Chapter 2

"I'm Nobody, who are you? Are you Nobody too? Then we're a pair. Don't tell, they'd banish us, y'know?" -Emily Dickinson, "I'm Nobody, who are you?"

Orson stood at the base of a tower. A large serpentine beast had wrapped around the large stone cylinder, and at the top of the tower, was a statue of a woman with a witch’s hat. The dragon licked the statue, but it’s tongue was so gritty and rough the witches head came off and crashed into a nearby pool.
Orson ran over to the pool to try and salvage the water, but instead, it became dull and muddy, and solidified. He was too late. The dry mud cracked as a tree began to grow from it, blossoming in quick succession.
Even though the witch was dead, and the water was ruined, at least the leaves would protect him from the harsh sun.

 

He woke up. As if he was underwater all night and suddenly went above the surface and was instantly dry. In a different world.
As he repositioned his body, the bed cracked.
He got up, his shoulder was sore for some reason. He reached up to try and stretch it, when suddenly, a loud popping noise came from his shoulder, and he yelped.
He read about this. He must have slept on arm weird and then air bubbles formed between the joints and when he stretched they released.
It was sore for a second, but now that he relaxed it somehow felt better than it did before. He looked at himself in the mirror. His face trapped in an expression of a softened frightened state, still confused on the outside, but he looked at himself closely.
He stretched out all of his limbs and his back and found that more places started to pop. His body tingled. It was a nice sensation. He decided he would add that to his list of things to do in the morning when he woke up: Pop stressed joints.
He continued his routine as usual.
Bathroom, workout, shower, he got the dream book again. This last dream was radically different, and it required a second look and analysis.

Orson had just finished writing the third report, and was getting ready to go work out again, when suddenly there was a loud, anxious buzzing sound from the front of the bunker.
Orson stared at the direction of the sound. Everything went silent for a second, and Orson felt afraid to breath, when suddenly it blared again
BRRRRRRREZZ
Orson got up from the couch, and walked out of the door, into the hallway again. The library to his left and the storage room to his right. But to his front. Right in front of him, was a long hallway, which went up at a slant.
The door
It started buzzing frantically.
BRZ BRZ BRZ BBBRRRRRRRRREEEEEZZ
He ran up the slanted hallway, and in the middle of one of the long, frustrated buzzes, he opened the first door. There were doors, three if you count the one that closes at the extended hallway outside of the entrance/exit, which closes when you open the first door. The first, solid grey door.
The buzzing abruptly stopped when the third door slammed down, and the first one opened, leaving only a thick layer of glass between Orson and…
This person.
She was breathing heavily. She had dirt on her face, her hair was black, and greasy, and short. According to the many history books Orson had read, girls usually had long hair. One time he read a culture based book and he read that girls that cut their hair were “Lashing out”, but the book also said that vaccinations caused autism, which Orson thought highly unlikely.
After the girl got over the initial shock of the third door closing, she pressed the buzzer again, and knocked on the thick glass door, and started talking, but Orson couldn’t hear what she was saying.
Orson thought back to what CYL taught him about outsiders, but his mind was so scrambled at the moment.
He placed his thumb on the finger print scanner, and the hallway pocket she was in started to whirr, the vents cleaning all of the dirt and filth that it contained, and it shocked the girl for a second, but then she just started starring at Orson again, who nodded at her reassuringly. He had learned that it was a sign that was meant to comfort others, and then he pressed in the digits that opened the door
07172056
The glass door slid open.
They stood there. The only barrier between them now was air.
“Thanks” She said.
“Uh, you’re welcome.” Orson looked at her.
“I’ll just wait until those punks go away, and then I’ll be out of you and your people’s hair.”
A dozen things went through his head at once, and as she turned around to sit in the outside hallway he sputtered something and grabbed her arm.
She suddenly yanked away and jumped away from him, grabbing something on her belt.
“Wait wait! I’m sorry!” He raised his hands.
She looked at him with eyes that reminded Orson of a comic he once read as a child. A character in that story never blinked. She was a super villain, and she could see into a person’s mind.
Orson felt violated for a split second, and wondered if she could hear his thoughts?
“I’m sorry,” He said again.
“But uh, a few things,” He said. The girl’s face remained in a state of alarm, but it shifted slightly. Her eyes squinted a little less, and her head tilted a fraction of an inch.
“The uh, Bunker is designed to only open and close once a month. It has to filter all the dirt in the air and things of that nature.” He said. The girl looked at him with disbelief now.
“I have to stay here? With a bunch of…” he looked at Orson’s grey jumpsuit.
“Uhm, I’m the only one here.” He said.
“What?” She said softly, almost in a whisper.
“I’ve been here by myself since I was 3, all the others left to join the military.” He said with full confidence.
The girl let out a small, shocked laugh.
“The military? Who told you that?” She asked.
“Uhm, ASG radio broa-“
“Holy s**t, you have a radio in here? In this little bunker?” She asked, in awe. Her guard lowered for a little, and looked past him a few times.
“Yeah, well, it’s connected to the table in the social area, if it leaves the table it won’t work anymore.” He explained.
She cursed under her breath in a word Orson had never heard before.
“So…I can’t get out of this place for another month…?” She asked.
“No. Sorry, but uh, it takes a month to reboot the whole ventilation system stuff, I haven’t gotten around to figuring it all out.”
“Gotten around to it?” She phrased back at him. Orson didn’t realize what he said wrong.
“You plan on figuring it out? I would just let it do its thing.” She said bending her neck to see the recurring grey tile décor.
“Do you want me to, uh, show you around and stuff?” He asked.
She looked at him for a long time, then finally let go of the thing on her belt.
“Sure.” He walked past him, looking around, as he closed the glass and metallic door.
He looked at the small specks of dirt on his hand from where he grabbed her arm.

