We have no other option!” Dulce spoke up, her fiery voice reverberating in my ears.
“Because we have no chance against them,” said John, blankly staring up into the sky. I could tell he was trying to fight a wave of emotions attempting to overcome him. “Because if we try to fight back, then they will take away everything.”
He’s right. There was a sharp pain in my heart, as my mind came to terms with the hopelessness of our situation. The only reason the government hasn’t killed us all yet is because we are out of their way. Literally isolated from the entire world atop a mountain. But the second we make ourselves known, the second that we decide to fight back. I shivered as the anxiety and terror pulsed through me. The second that we make ourselves visible amidst all this darkness, they will destroy us.
I felt a surge of anger course through me. We are the forgotten people. I looked around at the entire world, seemingly moving on without us as they slowly crumble, completely blind to the fact that the government was committing an act of genocide to hundreds of thousands of people across our nation. They don’t know about any of this. Even with how bad things are for everyone, they still don’t know the reality. The government still gets to hide all their secrets behind the firewall, and project through the media a glorious image of themselves.
“So we are just gonna let them take over?!” There was a dash of insanity to Ethan’s voice as I could see his body physically responding to having to surrender control of his own life.
“No.” John kept his answer curt, but I could see his face contort as he tried to stifle his next thought.
“Well then, what’s the plan? What do you know that we don’t?!” Ethan’s tone was sinister, and I could feel the energy between them growing to an unsustainable level, and it was only a matter of time until it exploded. “What are you hiding from us?!”
“I’m not hiding anything,” John responded, immediately defensive, and this was followed up by a chorus of yells in protest. “The government is the one keeping the secrets.”
“But you are too!” I could almost see the frustration in Ethan’s eyes drilling laser holes into John’s pale, white face. “We don’t even know anything about the White Knights! We know nothing about the blue pill! We know nothing! But you do, you know!”
At this, John paused for a moment, and the crowd immediately exploded into a round of ear-blistering screams. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but then I could see his lips relax as he began to step down from the picnic table, inevitably about to escape to his shell inside of his office like shack, with his eyes glued to his computer.
Get back up there! The hunger for answers inside of me desperately clawed inside my throat to release a thundering scream, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. This man knows something! This man has the power to tell us something that could change our lives, and he won’t. I stared up at the clouds that drifted up ahead, listened to the livid screams around me, and let my body become absorbed in the madness swirling around me. The heat of the anger, desperation, and anxiety raged inside of me, and it rivaled the heat of the air pressing down on my skin.
“I’m fucking done with this shit!” Ethan suddenly appeared in front of us, with a crazed expression strewn across his face. The energy began to die down, as the crowd began to disperse around us, but the anger and determination in Ethan’s eyes glowed brighter than the core of the sun itself. “What a bastard! He thinks he can just lie to us! He thinks he can just keep us all out in the dark!”
“Whoa, Ethan, calm down.” Hunter put up a hand to try and stop him, but it was useless.
My brain was having trouble keeping up with the dizzying rate at which he was speaking at, which is a telltale sign that Ethan is too deep into his web of emotions to even attempt and think rationally.
“You know what? I’m fucking tired of saying it.” Ethan’s tone suddenly calmed down, but there was a new mad look on his face. I could see his eyes instantly light up, like he had finally come to the earth-shattering realization that we had all been waiting for. “I have been wanting to do this for months, but it’s about time that I actually do it. I’m going on his computer.”
“He would kill you if he found out,” Dulce warned.
“I don’t give a fuck!” Ethan screamed again, and I could see the insanity oozing from his face in thick beads of sweat. “I’m tired of waiting. I’m tired of giving this man the benefit of the doubt. We are never gonna get him to tell us the truth! We have to find it ourselves.” I could see a couple people turn their heads toward Ethan and look at him with wide eyes. “He’s not going to help us get our lives back, and I’m tired of waiting for him, too! We have to do it. I have to do it.” He paused, and I could see a sliver of doubt trickle into his eyes, but the drive inside of him immediately overwhelmed any of his concerns. “It’s worth the risk. It’s worth it for the answers.”
