Eleutheria | Chapter 2

Outside

Light.

It’s all around me. I am bathing in light. Sun rays beaming down. It is cold. We have had to wrap up warm. I don’t know what season it is, but the wind has a bite. It has been 693 days since I have been outside. I am conscious of my pale skin, I must look like a Vampire. Then I realise how silly I am. No one cares how pale I am now. Things that used to be important are not anymore. The only thing with value is life.

I am walking on concrete. It is cracked and stained with red. What would once look like the landscape of an apocalypse is now just speckled with ruins. Nothing is burning, there is no smoke coming from crashed cars and there are no fleshy corpses lumped in crevices. There is just nothing. I watch Noreen. She looks horrified. She thought there would be more to collect. Her face hardens. She groups us together. She plans our route.
We are not to walk through the middle. Stick to the shadowed sides. She says the best places are buildings. She said they are also the most dangerous. She points at what might have been a corner shop and tells me I am to collect from there. Take what I can, leave what I can’t. It couldn’t be simpler.

There are a couple of rusted lumps of crumpled metal lining my route. They might have been cars once. I run to the first and crouch behind it. I look up, down, all around, and then run to the next. There is now one section of exposed space between me and the corner shop. I have to be cautious. I think I might vomit. The anticipation of whether or not I’ll make it is almost too much. I run. I don’t even look to check. A leap of faith.

I am still a Survivor. I am a brilliant Survivor. I will be the best. The building is barely standing but it is shelter. I think perhaps I remember it when we first moved to the Church. We only stay in a location for 40 days and 40 nights. Then we move on.

Jordan told me that in the first 365 days, any collection would make you vomit. Everywhere outside would smell of burning or rotting flesh. At least nothing smells here. There is little to collect though. I find a bottle of some kind and pick it up. You can never have too many containers. I see a staircase that looks to dangerous to climb. I stand on the first step anyway. It splits but doesn’t break. I hop up the next one and the next three until it breaks beneath my feet. I scramble up to the top landing, and my foot promptly falls through the ceiling. The sound of concrete and plaster hitting the floor below is deafening. I remember Noreen has a walkie-talkie. Someone back at the Church has the other, in case of any trouble. This is definitely trouble.

I quickly tug my foot out of the floor, but the steel rod supports in between the concrete gnaw at my ankles. It is painful and bloody but I pull my foot out anyway. The force of the pull makes me wobble across the room into somewhere I shouldn’t stand; an open window on an upper floor. Prime target location. I stumble and try to find quick shelter but there is none. I am just flailing around looking for somewhere to run to. There is nothing. The building is gaping open on one side. With nowhere to hide, I decide instead to look for the first immediate danger. There appears to be none. Until I hear Noreen shout louder than I have ever heard before and point into the distance. It looks like a control tower. I hear a peppering sound. I drop.

I am still a Survivor. Repeat the phrase. I will Survive. I will Survive. Like that old club classic song. I will Survive, hey hey. I am going to die. The staircase is crumbled and I don’t know if I can make it down without being hit. The bullets are pumping into the building with impossible speed. I don’t know where Noreen is. I’m sure she will be instructing into the Walkie-talkie. I hope someone will come to get me. But I have to save myself. That is what Survivors do. I crawl along the floor and perch on the top step of the staircase. It cracks and breaks and I am on the ground floor. I am bloody and broken. I’m not sure where I am broken, but I know something hurts. I see a crouching body not too far off. I am sure it is Noreen. I see where the blood is coming from. As I fell I landed on glass. A large shard is wedged into the side of my chest. It has probably broken a couple of ribs. With this realisation I suddenly find it difficult to breathe. The mind is a horrible thing. I grit my teeth and tear my t-shirt from under my coat. I decide not to pull the glass out. It will open the wound, and at the moment I am not bleeding out. I know the control tower will be sending people to search for a confirmed kill. I have to hurry. I try to wedge my t-shirt in between the glass and my flesh. I dig it in to the open wound even though it nearly kills me to do so. I am a Survivor. I will be the best Survivor there ever was. I start to crawl to the entrance where a door once would have been. I see Noreen in her crouching place. She frantically waves at me and puts her palm up in the air. Stop. I don’t move. I hear light footsteps advancing from the right of the building where I can’t see anything. I have to trust Noreen. She can see that section so she will know whose coming. It will be someone from the Colony. The footsteps stop just before I think I should be able to see a person.

Jordan slides in, scattering dust from the floor. He studies me quickly. He looks incensed. He turns me roughly to look at the wound.

‘Can you walk?’ He asks. His deep husky voice is croaky.
‘I don’t know. Probably.’ I try to limp up to my feet. I can’t walk. ‘I fell from the top landing,’ I explain.
‘I guessed.’ Jordan is angry. Or maybe this is how he is outside. Everyone changes, he said. He becomes a soldier; he said he pretends he is playing Call of Duty on his PlayStation3 and that he has been trained for the outside. I changed into a frightened little girl. Pathetic.
‘Put your arm around me,’ Jordan instructs. I do as he says because he knows more about the outside than I do. He is more experienced. He lifts me without struggle. I am thinner than I was BtW, but I doubt Jordan has a problem with lifting anything anyway.

We slink out of the entrance and we run to a sheltered place. From there we dot behind various obstacles until the car-park for the Church is in sight. Then we dash in. Jordan’s muscled arm is pushing the glass further into me. I squirm uncomfortably and feel lightness in my head. A door pushes open and we are submerged in darkness.