she doesn’t want to be a burden, even though the thought that she could ever be one is downright absurd.

“I’m sorry I screwed up,” she says, and I hear what she really means: I’m sorry I am a screw-up.

“I screwed up too,” I reply, and I mean what she meant, too.

“Yeah, we’re both idiots,” she concludes, laughing. Suddenly, I am on a rollercoaster with her, going up, and we’re wondering to each other how we could possibly be stupid enough to get on this thing. Wondering why the drop didn’t look quite so high from below.

I think about how life has its highs and lows, but then ultimately comes to a stop, always too soon. The feeling comes flooding back, also too soon. I grip the side of the counter. “Yeah, we are,” respond, and I force a laugh.

She can tell something’s off. “Danielle? It’s going to be okay,” she says.

I make myself believe her, and it’s so much better that way.

…

On the bus to school on Monday, I try to listen to my iPod, but the first song that starts playing is named The End, so I scowl at it and shut it off.

Brec’s waiting for me in our usual section of hall. I walk quickly to him and kiss him. Nobody looks in our direction.

“Good morning,” I greet him when we break apart.

“Morning,” he replies.

I search his face. “How much trouble are you in?”

He smiles, smoothes back my hair with one hand. “It’s nothing I can’t deal with,” he tells me.

I hug him. “Sorry,” I mumble against his chest.

The bell rings then, way too soon, and I pull away from him. I take the note out of my purse and hand it to him. He turns the folded paper over in his hands, as if he can read it by touch. “Look at it when you get to class,” I say. I try to kiss him quickly, but he puts a hand on the back of my neck, makes me stay a little longer. When we separate, I’m smiling as I head to my locker.

My first class is a lonely ordeal. Nobody I’m friends with is there, even though I know pretty much everybody. They ignore me, and I ignore them, and we all ignore the teacher.

Brec is in my second class, and I hurry to get there. Our classrooms are rather large, so that the large population of students can fit. Some classrooms used to be two classrooms, like this one. Brec and I sit in the very back, off to the left. There’s a light that’s long since gone out over our section, and we always joke that it’s the dark side.

So when I take my seat next to Brec and he tosses the note I gave him earlier onto my desk, the teacher doesn’t notice at all. I open it up, and he’s written under what I have.

Don’t be so hard on yourself. I still love you.

I smile. The teacher is lecturing by now, but I can’t hear what he’s saying; the words are just sounds. I take out my pen and write back to him.

Thanks. I’m lucky to have a guy like you.

I pass it back to him. After about thirty seconds of zoning out, the note is back on my desk.

Aww, you’re so sweet.

No, really, I meant it. Do you want me to write poetry about it?

I laugh quietly as I pass it to him.

He keeps the note for a while this time.

I would love to hear

A mushy, lovey haiku

If you can make one

I giggle. We’re drawing attention to ourselves, mostly from the people in front of us, but I don’t mind. I write Brec a few.

How I love thee, Brec How stupid I am I love you so much

You, who has forgiven me But you have taken me back I love you so very much

When you’re in deep s**t We’re both idiots I lo-o-ove you

I can see him trying not to laugh, even in the dark.

Hey, no extending words.

I pout.

People do that in real life, anyway.

Haikus are awesome

But sometimes they don’t make sense

Refrigerator

I have to work hard to stifle my laugh.

I’ve already heard that one.

The note stays over there for a couple minutes.

How badly did your parents kill you?

It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. They shouted, grounded me, but they forgave me in the end.

They didn’t think I kidnapped you, then?

I grin.

You’d have to work damn hard to make me unwilling to go anywhere with you.

I’ll go get the rope and duct tape.

I cannot stop smiling. I can’t even tell if anyone’s looking in our direction anymore.

Sexy.

How long do you think it’s going to be until we can see each other again?

I think about that for a while.

We could always sneak out again.

I don’t want to do that if it’s going to get you into more trouble.

We’ll sneak out more sneakily this time if we do it.

Yeah, cause you’re gonna have to work real hard to make it more subtle than last time.

