Authors: Masha Leyfer
“I believe that you are ready to go on a raid.”
All of the fear and disbelief that I felt when this first became a possibility rushes back to me. It is even worse this time, and I can’t find the words to respond. I just look up at Mike with wide eyes. I don’t even try to appear indifferent. This
matters
. This matters enough that I don’t want to lie about it.
“I...what?” I stammer after a moment. The sharp smell of cigarette smoke clouds up the air around us.
“You heard me. You and I will go on a raid in five days time. It will be a small one. First level sabotage, like we did yesterday. No danger, but it will be your first field work. I’ll talk to you about the specifics tomorrow.”
“What? Wait a second, I…” I begin to protest, but Mike has already disappeared back into camp.
CHAPTER 11
I’m not ready.
I have no idea how Mike came to the conclusion that I was. How could anyone think that I am anywhere near ready? I walk through the forest with only one thought jumping around in my mind:
I’m not ready, I’m not ready, I’m not ready
…
I don’t want to go on a raid. Maybe it was stupid of me for not knowing what I was dedicating myself to, but wouldn’t anybody else stuck in Hopetown leave if they were given the chance?
I walk up to the outpost and put the thoughts out of mind for a moment.
“Kristina? It’s Molly.” I call out. The ladder drops down and in several seconds, Anna deftly swings down to the ground.
“Anna? I thought it was Kristina’s shift.”
Anna shrugs.
“Kristina was drunk.”
“Oh.” I say, and then add curiously, “You don’t get drunk,”
“No.”
“But you can drink more than anyone in the Rebellion.” I don’t know that for a fact, but it seems like it would be true.
“Yes,” Anna confirms.
“Why?”
She shrugs again, and a light, enigmatic smile touches the corners of her lips.
“We all have pasts,” she says.
She doesn’t elaborate, so I only say, “Oh.” She nods and begins to leave.
“Anna?”
“Yes?”
“Mike said that he thinks I’m ready to go on a raid.”
“Congratulations.”
“But I’m not ready.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I...I don’t know….It’s just that I…I don’t think I’m ready to take up that level of...I don’t know.”
“Whatever you say, I think you’re ready.”
“Really?”
“Mhhm. I think you always were.”
“Oh. But I…”
“But what?”
“I don’t know. I just can’t imagine myself doing anything like that. It seems too surreal to be true.”
“But that’s the point, isn’t it? Now is the time to turn dreams into reality.”
“Sometimes, I think that dreams and reality are meant to stay separate.”
“I think that you’re just afraid of following your dreams.”
I pause.
“Maybe you’re right. I'll think about it. Thank you.”
“Of course. Good luck,”
She disappears into the trees. I’m flattered at her kind words, even though I don’t fully believe them, and I wonder if what she said about following my dreams might be true. But why would I be afraid of achieving goals? That doesn’t make any sense.
Does it?
I climb up the ladder and settle against the trunk. The forest is silent and cold. I curl up my fingers and pull my sleeves over my fists.
What am I supposed to do? I can’t say no. Joining the Rebellion was making a promise that I can’t break. Not only to Mike, the rest of the Rebellion, and the entire world, but to myself. To the dying me. I can see the disappointment in her
—
my
—
eyes if I refuse this.
But I can’t do it. I don’t believe Mike. I don’t care that he has never been wrong. I don’t care if everyone thinks that I can do it. What if I fail? It won’t be only me who suffers. I don’t think that I can function with that much responsibility.
I look out at the mist settling near the bottoms of the trees. It creates the illusion of standing above the clouds. The lookout post seems a lot higher than it actually is. I remember how I was nervous of heights during my first lookout shift. Even now that I’m not nervous above the clouds, my first reaction of fear doesn’t seem foolish at all.
