Gods of Anthem

Links

It’s my day
in the meadow today. Once each quarter, I’m allowed to apply for outside duty, and I missed the last cycle due to rain. The roads are still wet, but it’s nice out, for what constitutes as nice these days. Rarely are there animals, but sometimes deer approach me while I’m cleaning up trash.

These deer look healthy, free, and fast—everything I’m not. It’s wise to keep your distance, though, because even the seemingly gentle will attack you, especially after a storm.

The sky’s redder than usual, like tears of the sun. My locater bracelet’s clamped around my arm, pinching my non-bicep. Why they insist on using it is beyond me. Where would I run? This place is surrounded by an ocean of clear emerald-green that is deceivingly inviting, but sharks swim the coastlines in hordes, unfished. Hard to imagine we’d swum in them once upon a time. Now it’s not even safe to venture past ankle depth.

I’m cleaning up pristine, rarely used areas not far from the gate. Even this little bit of work is making me breathe hard and perspire.

From every place on the island, the compound is visible, sprawling out in a maze of corridors. Camp Bodega holds only a million people now. I say “only” because once upon a time, it held ten times that amount. How many have come and died here is impossible to know. Either fewer people are born with the cancer gene, or more are developing the aggressive cancers and dying off more quickly. The last reason is harder to accept, which probably makes it the truer one.

Up ahead, a man emerges from the bushes into my path.

He waves. “Hallo.”

My steps catch, then stop. He’s wearing a grey smock, and his shiny dome sweats in the heat. A prisoner.

At once, my legs pedal backwards and my nervous fingers drop my bag. Most of us prisoners are teens or children. Adults are rare because doctors find the gene immediately.

“Don’t worry!” he calls in a deep timbre. “I won’t hurt ya!” But he takes a few steps forward.

We stare at one another, and the sense of foreboding hangs over me like a canopy. I take three breaths before I start to run.

“Hey!”

But I’m already gone, weaving through the forest toward the compound. Never had I thought I’d view that lump of industry as a savior.

My body’s so weak, and all too soon, rubber replaces my legs. Hopefully this man is sicker than I am because, unless I’m mistaken, he’s given chase and is crashing through the bushes only a few feet behind.

I’m a stage four, though in better shape than most on my block. A four is it. A four is the worst.

I’m hoping … I’m hoping he’s a four, and further along than me. Near death.

Eyes squeezed shut, I push for more, but I’m slowing, and he hits me hard from behind. A scream bursts from my throat while I tumble to the ground. He’s a large man, especially fit; he must have been called out to help with tree removal after the storms and wandered off from the guards. Bigger than anyone I’ve seen here, his body’s pinning me down easily.

“No! Nonono!”

He twists me around to face him, and my nails scratch red lines across his face before he traps my wrists in one hand. Regret tinges the grey depths of his eyes, until they glaze over with lust. He rips my pants with his free hand.

“Please stop!” My words will him to see me, the human left inside.

We die here in this place; we’re already dead to some, and most do whatever they can before the end. When visiting the meadow, it’s alone—always. But not today. And no one’s around to stop him.

My top rips down the middle
. “No!”

He freezes. An inexplicable shame fills me. Underneath my shirt, there’s nothing for him to gawk at, yet he’s gawking nevertheless. Scars. Just scars where my small breasts had once been.

My virginal body jolts, and embarrassment heats my skin. Hatred toward this man for staring at my flat chest, almost caved in where my life-saving double mastectomy had been performed, coils deep in my belly.

Breast cancer. This dawns on him, and though he glances at me in pity, he’s still removing his smock.

“Get off … off!” I yell. “Get. Off. Of. Me.”

My weak attempts to stop him are easily batted away.

“What’s going on here?”

Like magic, a black bar appears beneath my attacker’s chin. Another guard comes from the woods in addition to the one that’s got the grey-eyed man in a choke hold.

The opportunity to free my hands is not wasted; I’m already pulling my ripped shirt together and crawling away.

The second guard charges through the brush, baton raised above his head like a warrior, and they descend upon the grey-eyed man. I’ve seen them in action before. They’re like machines.

Sadness should be the last thing felt as the guards beat him, yet it sneaks up on me. He’s cowered next to a tree while they take turns like wolves, arms swinging and swinging in rhythmic thuds that only they understand, and it’s like they’ll never run out of energy.

Now his screams rent the air as mine die down to small hiccups from shock.

And still the guards don’t stop.

He squeals and grunts, and then falls silent. A bloody mess lies on the forest ground, red rolling down the slight incline toward the guards’ feet. They move aside in unison before motioning for me to follow them back to the compound.