All my giggling is probably distracting some teacher’s pet trying to take notes.

We were like ninjas.

Masters of stealth.

Alright, alright. Do you want to sneak out or not?

That depends. Do you think you can get past your now sure-to-be-paranoid parents? Will they check up on you during the night?

His logic sucks.

Maybe we could wait a few days.

Okay.

This is way better than listening to the teacher drone on, by the way.

You bet it is.

I would’ve probably tried to ninja us both away again otherwise.

You’d have us knocking over books and desks as we go.

I’d probably manage to knock over a wall.

The whole building collapses because you’re trying to be stealthy.

I sigh.

That’s probably more accurate than I’d like to think.

Uh, we’ve used up the whole page.

I realize that he’s right. The words he’s written are wedged in the far bottom-right corner of the paper, and it’s covered front and back. I sigh, fold it again, and put it in my purse. I reach across the space separating our desks and take Brec’s hand. We smile at each other for the rest of the class.

When the bell rings, he hugs me. “That was fun. I’d love to receive more notes from you,” he says.

I smile wider. “We’ll make it a daily thing.”

“That sounds wonderful to me.” He kisses me, although we’re still in the classroom.

“Take it outside,” the teacher orders, waving a hand at us.

“Sure thing,” I murmur so that only Brec really hears.

Brec and I walk out the door together, and kiss again as soon as we cross the threshold.

…

When I get home, I suddenly feel incredibly alone, even though my parents are there. “Hey, mom,” I say, just for human interaction. She’s watching television.

“Hi. No detours after school before you came here, right?” she asks.

“Nope,” I reply. I always feel like I’m lying to my parents, even when I’m not.

“You be good,” she says, and it’s a dismissal.

I go upstairs, and fear swells stronger than any of the other times. I try to work on an essay I have for history class, only to realize I’ve replaced every verb with some form of the word ‘panic’.

I go downstairs, pick up the phone, and dial Liv, because I need to talk to somebody who will understand. She picks up, and I don’t bother to let her speak. “Something is ending soon,” I say.

“What’s wrong?” she asks.

“The panic from before. It’s worse than ever,” I whisper.

She’s silent for a moment. “What can I do?”

“Be prepared,” I tell her. “I don’t know what exactly you should do. Just, if you have a gut instinct, go with it.”

“Okay,” she says. “What about you?”

“I’m going to watch,” I say. I barely understand the words that are coming out of my mouth anymore. I feel as though I’m somewhere else in the kitchen, looking on while my body talks.

“Will you be okay? Should I come over?”

The panic gets even stronger. “Stay where you are,” I advise.

“Are you sure this is serious?” she asks.

“Positive.” The word only makes me feel worse. The adrenaline is going around in circles in my body, with no use for me to put it to. It’s making me feel sick.

“I believe you,” she says, and they’re honest words.

“Be prepared,” I tell her again, and then I hang up. It takes a few tries to put the phone back in its place, because my hands are shaking.

…

The insomnia is worse than ever. The hours drag on with no end to the panic in sight. It keeps me wide awake. I try to work on my homework again, but I can’t, so I just sit staring out my window, rocking back and forth and trying to comfort myself. I leave my light on, but I switch it to its ‘dim’ setting.

At about four in the morning, some sort of movement catches my eye from the window. I refocus, and realize with horror that the lights in the city are going out, row after row of buildings, and the darkness is getting closer to here.

It’s just a power outage, I try to tell myself, although my heart has stopped dead and is trying to restart. There’s probably a storm wherever our electricity is coming from.

But when the darkness reaches our house, the lights go out with the audible shattering of glass. I can hear the fragments of light bulb hit the carpet. I try to get up, avoiding the glass, and go downstairs to wake my parents. I make it to the doorway, and then suddenly the panic is gone, replaced by a thick drowsiness. I stumble and fall to the floor, the wood feeling as soft as down pillows. Just as sleep is about to take me over, panic bursts in me one last time as I realize that this is the end I was waiting for.

Can’t say I wasn’t warned.