 

Orson watched in awe as she ate slice after slice after slice of bread with a small amount of berry jam on each slice, downing the small bottles of water.
“So uh, who were those guys after you?” He asked her.
“Who, The Phantoms? They’re just a bunch of gang thugs I got mixed up with and then didn’t pay them back for whatever.” She explained. Her vowels had to dodge and avoid all the food in her mouth as she talked. Often making her words slurry and sloppy, Orson had to fill in some of her sentences with his imagination the best he could.
“There are gangs?” He asked, fascinated. He had a single slice, with not much eaten off of it.
“Yeah, a bunch. The Phantoms are pretty big, but not as big as like, I don’t know, the New Monsters, or The Risen. They eat up and absorb smaller gangs. The Risen is almost big enough to be considered a small nation by now I’m sure.”
“Why are there so many gangs out there? Why doesn’t the military do anything about it?”
“Why don’t you stop goin on about the damn army? There ain’t no military out there.” She said, pointing at his slice.
“Can I get that?” She asked, wiping the jam off her face with her forearm.
“What do you mean by that? The military is fighting off the Mara.” He slid the toast to her.
“What? What kinda station you listening to?” She downed the last slice.
“The ASG broadcast.” He said. Almost in answering, the radio in the social room in the next room over buzzed and the girl grabbed her gun and stood up quickly, looking around.
“What the hell was that?” She looked into the next room.
“It’s just the radio. “He said, standing up. He walked over into the next room, and got out the journal and pen, and waited for the man to start speaking.
‘Dear Survivors, this Joseph Li Marton speaking, the military has subdued one of the Maras, and are currently taking it apart to see how it functions…-‘The man continued speaking, and Orson wrote down every word obediently. The girl looked at him with curiosity and a strange look of slightly parted lips and a scrunched brow. She walked around to be behind the couch, and looked over his shoulder.
“Entry 3490?” She asked, looking at the number of the entry. All of the words scribbled down and all the doodles and paragraph after paragraph. As the man continued speaking, she walked around to sit next to him and pulled out the drawer, pulled out a book from the stack opposite of the one he grabbed the book he was currently writing in from.
“How many of these have you filled up?” She asked, as the broadcast ended and music started to play.
“Books? Uh, so far about 5. I found the broadcast about a year ago now, and I’ve been recording them ever since. I figured the people of the next generation would need like textbooks and stuff.” He said, actually saying his ideas out loud seemed, strange. He’d never talked this much in a day, ever. It was…Refreshing, somehow.
“ …Listen, bud, there is no military. And if there is, they’re probably just like you, in some deep underground fancy hole, waiting out this invasion thing. Because they certainly aren’t up there with us.”
“ ‘Us’? “Orson didn’t believe a word this girl was saying. By his logic, she was probably in shock, just in an area where the military wasn’t yet. All of the gangs she was talking about and probably even a Mara attack probably had some effect on her mental health and ability to reason.
“ The Survivors. The deviants, the people who were too stubborn to go down when all else seemed lost.“ She tried to explain. This kid just didn’t seem to get it. She shook her head.
