The Ashes of Crawley

I stand in my old neighborhood that has been reduced to ashes; houses that were so magnificent are now nothing more than piles of ruble and scrap. This neighborhood used to be home to most of Crawley’s upper class residents, if you’d like to call them that, but now its part of this barren landscape that is now known as the wastelands.

The year is 2019 and the government has finally taken over all of society…well most of it. The government started demanding that everyone had to have a microchip implanted inside their wrist, for what they say are “security reasons” after the forth world war happened, but what I really think their for is 24 hour surveillance over our lives to prevent any freedom, to keep us all under control as they play their cruel game. My Hometown, Crawley was infected with this government idea right after London, and mind you this all took place two years ago, so I’m not surprised if it’s spread to Eastern Europe and North America. I myself have been running from the Proxy’s (as the underground call them) for one and a half years, ever since they found out that I wasn’t a part of their system.

My name is Greg and I have been apart of the underground society that’s main priority is to overthrow the government and liberate England. Ever since this chip has been introduced to our society, many of them refused it and ran away to the other side of town where it is quite run down from the war, it was one part that was used for the trenches and battle field and I’m not surprised if you would walk around you would find a couple bodies. On the other side of town where all the conformists (as I call them) live now, the whole town had been rebuilt and equipped with all of the government’s cameras and satellites that keep record of where every single person goes 24 hours a day.

I went back to my old neighborhood to look for my old friend, Brian, I usually checked up on him and gave him food and anything he needed. He didn’t want to become part of the underground and had this obsession with living out in the hinterland by himself; I still don’t know why he does.

There were a few houses that were still standing, but most of the walls were scorched and covered with dry blood, which made the area smell like death. Brian made himself and home inside one of the standing buildings; all I had to do was find it, which might take awhile. I started down another alley way, which brought me to a section that had a fire going, I knew it was him so I started towards him.
“Brian?” I shouted, “You there man?”
There was nothing but silence, I called a couple more times but still there was no response. I lowered my voice and crept into the house,
“Brian, Brian you there?”

I went into the house deeper only to find blood on the stairs, I bent over and touched it, and it was still warm. I didn’t even want to go up the stairs; I could only imagine what was up there. I sat down on one of the stairs and put my head in my hands, the familiar sting came, as tears came to my eyes, and I let some drop to the floor. I knew in the back of my mind, I couldn’t just leave him there that would just be inhumane.
I went upstairs just to check if it was actually as bad as I imagined it would be, I followed the trail of blood to one of the rooms, and there he was, lying on the floor with a bullet in his head and what it looked like a slash across his throat.

I looked away as tears came crawling back to my eyes. It was probably the proxy’s that had done this too him, they even put him in a position where his arms were folded across his chest, like they were playing with his dead body. I couldn’t take the sight of him anymore and I ran out of the room and I threw up near the window, and leaned against the wall and looked out. I hated those Proxy’s more than anything else in the world, and I would have my revenge on them, very soon.

I went down stairs, and took out of the bag I was carrying a bottle of gasoline, which was supposed to be for his fires but I guess he won’t need it anymore. I went up stairs and started spreading it among the floors, I went down the stairs and covered the walls and as much area as I could, then the bag. I went outside, took out a matchbook out of my jacket, lit a match and threw it inside the house. The whole floor caught fire in an instant, I backed away a little and I started to walk away from the house, I took once last look at the house and I saw that the second floor caught fire and was blacking the outside walls. I still couldn’t believe they found him, I was so irritated that he actually let them find him, I know him, he would have ran, he would have knew that they were on to him, that they would find him
.
As I found my ways through the alleys, I started back towards the dead forest and I made my way back to the valley, the valley was a strip of land that had the wastelands and the city in plain view, but also had ruble and dead trees scattered through the land. The trick was to hide behind the ruble and hide from any proxy’s that might have been watching, but I guess today was my lucky day.

As I approached the strip I looked to see if anyone was there, but it was deserted, I thought maybe that they were called to more important business in the city. As I walked across, I heard heavy breathing; I stopped, frozen with fear I ran and jumped behind a wall of ruble. I stayed there for a moment and two people came around the corner, I gasped and felt like my heart was in a clamp. The two people were a woman and a little girl; I thought they were proxy’s at first, so I was so relived. The woman looked at me; she had dried tear streaks down her cheeks. She stammered out,
“Please help me, p-please I beg you”
“What happened to you? Who are you?” I asked her, and I took her wrist in my hand and turned it over to see a black square buried beneath the skin. I looked up at her and I dropped her wrist.
“Why are you here? They could be watching you right now, your putting the both of us in danger!” I stood up to leave, but she grabbed my arm in protest,
“Please don’t go, I need you help, me and my daughter escaped, I don’t want to live like this anymore, please help us!”
I looked down at her daughter and I sighed.
“Ok…just don’t slow me down, you have to follow me. I’m going to the underground…we’ll…” I looked down at her wrist, “fix your little problem there.”
“Thank you” She grabbed her child’s arm and started to follow me.