…

In my dreams, I am being burned at the stake, but I can’t feel the flames. Liv is there, and she pushes through the crowd of people below me, trying to get to me. She manages, and then she unties me and tows me through the crowd. There’s a lake nearby, and she throws me in. Suddenly, I can feel every bit of pain from being burned that I couldn’t before. The water is like salt in a wound, and it makes my charred skin glow like embers. I try to get out, but Liv pushes me down, makes me stay in. I’m angry beyond reason that she’s doing this to me and I can’t stop her. “You were burning,” she keeps telling me, like I don’t already know that.

…

When I finally wake up, it’s hard to tell whether or not I’m still dreaming, because everything is blurry and I can’t string together a thought. I see an unfamiliar female face above me, but I don’t wonder who she is or think to ask. She helps me sit up, says things to me that I forget as soon as she’s said them. I mumble something about being burned, and she replies that I shouldn’t feel pain anymore, which I don’t. I forget this exchange instantly, too.

The first thing that sticks in my head is her telling me my parents have signed me up for a new school, and class starts in a few hours. I don’t question that. She pulls me into a standing position, and a vague impression of my surroundings sticks, also. A room full of cots, bodies on some, others empty.

She leads me into another room, helps me shower and get dressed. The drowsiness lifts ever so slightly, but I still can’t think clearly.

Somehow, I end up at the school. The inside is posh and luxurious. There’s soft blue carpeting and the walls are half-paneled with warm wood. There’s a large oak desk to the left, and I wander over there, where I can see a hallway extending behind it. It looks like it leads to several offices. There’s another hallway across from where I came in, with several numbered doors, so I assume those are the classrooms.

I turn to the desk, and there’s another unfamiliar woman behind it. “Are you new?” she asks.

“Yeah,” I mumble. “Danielle Greene?” This is my name, but it seems like ages since I’ve heard or used it. My voice sounds sort of cracked, too, like I haven’t used that either.

The woman hands me a piece of paper with my name printed across the top. It’s got my schedule on it. “I hope you have a wonderful first day,” she says, her voice warm and friendly.

“Thanks,” I say, and try clearing my throat, because my voice still sounds wrong. I look down at the sheet, find which class I’m supposed to be going to, and go through door with the right number on it.

The classroom is like no other classroom I’ve ever seen before. They’ve got, holy crap, beanbag chairs that the students are sitting in. This is the first thing that tips me off to the fact that things aren’t quite right. I sit down on an empty yellow beanbag, and look up at the teacher. He’s the only one sitting in a regular chair. I don’t hear most of the lecture, because none of it is really important enough to register in my mind.

Even though this classroom is nothing like the ones I’m used to, it reminds me of what’s missing: Brec, Liv. I miss them. Where are they?

After class ends, I go back to the woman behind the desk. “Do you think you could help me find my friends?” I ask her.

The woman smiles at me. “Sure, honey. What are their names? I’ll look them up in the records for you.”

“Olivia Dickinson, and Brec Fraser,” I tell her.

She nods, taking notes. “Come see me at the end of the day,” she says.

I drift through my next classes, clarity still miles from me. I feel sort of content, but it’s like a blanket that’s too short on a cold night, and it slips away from me sometimes. Fear springs up in the cracks it leaves. I shy away from it, because I do not know why I am afraid and I don’t think I want to. I cling to the thick blanket feeling, try not to move so that I can stay warm.

When I go to see the woman again at the end of the day, it feels as though it has only been minutes. “Did you find them?” I ask.

She looks apologetic. “I don’t think your friends have joined us just yet.”

The blanket is suddenly ripped away at her words, and the fear shocks me like an electric current. A burst of clarity floods through me with the feeling, and a thought forces its way into my mind with difficulty, the words dropping like stones: This. Isn’t. Right.

“Joined us?” I ask.

She hands me two folders, and I take advantage of my new clarity, scanning them both for anything important. Near the top of the list, with name, age, and other basic credentials, one specification catches my eye. Status of subject: Unwoken. It says this on both of their files. “Unwoken?” I prompt the woman.