I gulped, as my brain processed his words. The truth, finally. There was a burst of excitement inside of me, but then I felt my body freeze as all the horrific possibilities of the information that could be on that computer entered my mind.
The truth sometimes hurts, but what if it kills?
Chapter 8
The tiny hairs in my inner ear began to tingle as the vibrations from a rustling sound reverberated in my brain, causing my eyes to instinctively shoot open. The blackness surrounding me at first suffocated my vision, and it caused my lungs to feel heavy underneath the pressure. What the hell was that?
I sat forward, and my eyes darted around the blackness inside the tent. I rubbed a hand against my warm, moist skin, despite me sleeping on top of the sleeping bag, due to the intense heat still present even in the dead of the night. What if it’s a government agent? I felt a mind-numbing fear roar inside of me as a blood curdling scream attempted to leap out of my throat. A horrid vision played through my mind of the government silently creeping up on the camp in the middle of the night, and taking us all away before any of us even knew what was happening.
No! I lunged forward in a panic, trying to blindly find the flap in the tent so that I could run outside and try to save myself from the demons lurking in the darkness, threatening to envelop me with their long, cold arms. No! The adrenaline erupted inside of me, as my heart pounded in my chest. I felt my muscles freeze, as the paralyzing fear absorbed my body and turned my bones to ice, and I could slowly feel my entire body melting in the heat of the moment.
I unzipped the tent with my shaking hands, and poked my head out into the night with caution. I was anticipating a storm of government agents to charge toward the tent and take me away to one of the cleansing facilities, but instead my body immediately released the tons of anxiety pent up in the tension inside of me as my eyes opened to the barren landscape outside.
Holy crap. I sighed as I stepped out of the tent, and into the dry heat of the summer night. Unlike the day, when the heat was so strong that it literally sucked all the moisture from your tongue, lips, and skin and the energy from your body, at night the temperature was just hot enough where it felt like a warm blanket encasing your skin.
I zipped the door of the tent closed to prevent any snakes or other creatures out at night from crawling up on Hunter, Ethan, Dulce, and the several other people all scattered across the floor of the large, family-sized tent.
Damn. I glanced around the camp, which was ominously quiet at night, and wondered what the rustling sound could have possibly been. The picnic tables positioned next to the fire were all devoid of any people, and the dozen or so tents scattered around the perimeter of the camp were all dark and motionless. The night was even devoid of any wind, causing a bone-chilling stillness to be present in the air. I shifted my gaze up at the hundreds of stars present above that lined the sky around the dark, puffy clouds that still hung over the mountains.
Crap. I turned toward the one rugged shack, that had the faint glow of a light emanating against its exterior. It was Ethan.
I exhaled, trying to lessen s
ome of the frustration inside of me. Fucking dumbass. I shifted my feet quietly as I began to make my way over to the tent. He’s gonna get caught. There’s no way John won’t catch him. My eyes darted nervously through the darkness as my mind envisioned John leaping from his tent and charging toward Ethan. I didn’t think when he said he was going to do it, that he was actually being real. I placed my hand against the sheet, which glowed ever so slightly. I stopped for a moment, and in the silence of the night it was possible to hear the mad clicking noise, as Ethan hurriedly typed stuff on the computer.
At first my body stood paralyzed with shock. Why isn’t John in there? He always falls asleep on his computer. I gulped as my mind spun with all the horrific possibilities. Did John run away? Did the government take him?
Anxiety began to pound in my chest, and I could feel it boiling inside of me into an unbearable pain. Is there a good way for this to end? I frantically glanced around to make sure John wasn’t coming. When he catches him, they are both going to go off on each other. I stood frozen with apprehension as I imagined the inevitable; the tension between John and Ethan suddenly snapping in half and exploding into a fire of rage.
