Chapter 2

Chapter 2

I yawned. I could feel someone poking me and shaking me. I sat up sleepily and looked at my alarm clock. 3:10am. I looked at the foot of my bed where I could see my brother’s shapely body moving quickly around my bedroom.
“Blink?”
“Shhh!” he hissed. “Hurry, we’re already behind schedule.”
“What?” I was confused but I moved out of bed anyway thinking that it was a better idea then upsetting my brother.
“Where are we going?” He didn’t answer. He threw an outfit at me. I couldn’t see it, but I knew that they weren’t my clothes. They felt rough and heavy. I didn’t want to put them on, but I’d grown up with my brother long enough to know that it wasn’t the smartest thing to piss him off. He turned around to let me change and began to scribble a note to our parents.
“What are we doing?” I repeated, after putting on the last bit of clothing. Still, he said nothing. He finally finished the note and re-read it, mumbling the text to himself.
“Come,” he said “we have to go.”
“But,” I began “mom and dad will worry…”
“They’re your past life, “ Blink interrupted. “You don’t have to worry about them anymore.” My first thought was that I was dreaming, and that I would wake up anymore. Maybe that’s why I followed him down the stairs quietly. He practically threw a pair of heavy black boots at me.
“Here,” he said “put these on.” I squeezed my feet into them and ran after my brother who had already begun to walk without me.
He began to slow down once we reached the sidewalk. When I looked up at his face, he looked serious and fixed on the road ahead. Everything was silent until he said
“Take a good look at our house.” I looked back and stared at it as it as it began to fade in the darkness of the night. “It’s probably going to be a long time till you see it.”
I sighed angrily. He was frustrating me.
“Where are we going, Blink? Tell me now!” I raised my voice to a high whisper.
“To our new home.” He simply said. I stared at his empty face.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“God damn it, while you please speak lower. You’re going to wake up the neighborhood.”
“Well, you’re not telling me anything! Tell me where we’re going.”
“Soon.”
“No!” I yelled “Tell me or…I’ll…sit…right here!” I sat myself on the street.
“Are you crazy?” he looked at me sitting there in the dim light of a street lamp.
“Am I crazy? You’re the one who dragged me out of bed at 3:00 am to go to God-knows-where!”
“Can’t you trust me?” he looked at me.
“Why? For 3 years you’ve been pushing me out of your God-damned life, and now you’re suddenly asking me to trust you? And at 3 in the morning…what’s wrong with you?”
He sighed.
“I know…but…you’ll understand. I didn’t mean to push you away, it’s just that…well…come with me…I’ll explain on the way.”
I looked up at the face that I’d grown up with. I reluctantly got up, feeling a bit stupid and immature for sitting in the street.
We began walking again. My brother began explaining how it had started.
“Ever since I’d become a teenager, I’ve felt so alone. So stupid. I’ve felt as if this world has done nothing for me. My body began to break down. My mind was being wrecked. I couldn’t think straight. Then one day, I realized that it wasn’t the world that was destroying me, it was the people who made this world the way it is.”
“Who exactly?” I cut in.
“The adults.” He said to my surprise “So for about a year, I sat alone, until I met 3 other people who felt the same way. We wanted to start something. Where we could be in an environment where we weren’t alone. Safe. We found a place and hid there for a time. It worked until we realized that we weren’t the only ones who felt the same way. When one of the 3 people made something,” the thought of “the something” made him smile. “Which would keep us from being adults, we knew that we couldn’t keep it to ourselves. We would start a …cult…if that’s what you want to call it.” He looked down at me and smiled.
“Is that where we’re going to your cult? Your club? Your little tree house our something?” I looked at him. I was tired and frustrated. His very brief story made no sense to me. I was sure that he was making fun of me laughing behind the serious expression that was sitting on his face. He frowned at me as if I’d just contradicted him completely.
“This isn’t a joke.” He grasped my shoulders and looked me in the eye. “I’m serious. We’re leaving the adult world. We’re going to our new home.”
“Whatever Blink!” I began to walk back towards my house. I didn’t know what he was talking bout, nor did I really care, after all, I was only thirteen and the idea of leaving your bed at three in the morning to see a tree house seemed like a pretty farfetched idea.