The woman frowns, like I’ve broken a rule or something. Sarcasm finds its way to me, and I wonder what that rule is. No questions. No higher thinking.

“They’re still asleep, like you were,” she tells me.

I blink. “Why are they asleep?”

“Because the world came to an end a while ago, and has since restarted, but not everyone can be treated at once,” she answers matter-of-factly.

The word end makes the blanket fly away again, makes me realize it had been creeping back up on me. “The world ended?” I splutter, confused. Everything’s suddenly clear. I can see that the woman I’m talking to has a narrow nose and glasses and honey blonde hair pulled up into a ponytail, and a name-badge that says Jessica H. that I haven’t noticed until now. I can see that she has green eyes that look like they have been clouded over, and she’s staring at me like some puzzle she can’t figure out.

“Everything’s going to be alright, sweetie,” she assures me, but I just shake my head, memories suddenly flooding back. The panic, the drama over me betraying Liv’s trust and ‘sneaking’ out with Brec that seems so silly now. The lights going out.

Before I know what I’m doing, I’m outside, looking for somewhere to run. I see darkness and dart into the shadow the school’s casting. There’s a light fog, but the sun is shining through that, making the small droplets of water glisten.

I follow along the wall of the school, and find the foundation exposed on one side. It’s all concrete and dirt instead of inviting warm colors, and somehow that’s a lot more comforting. It’s a sign that the world I come from did, in fact, exist.

I glance up for the first time, and I can’t help but gasp at the glistening fairytale our town has become. There are some buildings made of shimmering light blue metal and small buildings made of glass that look like jewels in the sun. There are shining silvers, blinding whites, enchanting pinks. What happened to my gray and muddy city? Why do I find myself homesick for it in such a beautiful place?

I am still staring when a group of people start coming toward me, and suddenly the wonder is gone and I’m all raw panic again. The group is mostly wearing black, and they don’t fit in this pastel world. I try to make a run for it, but they’re faster than me, and someone catches hold of me and wrestles me to the ground. “There’s always one every once in a while,” he says, and then sticks me with a needle. I scream and thrash but nobody reacts, they just smile in a kind way and watch me descend into unconsciousness.

…

In my dreams, I am with Liv, and I’m happy but she’s not. “You can’t stay here,” she says to me.

“Why not?” I ask.

“You have to wake up,” she orders, and she looks very severe.

I frown, wonder if I’m asleep. I press against the unconsciousness, but it’s too strong, and I decide it isn’t worth the effort. “I like it here,” I answer her.

Liv gets up, starts shaking me. “You have to wake up,” she insists.

“But it’s so nice,” I complain. I don’t want to force my way to the surface, it’s so tiring.

“You’re in danger.” Liv is pleading by now. “Please.”

It’s the tears that start running down her face that convince me that something is terribly wrong, and I decide that I want to make her happy. “Okay, I’ll try,” I tell her.

She smiles, and I think she starts to say thank you, but she’s already fading away.

I sit up in my bed, glance around. It’s still dark, so I try to fumble for the light, but I can’t find the switch anywhere. I start to panic. I get out from under my covers and start walking, trying to find the doorway, but my hands aren’t touching anything. I start to think I’ll run into a wall any second and it will scare the crap out of me, but my hands continue to grasp nothing and then I start wishing I would run into a wall. Then there are footsteps behind me, and I start running, and that’s when the walls leap out and crash into me. The footsteps get unbearably close, and I can’t move away, although I’m trying as hard as I can. The person, whoever they are, starts sticking me with needles, over and over again, so that I begin to feel like a pincushion or a porcupine. I start sobbing, and then all of a sudden, I wake up again. It’s disorienting.

I sit up in my bed again, and this time there’s dim light coming through the windows. I yawn and stretch, then get up and go downstairs. “Mom? Dad?” I call out, but I get no reply. I search the entire house for them, and they’re not there. I start to panic, and as I’m making a run for the front door, I wake up again.

I’m in my bed again, and there’s sunlight streaming through the windows. Cautiously, I get up and walk out my bedroom door. The first step I take onto the stairs, I wake up again.