I looked out at the empty, serene beauty of the night and tried to let it calm my nerves. Before long, my heart rate returned to normal, and I let my thoughts go in tempo with my diminishing breaths. What if he actually finds something? A surge of excitement coursed through me, as I felt my brain get whisked away into the clouds. I dreamt of the hopelessness and desperation inside of me somehow disappearing and the anger and depression starting to erode the last of me away, finally turning to happiness. What if he finally gets answers? Then a thought so absurd popped into my mind that my body almost rejected the very idea itself: What if my family is still out there? What if I can still get my old life back?
The very thought seemed so impossible that I could feel my entire body just freeze for a moment as it tried to process it. I placed my other hand on the brown, soft fabric of the sheet that made up part of the wall of the make-shift shack. I could feel the blueish glow of the light from the computer radiate into my hands and get absorbed into my veins, and as a result infusing hope inside of me. Suddenly, I could feel a new shift to the night, as the once ominous darkness appeared calm and warm.
Even completely empty of people, the camp somehow seemed bubbling with new life. I looked up at the few stars that meandered their way through the sheet of clouds and still found a way to shine through the darkness, and an invigorating sensation trickled up my spine. Adrenaline began to flow through me, revving up my excitement, and even enticing me to go inside the tent with Ethan. But then all the hope inside of me suddenly became enveloped in layers upon layers of clouds, as John emerged from his tent and began to barrel ahead toward his shack-like office.
Oh, shit. My body instantly froze, as mountains of anxiety suddenly began to crumble inside of me. An avalanche of fear and terror coursed through my veins and destroyed every inch of excitement and hope inside of me. He’s fucked. I frantically looked down at my own body, and then back at John, who had a clear view of me. I’m fucked. My instinctive response was to immediately run away, but the paranoia in my mind kept my muscles locked in place. Sweat collected on the palms of my hands, and the fear inside of me suddenly seemed to converge in my throat, begging to be released from me in one horrific scream.
I slowly moved, trying not to make my movements too erratic, and crept to the backside of the shack in order to make myself invisible from John’s narrowed, angry eyes. No. My mind started to panic, as my body began to shake from the fear coursing through me. Will John kick Ethan out of Camp Camel? My muscles stayed paralyzed with the thought. Does he even have the power to do that?
I heard the low creak of John opening up the door to his office, and I could almost hear Ethan gasp with shock and terror. The faint, blue light emanating from the computer immediately disappeared, and my ears suddenly shook from the reverberations of John pounding his feet against the ground in pursuit of Ethan.
“What the hell are you doing?!” I couldn’t see the expression on John’s face, but I didn’t need to, after hearing the vexation and distaste in his voice. John tried to keep his voice low, not wanting to wake up the entire camp in the middle of the night, but he didn’t even need to yell to exemplify the intensity of the anger flowing through him.
“Finding out the truth.” Ethan kept his voice calm, yet there was a deathly chill to his tone that made my spine shiver. I could feel the tension in the air getting close to exploding, and I flinched at the thought of the shards from the explosion stabbing into my skin.
“You son of a bitch,” John snapped, and I could hear his fist bang against the wooden desk. “Get the hell away from my computer! Now!”
“No.” Ethan’s voice was defiant.
I looked around at the blackness, and my eyes became entangled in the darkness that was omnipresent. I could feel its energy gradually suffusing over me, as my entire body stood paralyzed with shock and terror.
“If you don’t listen to me, I will make you,” John threatened.
I could feel the madness inside of the wooden shack permeating through its exterior and sinking through the pores in my skin to settle inside of me.
Ethan chuckled obnoxiously. “Fine, make me.”
“You motherfucker.”
My body shuddered as I could feel the vibrations in the earth as John lunged forward and pushed Ethan up against the cloth covering the holes in the rotting framework of the hut.
“You don’t know!” John released his emotions in an apoplectic scream. “You have no idea what is going on, so don’t even try to pretend.” His voice was much quieter now, but the fury still radiated from his skin, casing the air to smell acrid and feel heavy with the moisture of the anger leaking out of him.