“Where are you going?” he called after me.
“Home!”
“Home is this way!”
“No,” I said turning back to him “You can’t just pull me out of bed to join a…a…club house!”
He ran to me and grabbed me.
“I know you don’t believe a word I’m saying but…I couldn’t tell you earlier. I didn’t even know if we’d be bringing anyone yet. Very last minute. It’s hard to believe, but this is what is going on.”
I looked away from him. As much as I wanted to believe him, I couldn’t.
“Promise me that if I want to leave I can!” I said firmly.
He let go of me and stared down as though trying to figure out a way around my request.
“I can’t promise you that. But I can say that I will do my best to make you want to stay there.”
I knew that he wouldn’t let me go back and that there was no point in fighting. He was a very persistent person. At the same time there was a childish thrill that seemed to be grabbing my hand and eagerly pulling me along with my brother. I finally agreed that I’d go with him. We walked without saying a word to each other. After walking for what seemed like forever he brought me to a very run down part of the city. Every corner seemed to be worse then the last. Garbage lined the sidewalk and the tree and the buildings looked as though they hadn’t been touched in ages. But walking down the deserted street you could tell that their were, in fact, people living here. Some windows were open with curtains blowing outside, and if you looked close enough you could see the faint glow of a television set in one or two of the windows. We finally reached what seemed to be a corner store. For a brief second I thought that we would be going inside, but my brother only motioned for me to follow him behind it. There is always a fear of walking into an alley way. You never know what could be lurking inside the shadows, which could be why I gave a short gasp at the first sign of movement in front of my brother. That’s when I saw them for the first time.
“Your late.” A deep male voice whispered out of the shadows.
“I know.” My brother shot back. He grabbed hold of my arm and squeezed it reassuring me that it would be alright, and then flung me into the darkness of the alley knocking me off my feet.
After regaining my stance, I looked up and saw three figures leaning against the side of the wall. “This is my sister.”
A tall, almost bald girl walked out from the darkness. I could almost feel a difference in the weather as she stared at me with an icy gaze. I refused to show her that I was frightened out of my wits.
“A bit small.” She pointed out to my brother in a rather harsh voice.
“She’s strong though.” He threw back at her. The girl lifted my arm and stared at me up and down.
“She’s fine.” Snapped a male voice, and a young boy, about 15, of medium height, stepped out.
“What do you think C?” asked my brother. Another boy, quite tall also about 15, stepped out and shrugged.
“Fine.” Said the girl “Let’s get moving before someone catches sight of us!” She moved quickly past my brother and bent low to the ground right over a gutter. She inspected the ground, brushing away some dirt. Then, unexpectedly, she lifted the top of the gutter and moved it to the side. She stood back and the two other boys jumped down. I could hear their feet hit the cement down below, but it was anyone’s guess as to how far down it was. At this point I thought that I’d figured out that it was a joke. Even if it wasn’t, the idea of making my jump into a sewer was absurd. I began to laugh.
“You’re joking right? A gutter? You have a cult in a gutter?”
The girl gave me an icy cold stare and then shot a look at my brother.
“What the hell did you tell her? Or more importantly, what DIDN’T you tell her?” she asked him angrily. He shrugged and started to explain, until she cut him off. “Whatever.” Then she looked over at me. “Now look…I’m sorry your brother didn’t tell you about anything, but this is for your own good. I’m not about to argue with you, and I’m certainly not going to stand around here taking crap from people, especially you. So get your ass down there.” She pointed into the gutter. I stood there for a few seconds. This girl was intimidating, but not intimidating enough to make me willingly jump into a sewer. So I just stood there. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t need to. She took a few steps towards me and stood hanging over me. For a second I thought she was going to slap me, but instead, she took my shoulders and moved me forcefully to the edge of the opening. If she let me go, I was sure to fall in. “At this point,” she put calmly “You have two choices: Jump down or I drop you in.”
“I’ll climb down.” I whispered in fear. She let me go away from the gutter and stood back so that I’d have room to get down. I stared down in to the darkness of the gutter. I let my foot go blindly searching for the ladder.