This time I’m in the posh school, and Brec is there in the hallway, waiting for me. His grin erases all memory of the fact that I’m trying to wake up, and I hug him tight. There are people around us, but I don’t pay them any attention.

He kisses me, long and sweet. It’s the best kiss I can remember having. He stares into my eyes when we pull away, and I stare back, completely lost in him.

He sighs, and then pulls a note out of his pocket. Wordlessly, he hands it to me.

Curious, I open it and read it.

Wake up.

- Liv

When I look up, Brec is gone, and so is everyone else. The lights in the hallway are dimmer now, and being alone in the darkness gives me the creeps. I go outside, and it’s rather gray out there, too. My body is lying in the grass by the school, perfectly still and straight and asleep. I go over to it, and very carefully I place a hand on its arm.

Immediately, she sits up, eyes open wide and staring at me, and it scares me badly but I can’t move. She’s got these black eyes, and suddenly I know that’s not me, it’s just a shell. She’s got me frozen in place, and I can’t look away from her. Her eyes are empty and full at the same time. She’s a monster. It feels like I’m looking in some sick joke of a rigged mirror. It’s the panic and the nauseous feeling she’s inspiring in me that finally sends me struggling into consciousness.

It’s darkness that I wake up in though, and with no light, I still can’t escape the force of her eyes.

…

I know I’m awake now, because my mind is racing and my heart is thumping and I can hear it very clearly. I savor the feeling of being alive for a while until my pulse slows down a bit.

Weird freaking dreams. I try to remember back to what’s real, and it’s difficult to get back to something that seems even remotely realistic. Talking to Liv on the phone, maybe. Or maybe the note Brec and I passed in class. Church?

I wonder what day it is. I figure I’d better go find my parents and ask them to get some sort of bearings on where exactly the line between reality and dreams is drawn. It’s when I start trying to sit up that I realize my hands and feet are in restraints. And that this doesn’t feel like my bed. And that the air around me feels too empty to be the air of my small room.

I suddenly notice that there’s a small light in the room, swiveling around and focusing on body after body after body of unconscious humans. Or dead humans, it occurs to me. I can’t really be sure. Frightened beyond reason, I start thrashing at my restraints, hoping to God that this is another nightmare.

The light swivels around to focus on me, and I decide that struggling was probably a bad idea, although there’s nothing I can do now. The light starts coming slowly toward me. Is this real? Am I going to wake up? Am I going to die?

Tears start running down my face, and I rip harder at my restraints, to no avail. It’s only tightly wound cloth holding me down, but I know I’m going to have bruises.

If I survive that long.

When the light is close enough that it’s blinding me, a hand clamps down on my mouth, and I feel like screaming into it in response. Whoever’s holding the light turns it from me onto their own face.

I can hardly believe it when I see her. Despite the fact that the light from the flashlight that’s being cast upwards onto her face makes her look like she’s about to tell a ghost story, it’s definitely Liv who’s standing in front of me. She holds up her index finger to her mouth, and then slowly takes her other hand off of my mouth.

She turns the light on my restraints, pulls out a pocketknife, and starts cutting me free. I am reminded of the dream where I was burning at the stake, and I realize what my dreams were trying to tell me. If I wait long enough, if I just hold on, Liv will save me.

I clench and unclench my hands, trying to make the blood flow back into them, because with all my struggling I’ve cut off their circulation for a couple minutes. She gets to work on cutting the restraints off of my feet, and when I can sit up and stretch, it’s the greatest feeling in the world. I feel like if she stabbed me with that same knife right now, it wouldn’t put a damper on my mood.

I fly at her, throw my arms around her. I sob silently into her shoulder, and she hugs me back tight.

“We have to go,” she says after a few too-short seconds. She grabs my hand and guides us with the flashlight in her other hand. She leads us to a door and we slip out of it, into the night. The sky is clear and bright, and a moon that is about three fourths full is shining down on us. It’s the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.

