Warning... this is not a nice future. I put a lot of my own fears in this as to the future of this country and what it could become. I love end of the world type movies because I love to see how humans fight to keep going. This chapter talks about the treatment of people after the world goes to hell. Make sure you read the intro to this prior to reading this, because it sets up everything. Chapter one is the introduction to the main story which is Maia (pronounced May-uh) and set up of what's to come. I'm also working on creating a scene and describing it. I'm great at coming up with stories, I'm just horrific at some of the minor details because I get caught up in the big picture. So in this story I'm working on details, details, details! I have written a vampire story awhile back but never finished it because I needed to do more detailing. I should finish that, lol. But anyhoo, here is Chapter 1 of the working title for the book Lacedaemon (pronounced Las-uh-demon). Lacedaemon is the other name for the city of Sparta. The reason for that will be answered in Chapter 2.
Lacedaemon (WIP)
Intro
I've always thought of myself as an ally to the oppressed. I stood up for LGBT marriage rights. I stood with my wife as she fought for equality in pay for women. I stood with those fighting against brutality from the police. But when push came to shove, I was a chicken.
We had made progress. America was finally on the path to inclusivity. Then the terrorist attacks started and it descended our nation into chaos. People turned on their neighbors, the police, and for awhile, cities burned. Our military was already stretched so thin by the all important war on terrorism, that nobody was left to regain order. The government crumbled.
America imploded and there was no law-enforcement left to impose martial law. Religious and fundamental political zealots, known as the AFA (America for Americans) took over and rounded up anyone who was different or disagreed with them. If you were Muslim, identified as gay by your neighbors, or just looked at them the wrong way, you were hauled out of your house to the middle of the street where everyone was forced to watch your execution. If you went peacefully then you were given a quick death. But if you resisted then it was worse. Much worse. Because then you were beaten until you finally succumbed. That could take days, even weeks.
I thought I was a brave ally until the gun was shoved in my face and I saw the tears in my wife and six year old daughter's eyes. Would you still die for your beliefs when you know the ones that you leave behind could be tortured, raped, and killed? I hope my daughter understands my choice and forgives me.
Chapter 1 - The Present
"Happy Birthday, Meia!"
The cake was a piece of bread with peanut butter on it, but mom did manage to find sprinkles to put on it. It's not like they gave us much in these encampments, so God knows what she had to give up to the guards to get those sprinkles.
I looked around our cell that we called home. It consisted of three walls adorned with a few of our pictures that we were allowed to bring from home. We weren't allowed to keep the frames because the glass could be a weapon, so they were scotch taped to the walls. It had all the amenities that included a toilet that barely flushed, but the sink still worked. Our bunkbeds barely had cushion in the mattresses anymore. Occasionally they would give us new pillows, so we took the cushion out of the old pillows and stuff it in the mattresses. It also had a very small table and storage unit. You didn't want to keep anything important in there though, because the guards would eventually steal it.
Because my father had been convicted as an American terrorist, we were forced to live and work in the prison. It's where the AFA tortures their prisoners until they give up their friends or die. I don't know which is worse... Watching your father be tortured to death, or the father watching his child watching him be tortured.
I've spent thirteen years in this prison. My birthday is just another reminder that somehow I managed to survive another year of hell on earth. We call the prison Dantes Inferno, because depending on your age determined which level of hell you were in.
Children were forced to do the chores and clean. That also meant cleaning up the blood of the people who were tortured and killed. That's enough to screw up a kid for life. But if you want to survive in this place, you develop a thick skin. The magistrate, a greasy-haired, manipulative, self-described "preacher", wanted it that way. That way we always knew where we would end up if we rebelled.
When the boys came of age they started the process of being a guard, and that included teaching them how to treat women. Which meant as slaves. In this world, males were the only ones worthy of a second chance.
When the girls reached sixteen years of age they are forced into being raped by gay men who are being forced to do so or be tortured and killed. They are given a chance to change from their "evil ways" and spend the rest of their life in prison undergoing conversion. Few accept the torture and death route. The ones that stay cling to a hope that one day they'll be free, but I gave up that dream the first time I was raped. I still remember the man whispering in my ear "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." They had to put on a good show though, and make it believable, because the magistrate was watching.