“Why do you only use one mattress?” She asked.
Orson looked at her, surprised by the sudden change of topic.
“I don’t…understand the question.” He said.
“There are 8 empty rooms back there. Yet you only use one mattress. One pillow. Those things can’t be comfortable.
“I mean, if I did, how would I explain it to people who come in for refuge? That I had their blankets?” He asked.
“Dude, you own this place. You would give them a pillow and they’d be grateful, besides, you’ve been here for…?”
“My whole life.” He answered. Her head fell and her eyes closed. Was she disappointed in Orson’s response?
“How old are you?” She asked, slowly, as if she were an AI trying to teach Orson a simple topic when he was younger.
“ I’m 17.”
“ Okay, you’ve been here by yourself for a really long time then. Your bunker-mates left when you were 3, that means you’ve been here by yourself for…” She suddenly stopped, looking into the air, flicking the air as she counted on her fingers.
“ 14 years.” He said.
“ Shut up, I know,” She snapped at him, and he flinched away from her. Why did everything he say make her angry? Is it because of exposure to the sun? Does Vitamin D make you more aggressive?
“You’ve been here by yourself for 14 years, and I’m the only one to ever show up.” She said, in a completed style of sentence.
Orson just looked at her, expecting her to say more.
“You…There aren’t going to someday be 7 people buzzing at your big metal door asking for refuge. That’s not realistic.” She said.
“But it could happen.” He added.
“It won’t. Look, let’s do this.”

 

The day had been long, and Orson’s schedule was all kinds of messed up, and this is how it was ending.
“That is the furthest thing from a bed I’ve ever seen.”
“You ain’t seen nothin’. This is just the beginning. I have to entertain myself for a month, so yeah, you’re going down with me.” She said.
“What do you call this thing?” He asked, looking at the monstrosity.
“A pillow fort.” She said. She had taken every mattress, sheet, and pillow from three other rooms and made Orson’s bed into some huge, fluff trap. She did the same with her bed in the room next door.
“I’ll see ya tomorrow, alright, kid?” She asked, walking past him.
“Wait,” He said, stepping to the side so she could go, but looked her expectantly.
“What is it kid? I’m tired.”
“What’s your name?” He asked.
“What?” She looked at him.
“Your name.” He repeated. She looked at him for a few seconds.
“I’ll tell you tomorrow. Goodnight, kid.” She closed his door.
Orson’s heart fell light. Sometimes he would have memories of when people were in the bunker with him, and his heart would feel heavy somehow, but as he carefully removed his clothes until he was only in the standard grey underwear, and took off the black diamond necklace and placed it carefully on the dresser’s top surface, and he crawled into the strategically created “Pillow Fort”, his heart felt…Light.
The next day, he would not study the Dream interpretation book at all, because Orson could have sworn that only half a minute into the castle of cotton, he fell into a state outside of the world. A dreamless, nightmare-less, careless state, where no matter how deep Orson’s body sunk into the mattress, he could not feel the springs underneath.
 But the comfort of his sleep dwindled in comparison to what really made his heart light.
There was someone there to tell him goodnight.