Liv pulls my attention away. “Run,” she orders, clicking off her flashlight and gesturing to the dark forest. After my recent nightmares, I shy away from it, but I’ll do anything for her. So with her hand still wound around mine, we plunge into the darkness together.

…

We run for about an hour, and the pain burning in my muscles and tying a tight knot in my stomach feels wonderful. When we finally stop, we’re in a small meadow, with grass that goes as tall as our waists. She leads me through the sea of grass, to a small stone structure. It looks like a primitive form of a gazebo or something. There are four stone columns supporting it, and although it’s been worn by time and weather, it looks sturdy. Inside, there’s a bag pressed up against one column and a sleeping bag with the pillow pointed at another.

“Homey,” I comment, and she smiles at me. I notice the dark circles under her eyes. I wonder how easy it is to sleep here at night.

I’m overcome with gratitude suddenly, and I hug her again. This time she hugs me back and doesn’t let go for a long, long time.

“Thank you,” I say fervently, when we finally do pull apart. I’ve got a million questions swimming around in my head, but right now the world is perfect and I don’t feel like spoiling it.

“You’re welcome,” she replies.

We sit on the sleeping bag, backs pressed up against the column, and don’t speak for a long time.

“What the hell was that?” I finally ask. I don’t know what to ask first, and this question, hopefully, encompasses it all.

She seems to sense I want the full story. “You told me to be prepared,” she begins. “So I was. I packed a bag of stuff,” she gestures to the bag across from us, “and sat outside, waiting. When the lights started going out, I ran, and I didn’t look back.” She goes silent for a short time, and for a moment I feel sort of jealous that I wasn’t smart enough to do what she did, to run at the first sign of danger instead of waiting around for it to catch up to me. “The world was silent,” she continues quietly. “It wasn’t restful, either. It was like…well, sort of like the calm before the storm, but more like the calm before the calmer, yet scarier calm. I hung on the fringe of town for a while, watched as they seeded the clouds like they do to make it rain. It did rain, and it was a disgusting, muddy, polluted rain. They collected all of it, and sent it who knows where. They knocked down buildings and took away the rubble. They put sprinklers in the ground that sprinkled red liquid, sort of like blood. It was creepy. It seeped into the ground and then the grass was growing greener and the dirt didn’t look so dirty. Then the buildings shot up with amazing speed. This all happened in about a week, and by then I had eaten my supply of food and had to go deeper into the forest, looking for my own.” I glance down at her, realize that she’s lost weight. “I set up camp here, and then ran back to the city almost every night, creeping around, getting to know the places. It was terrifying. I didn’t know where to start looking for you. But then yesterday night, I ran to the city real late and decided to stay until morning. The sun was getting high and I was considering going back when all of a sudden you burst out the door of the school, ran and hid in its shadow. I was considering running out and pulling you into the forest with me, but by the time I decided that I wouldn’t get another chance, the ‘police’ were already there and sedating you. I followed them, feeling horrible for not saving you when I could have, and saw the building where they put you. I hung back, waited for it to be dark enough tonight, and then picked the lock and snuck in.” She turns to me. “I think you know the rest.”

I sit still for a while, consider this information. When I turn back to her, I’ve only got one question left. “What’s the date?”

She smiles weakly. “It’s September twenty-eighth. They announce it every day at dawn. Although, now, it might be early in the morning of September twenty-ninth.”

I nod. I try to do the backwards math. Monday was September eighth. So it’s been about three weeks since…well, since the world ended.

I find that I still have another question in me. “Why did they do this?”

She’s quiet for a long time. “I’m not sure,” she finally admits. “But,” she adds, “I think…that they might be trying to make a perfect world.”

…

A perfect world. The phrase batters around in my head with other terms, like utopia and ideal and most importantly, I think, impossible.

The bag Liv has is filled with hard red berries. I ask her if she’s sure they’re not poison and she promises me that she wouldn’t try to kill me after going through so much effort to save my a*s. We both laugh at that. We eat together, and chewing feels strange and foreign.