“Pretend?” Ethan’s tone was filled with pure disgust. I could hear his feet shift as he began to move toward the door. “There’s nothing to pretend about, John. We know nothing!” I could hear Ethan fall to the ground, yet his voice was still full of confidence and intensity. “But now I know! And goddammit, you have no right to hide that from us. Information that could change our lives, opportunities that can make everything better.”
“No.” John’s tone was adamant. “You’re wrong. Ethan, that would be a big mistake. A huge mistake.”
My eyes grew wide as the sounds of their footsteps shuffling through the dirt began to approach my position behind the dilapidated structure. What mistake? My body stood numb with shock and confusion. What the hell did Ethan find on that computer?
“It sounds like our only chance. We can’t just continue to sit here and wait for the government to kill us all. We have to try and do something.” The desperate tone to Ethan’s voice rang throughout the night sky.
I began to tiptoe away from the backside of the structure, as both John and Ethan began to walk in stride toward the back area of the camp. What the hell are they doing? I crouched down nervously, right at the side of the cabin, which provided me with cover in the darkness, yet a view of the conversation between them.
They both stopped as they approached the vista that overlooked the entire city of Phoenix and its surrounding suburbs. They stood a good thirty yards away from me, just within my ear shot, but too far away for the rest of the camp to hear. Normally from that spot it was very peaceful to just relax and absorb the breathtaking views atop the summit of the mountain that began its narrow decline after peaking at the top of the cliff.
I sighed, trying to prevent the anticipation and nervousness of the moment from taking over me. I glanced around at the mountains, that were shrouded in a thick layer of darkness, causing them to look more like shadows lurking over Phoenix.
“Now, I finally get to tell you what I really think!” There was a maniacal edge to John’s tone as he stepped closer toward Ethan, trying to intimidate him with his tall, sturdy build. I flinched, as John deliberately snapped the tension in the air in half with hi
s shaking fists and exploded. “I think you’re an asshole. I think you are ignorant and careless! You have to stop saying crap, when you don’t know what the hell you are talking about. You have no idea what is happening, and I have no intention of you finding out!” He paused, and his face contorted with anger and insanity. The energy bound up in the pressure between them suddenly released with John’s hysterical scream. I could almost see his mouth foaming and his ears fuming with the scorching liquid. “You can never, I mean never go in my office again! Do you hear me?” There was a coldness to his tone that made my entire body freeze, even being yards away from him.
“Oh, don’t worry. I heard you loud and clear,” Ethan snapped back, and instead of backing down from John, who challenged him by practically screaming in his face, Ethan inched even closer as be began to yell down his throat. “And I also don’t understand the completely dumb shit that you are saying!” His tone was belligerent, and I gulped as his clenched fists shook, seething with the red-hot anger. “What do you not want us finding out about?! What are you still hiding from us?! What the hell has happened to our lives?!
There was a heavy silence for a second as the anger in the air began to boil over and evaporate into the clouds above. I watched them both exchange hostile glares as the two men prepared to seemingly square off in the darkness.
“I’m doing it for your own good. Knowing the truth won’t change it. Knowing will only make things worse.” John suddenly stepped back, and I could see a forgiving look in his eyes. “Look, I get that you feel that you need to know. I understand that you want to know what happened to this country and to your life. But I’m telling you, it’s best that all you know is that you can’t change it.” He sighed. “None of us can. We can only make the best with what we have.”
“No!” The energy from Ethan’s ferocious scream emanated through the thick blackness of the night. “No! We have the right to know!” Ethan practically screamed down John’s throat as he shoved him backward, the frustration exploding out of him in an uncontrollable rage. “You bastard! You can’t just hide that from us! These are our lives! Our reality!” There was a perturbed look in Ethan’s eyes, and I felt fear course through me just from looking at his smoldering skin and shaking body. “We don’t even know what we could be changing! We don’t know because of selfish people like you!”
Control Freakz Page 12