Lesbians and bisexual women had it worse. Because they didn't respect men, they are gang-raped by the soldiers and then killed. History repeats itself when we don't learn from our past. Women were reduced to a minority role again, and there was nothing we could do about it. Especially when the country is starving, the government obliterated, and the rest that remain have been reduced to the most basic primal instincts of survival and fear.
The world we lived in when I was six years old is much different than the world we live in now. Even if people disagree with the AFA, they are too scared to speak up. You followed the rules or you died. It's an Old Testament world now, only being stoned to death would be a blessing. The New Testament has been rewritten and very few copies of the original remain. God forbid you get found with a copy of one.
As I blew out the matchstick that was the makeshift candle, I tried to form a smile for mom. And I just wondered which guard she had to get raped by to get the sprinkles and match. That was my birthday present. Another year survived in a God-fearing yet Godless world.
My mom was always good with gardening. When the magistrate found that out he allowed her to start a garden in the fields to be a more self-sustaining prison facility. It was a win/win, because the prisoners were able to grow what they wanted and eat healthier, and the magistrate was happy to spend less money on feeding us.
Depending on what guard was on duty, sometimes my mom was able to smuggle in an extra piece of fruit. One of them had taken favor with her and she used that. When she produced the banana from under her shirt my jaw dropped.
"Mom! You could've been beaten!" She handed the banana to me and I twirled it in my hands and looked at it as if it was made of pure gold.
"I don't care," she replied as she coyly grinned. "It's worth it for my only daughter on her nineteenth birthday!" I just shook my head and smiled as I peeled back the banana and split it and gave half to her.
"Thanks mom." I don't know how she remembered these things. I gave up counting the days long ago. When you're stuck looking at the same gray walls twenty hours a day, you tend to lose all semblance of time. Our days consisted of 14 hours of hard work unless you were lucky enough to get raped. Then you got half a day off. We only got to see the sun on our mealtimes and mandatory exercise time. Otherwise we were working or confined to our cell block.
It could be worse. At least we're fed three meals a day. I hate to be so blasé about the rape, but honestly once you are put into that situation a dozen times you just kind of get used to it. There is no other choice. If you are put into the prison then you are considered the scum of the earth. The ones unworthy of God's love. At least that's what the magistrate says. So since we are deemed unworthy, we are treated as such. But it could be worse. I guess.
Chapter 2 - Sins of the Father
"Look, I'll do and say whatever you want! Just please don't hurt my family!" I heard my dad say. My mom was screaming and holding me tight. Five armed guards pulled my family into the center of the street and threw us to the ground. I saw the stares of the neighbors and knew what was about to happen. It wasn't my first time.
"You are the worst kind of ally! A turncoat! A traitor! You do not deserve the quick death!"
And as I awoke in my cot engulfed in sweat,the tears started to stream down my face. I told my mom that I didn't remember that day. So she created this lie that he died for his beliefs. But every night since, I have relived it in my nightmares. My dad died a coward. That is his legacy. That is what every guard has told me when they raped me. Their snide grins I can't escape.
I mentally shook it off and breathed in deep and slowly let it out. It has been a week since my birthday and I couldn't wait to confront my mom any longer. As I was cleaning her cot yesterday, I found a copy of the New Testament propaganda under the sheets. There were murmurs in the prison of people trying to start a rebellion. They whispered under their breaths and said that in the city outside the prison there was a small uprising. Even some of the top AFA members got killed. I figured it was just stories, like back when I was a kid. A bunch of people in a neighborhood tried to fight back. The AFA literally destroyed the entire neighborhood. Hundreds of people died in one fell swoop when a dozen F-18's descended and obliterated them with missiles and gunfire. Talk of any uprising after that all but disappeared. But recently it had gained traction again.
"Mom, are you awake?"
"Did you have another nightmare?" My breath caught in my throat and I struggled to swallow. I thought I had been good at hiding them. "I know you have them every night. You talk in your sleep."
"What? What do I say?" I started biting my lips wondering what on earth I said at night.
"It's mostly incoherent. But occasionally you'll cry out to your dad." I wasn't crying out to him, I was cursing him. "Did you want to talk about it?"
"Not that. I found this in your bunk." I slept on the top bunk because my mom had a bad back, so I reached my hand down and handed the propaganda to her. I was so angry I couldn't even look at her, so I just slammed my head back down on my pillow. It was a long minute before she responded. The mattress springs creaked and I knew she was getting up to face me.