I’m still hungry when I call it quits, but I’m not even tempted to eat any more because I’ve still got fat I could burn for energy while Liv resembles a twig. I get kind of scared for her, and have to remind myself that she’s a tough girl.

She didn’t bring more than the one sleeping bag, but it’s sort of big enough for both of us and the warmth of an extra body makes it easier to fall asleep anyway. The smell of three-week-old hair grease and body odor sort of cancels that out, though. I eventually pass out from exhaustion.

The blinding sun that’s just started to shine under the roof of the stone gazebo wakes me, and when I move around I have more room than I’m expecting. I sit up and find that Liv’s up and cooking in a pan something that smells delicious over a fire in the middle of the floor. I inhale deeply, trying to get a better whiff of the food, and then I can smell Liv’s BO again. I get up and sit down opposite her. “‘Pan’ was included on your list of things needed to be prepared, but not ‘soap’?” I accuse.

“I have soap,” Liv informs me, flipping whatever’s in the pan. It looks like meat. “I just haven’t had time to use the nearby river for anything more than drinking water. And I stole this pan.”

I stare at it. “Uh, from where?”

She shrugs. “There’s a huge warehouse filled with old stuff on the outskirts of town. I got curious, snuck in, and stole some useful things.” She holds up a lighter I haven’t seen until now.

The wind starts blowing her smell in my direction again. “Ugh,” I complain. “Bath after dinner, please?”

She laughs. “Sure thing.”

While we’re eating dinner, which is just as wonderful as it smelled, by the way, I notice that the sun is getting lower in the sky. So it’s the late afternoon.

She leaves to take her bath after as promised, and I smoosh down some grass in the meadow and lie in the sun. It feels like summer has already drained from the rays it’s giving off.

When Liv comes back, she looks and smells much better, and her clothes look damp. She picks up the pillow and sleeping bag. “I’m going to wash these, you want me to show you where the river is?” she asks.

“Sure,” I agree, and we walk through the forest for about ten minutes before we can see it.

It’s large, and sort of slow-moving. It’s amazingly clear, though, and that makes me happy. I mean, beggars can’t be choosers, but that doesn’t mean we can’t appreciate something closer to what we’d really like.

I wash out the pillow and its case while Liv works on the sleeping bag. We pass the soap back and forth to each other and rinse and wring dry until our hands are aching.

To dry them faster, we keep moving the pillow and sleeping bag up and down through the air. I get bored after a while, and then an idea comes to me and I grin and hit Liv in the face with the pillow. She’s taken way off guard by this and stumbles back, and I laugh so hard at her that I don’t have the strength to move away when she folds the sleeping bag in half and hits me with that. We chase each other around for a long time, and it probably dries the items in question faster than if we hadn’t made a game out of it.

When we get back to the stone gazebo, night has fallen. Liv tells me to collect some dry twigs and we start another fire where the ash from this afternoon’s is still smoldering. She takes some meat off of a dead rabbit she’s placed by her bag and sticks it in the pan.

“How’d you even catch that?” I ask while it’s cooking.

“Lots of patience and sneaking. I’ve had practice lately,” she explains.

“How fresh is it?”

“This morning,” she says. “You sleep punched me in the face,” she accuses.

I laugh for a long time, and she glares at me. “Sorry, sorry,” I finally say. I try to remember if I punched anything in my dreams last night, but I can’t recall anything.

After we eat, we’re huddled by the fire that’s gone down but is still giving off heat. “What are we going to do?” I ask her, suddenly afraid of the future because this is not what I had pictured at all.

She thinks for a long time. A really long time. And then she just whispers, “I don’t know.”

I figure, when the world ends, you have to set your aspirations high. “How about we try to get things back to the way they were?”

“Do we really want that?” she replies.

I know she’s thinking of what I am: our dreary city. Jobs getting harder to attain with a failing economy. The cruelty of the world, a world that it seems has now died. But I’m thinking of other things as well. Parties in the summertime. Blasting music at full volume. Hanging out in the park. Freaking cupcakes.

Brec.

I take a deep breath. “Yeah, I think we do.”