We went through the rest of the forest until we reached the door. I uncovered the floor, where the metal door was under. I knocked 5 times and backed away, the door swung open and a guy in a hard hat peaked out. He looked at me and smiled,
“Hey! Your back, that’s good, how’s Brian?”
“Could be better…I found these two in the strip, I’ve brought them back to, rid them of their problem, you think you could take over from here?”
“Oh course…oh Greg their waiting for you downstairs ok.”
I started down the stairs and went through a doorway, into the meeting room.
I walked in to see the whole committee there, and they were just finishing the plans to invade the city.
“Greg you’re here great! Here are the plans for tonight.”
“Tonight?”

He nodded and handed over a piece of paper that had a scribbled out plan with barley visible writing, so it took me awhile to read through it. It sounded to me like a suicide mission, but I knew I had to go through with it no matter what. He asked me if I was up to it, everyone was looking at me, I just nodded back and dropped the piece of paper on the table. As everyone started to discuss the plans and go over the details over and over again, I got up to get the weapons ready.

As everyone got ready to go, we spilt up into groups and we left the room. As I was walking down the hall I saw the two strangers that I had picked up, as a man had a knife and was working the chip out of the small child’s arm, her screams echoed throughout the hallway, making me cringe. Everyone started to head upstairs and gathered around outside the door. I was assigned to a man named John, to whom I’ve never really seen around much, I supposed he was somewhat new; I could see the fear in his eyes.

The plan was to go to the city, get over the walls, find our way to the control building and shut off the computers, shut down the signals. It was John and I who were responsible for distributing a virus throughout the system that would eat away all of the data, all of the codes for the chips, everyone’s information.

John and I broke off of the group when we were beyond the city walls, and started toward the black control building, which stored all of the data, while the other groups went to the silver control building that held all the security tapes, and where the Proxy’s stayed. As we reached the door, the access key we had gotten got us in, we headed to the top floor. When we got there, there were two proxy’s in there and I had shot one in the leg and then in the chest, watched him fall to the floor and shot him one more time to make sure he couldn’t get up. John shot the other one and it killed him instantly.

I went over to the main computer and slipped the disk in and waited for the virus to load, as John started to shoot at the computers, I had to yell at him to stop. After the virus loaded it started to get rid of all the data that was there, but right after an alarm had sounded off, indicating that someone had gotten into the silver building, I knew that everyone was in trouble and I had to get over there right away. I left with the disk still in, as it was doing what it was supposed to be doing, Me and John ran down the stairs and bolted out of the front door and took off for the other building.

There were Proxy’s everywhere and they were all trying to get into the building, I looked over at John and we nodded at each other, we ran out from behind a car and we opened fire on them. We ran like mad men, openly shooting trying to hit anyone we could. As we reached the door, we took out every single one of them,
“Good shooting” I said and nodded, he smiled and nodded back.

As we got into the building, all I heard was gunshots and yelling, I ran up the stairs as fast as I could, reaching the top floor, panting and gasping for air. John got ahead of me and I followed after him, we got through to another room were the Proxy’s were, and all hell was breaking loose. Most of our men were down and probably dead, John ran ahead of me and opened fire killing everyone he could, before he too, was shot down. I shouted and ran in after him; I pulled him behind a wall and looked at him. His eyes were rolled back, he wasn’t breathing anymore. I slowly put him down on the floor, and I took his gun, I loaded it with more ammo and I crawled out slowly from behind the wall. I began to shoot down the rest of the proxy’s that were still standing, after everyone was down, there was nothing but silence. Finally I found my voice and I called out,
“Is anyone still there...Is anyone still alive? It’s Greg.”
“Y-yea I’m here, there are still at least 7 of us that are still alive and I’m just really badly hurt.”

I laid against the wall, knowing that this wasn’t over, it’s just only started but at least I’ve done my part, to help liberate England from this government takeover. Maybe I will still be alive to see the day, when freedom will be back in the land, back in the world. I know that now, there will be many more wars because of this, because of what I had done.

I found the strength to pick myself up, I looked down at John’s body that lay lifelessly on the ground, I turned around to go help the others get up and go back downstairs. I knew most of the men still alive and all the others that had died I also knew.
I had to carry one of them down the stairs as we headed back to the underground; we had to avoid any Proxy’s that might have seen us. We quickly and quietly went back through the strip and made it to the underground. I couldn’t believe that we actually pulled it off, even though many of my friends were killed, which was very depressing at the time, but at the same time they died for a cause. Someone ran down the stairs, and yelled,
“The Proxy’s, their coming! Everyone get ready.”

Everyone started to rush around, all the woman and children were trying to get away and hide. I stood up and slowly started walking up the stairs, as other men were doing. We stood huddled for awhile and said a prayer, the door was slowly opened, as many people jumped out and started shooting, I looked down at the floor and thought 'This is for you Brian', and I jumped out…into a war.