"I know you don't want to hear it-"
"You're right mom, I don't want to hear it!" I've heard it a hundred times before.
"But there is a revolution coming. There are people underground working on trying to free us!" Just like the revolution that happened when I was ten. Nothing happened. And the revolution took place when I was fifteen. Nothing happened. I just shake my head and roll my eyes. I don't even know how to respond.
"And who told you about this revolution? Manny?" Manny was the guard that had a crush on her. Her look was my answer.
"There are some guards on our side!"
"Mom, did you ever think that the guards might be giving you false hope in an effort to expose the revolutionists? You're going to get yourself killed!"
"You and I both know that if they wanted us dead, they would do it."
Point taken. We both saw what the magistrate did firsthand.
"We just need to do something! We need to stand up and fight like your dad."
"Dad was a coward." I muttered under my breath as I sat up in my cot.
"What?" I saw the look of complete and utter sadness in her eyes, but defiantly I stuck out my chin and said it again louder so she could hear. She took a few steps back and I thought she was going to fall to the floor.
"Why would you ever say that?" She replied, her voice quivering.
"Mom, I remember. I remember everything." The tears started to stream little rivers down my cheeks again. "I listened as he gave up all of the names of his friends."
"I thought... I thought that you didn't remember. I thought that you blocked it out, otherwise I would've explained the whole thing to you." I sat there and listened as my mother explained to me that the names that I thought my father had given up, as a traitor, were fictitious. That he led the magistrate on a wild goose chase. And that is why the magistrate slit his throat in front of me. It wasn't to punish me for being a traitor's daughter, but to punish him for being courageous and willful. "You get it honest" she told me.
I jumped down from my cot and fell to my knees. My mother, who was also in tears by that point, wrapped her arms around me and we sobbed together. We sat on that cold cement floor for what seemed like an eternity until she finally spoke. I just couldn't speak. Everything that I remember as a six-year-old child was wrong.
"Now I finally understand the look that you gave me every time I told you that your father was a hero. In your eyes you saw him as a traitor. And believe me, he wanted to give in at times, only because he could not bear the thought of us being alone in this world." I sat there for a few more minutes taking it all in until I started to shiver. Then mom grabbed my hand and pulled me up from the cold hard floor and we sat on her bed.
"Do you remember the last words that your father said?" Of course I did. It was replayed in my nightmares every night. It was also tattooed on my mother's wrist.
"Aut cum scuto aut in scuto. Do you remember what it means?" I shook my head. Dad was a history professor and started teaching me Latin at five, because he said that it was the world's most beautiful language and along with English should be learned. I didn't have much time to learn it with him, so I couldn't remember the meaning. "It was the final act of rebellion from your father. Spartan mothers who sent their sons to battle told them to come back with their shield or on it. Meaning to fight honorably, but should they perish in battle, to die honorably."
So my father in his final act of rebellion, once the magistrate found out the names were fake, sent this message to us, on his dying breath, to keep fighting. With your shield or on it. My father was truly a hero. Now it was up to me to fulfill his wish.
--
For the next several weeks I spent my spare time with The Underground. Lame name, but that's what they wanted to call themselves. I still didn't trust Manny or any of the guards. I knew that if they were caught that they would throw us under the bus. I didn't realize just how big this movement was. I assumed most of the people in here were like me and had given up hope.
As I learned more and more about the movement, something changed inside of me. Against my better judgment, I started to have hope. Through a series of delivery workers and the few guards that grew up in the prison and were in the movement, they were able to sneak a few items in.
"How do you think I got your sprinkles?" Mom saw the look on my face as my cheeks reddened. Curse the Irish in our lineage that made my skin so white it was almost translucent. My cheeks always turned almost as red as my long wavy hair when I was embarrassed. "I love you hon, but if I was to willingly allow myself to be raped, it would be worth more than sprinkles. I'd at least ask for some toilet paper too!"
"The soft kind?" I said, tongue in cheek.
Of course!" We giggled and it was so nice to hear. I can't even remember the last time I truly laughed.
"But I'm glad that you know that I would be willing to do anything for you," and with that she leaned forward and kissed me on the forehead.
© Spiritual Animystical