“There isn’t a ladder.” She said. “Only a floor. Jump!” I looked down into the darkness and took a breath. Then I let myself fall.
It didn’t take me long to reach the ground, but when I did, I was unprepared and I fell hard on a concrete floor, making me fall over on to my left arm. My brother and the girl quickly followed. My brother reached up through the hole and slid the gutter top back into place. It became pitch black, it was only then that a strong stench, suddenly smacked me in the face making me feel faint for a second. Suddenly a small light flickered behind me. The girl held a small lantern with a small wax candle inside.
“Follow me!” she said shoving me to the side. I turned quickly to look at my brother. He was avoiding my eyes. Instead of trying to catch his eye, I looked around at what was supposedly my new home. I was in, what looked like a large cement cylindrical tube. I was standing on a narrow cement platform that stretched into the darkness ahead and behind me. It was an abandoned sewage system that was plain to see. There was no water but the remains of old plastics and aluminum bottles lay stranded here and there, along with old pieces of broken down garbage. The stench in the air suggested that it hadn’t been abandoned for long.
We were in a single line. The girl was leading the front of the line, then the two boys, me and then my brother. I stared at my feet as we walked. I was tired. I wished that I were back home in bed without a care in the world, oblivious to what was going on right now.
I couldn’t see anything ahead of me except the back of the boy in front of me. Repeatedly I noticed him turning his head ever so slightly as though I were a time bomb about to explode or an animal following him home. We suddenly turned abruptly down a smaller concrete tube. I felt dizzy.
“This can only be a dream.” I thought to myself as we stopped abruptly at a wall completely covered in graffiti. It seemed to be a large mural of some sort. From the glow of the lantern I could make out a large shape with different shades of blue and white splashed together. I guessed that this was the ocean. It was consuming what I supposed was a city. Large rectangular shapes all compacted together.
“Remember this spot.” The girl said to me. “This is the front door.” She handed the lantern over to the boy behind her and carefully inspected the wall. “Move the light over a bit to the left.” She ordered.
As it was moved to the left I could see more shapes emerging out of the darkness. I saw what seemed to be a swarm of people all gathered together underneath a large tree. The figures were expressionless but somehow you could almost tell that they were anticipating something.
“It’s beautiful isn’t it?” my brother sighed. “C painted it. Didn’t you?” My brother looked over at the boy who was holding the lantern. He grinned. My stomach turned. “It’s like it speaks to you. The painting I mean.” I nodded.
“I found it.” She girl suddenly burst out. I moved a bit closer to see what she was talking about. She was leaning over one of the large painted buildings and pressed one of the windows. There was a small click. Then a large rumble sounded. It echoed all along the cylindrical walls and suddenly the wall slid back quite suddenly, revealing three long corridors, all leading into darkness. We began advancing down the center hall. There was a loud groan and the wall slid closed behind us. I felt a surge of panic run through my body. I had no idea where they were taking me, but wherever it was I wanted light. We soon came to an opening; almost as though we were standing on a cliff over looking a vast territory of land. The candle in the lantern was lifted up to what looked like a large torch hanging off the wall. The candle was lifted out of the box and brought to the tip of the torch, which was dripping wet of something, but not water…I gasped as the flame erupted and a chain of fire began to encircle the entire room. A long piece of string was connecting a circle of torches that hung off of the stonewall.
Pretty soon the whole cave was full of light. Now I could see almost as though I was in a large auditorium. The width was at least the size of a soccer field and the height must have been a little under that. We were standing at one of five entrances all leading down towards a bunch of poorly constructed picnic tables all put together facing a large jagged stone slab. It looked almost as though it were a stage. On this stone slab were four chairs. This was my first look at the Open Hall.
“Home sweet home.” Sighed my brother. They all lead me to a picnic table and smiled down at me. “Sit there,” my brother informed me “and just wait a second.” He had an excited twinkle in his eye. Then all four of them turned around and disappeared behind the large platform. About a minute later all of them appeared on top of the platform, smiling. They sat down, each at an individual seat on the stage and my brother stood up.
“Hello.” My brother’s voice boomed loud and clear, reverberating off of every corner of the cave. “My name is Blink. I am a member of the council. We are your council. We are starting the rebellion.”