I think about what Anna said, about why I’m so certain that I’ll fail. I really can’t come up with a specific reason, but I just can’t imagine myself succeeding. I’ve spent almost my entire life in a battle against the world. For thirteen years, I was trapped in a town in which the only way out was death. The only skill I have is serving drinks and listening in on wistful conversations about the past.
But this is something serious.
This is the first mark I’m going to make on the world.
What if I mark wrong?
There it is again.
What if?
Maybe Anna was right. Maybe I really am afraid. This is so different from the life I have known, and no matter how much I hate my old habits, I can’t help but gravitate towards the familiar. Maybe that’s what Mike meant by
face yourself.
I’m moving into a different world, a new state of being, a time after the past. I can’t let the person I was weigh down the person I am becoming.
I look around the forest. Shadows move back and forth across the fog over the ground. The wind plays quietly through the pine needles. The sky is overcast with only occasional rays of sunlight battling their way through, all the way to the mottled world of spring below.
From the bottom outpost, I can’t see the camp and today, I can’t see the ground, either. The solitude traps me in a bubble with my own thought where I can’t ignore my worries any longer.
The silence coats the forest in a type of unrealism. It’s so tranquil and so distant. Everything seems so inconsequential. I can do whatever I want. Who would care? Nobody would even know. I could scream, I could cry.
I could jump.
I look over the edge, my vocal chords tingling. I could do it, if I wanted. But I don’t. Any of it. Instead, I just step back and laugh. I laugh a cold, humorless laugh, mocking myself and the world and everything that’s wrong with it. The wind takes my laugh and spins it around until it doesn’t sound like a human-made sound at all.
I settle against the tree trunk and cross my arms in front of my chest. I try to think of something pleasant, but the upcoming raid continues to find it back onto my mind.
I still don’t believe I can do it. I most certainly am not ready, as Anna and Nathan assured me. All I feel is a sense of impending doom. Something
—
or, more specifically, a deep intuition
—
makes me certain that I will screw it up. Logic says the same thing. Sure, I can shoot a crossbow, I’m not even that bad in hand-to-hand and weapons combat, and I understand the theory of a raid. But that’s not enough. I do not have the emotional composition for a raid. Surely Mike can see that?
Maybe this is just a cruel joke, I fantasize in vain. Maybe it’s another one of Mike’s strange tests. Maybe, he’ll say that I don’t actually have to go do anything and burst into a speech about some component of our lives that’s somehow applicable to my training.
But I know that that isn’t true.
I don’t know how to battle my fear. It seems the only way is to be thrown straight into the ocean of doom. I could learn to swim. But what if I drown? Is the possibility of drowning reason enough to never go into the water? Part of declares,
no.
How can I let fear stop me from creating a better world?
But I can’t throw myself at every shadow in the hopes that things will magically be better. Because if I am not cautious, I am bound to drown. And once you drown, you can’t ever come back up again.
I remember the speech that Mike made when he let me win. Those concepts seem really important now. Perhaps I shouldn’t be so quick to roll my eyes at Mike’s rants.
Your greatest enemy is yourself.
Maybe he’s right. Maybe I really am ready for this raid. Maybe my worries are the biggest problem in this entire ordeal.
That’s not true...
part of me whispers.
Shut up.
I have to go through with this. I’ve come too far from the person I used to be. There is too much to fight for, too much to lose.
I think of everything that has happened in the last thirteen years. I think of the blast, how long we searched for a home and how we had no food for most of that time because everything was poisoned. I remember the starvation and thirst and fear. I remember how the world was turned upside down and how I had to watch everything burn until all that remained of my old life was ashes and a stuffed purple bunny. I remember how we finally found Hopetown and how at first it seemed like a blessing, but over time, I grew to hate even that.
I remember all the days I spent at the ocean, and how thirteen years of my life were thrown away into nowhere, weathered away like rocks into sand. I think of the snow and cold and the neverending winter. I think of all the people who drank away their worries and then lay dying in the street because they couldn’t go on. I remember all the people that I used to serve every day in the bar and how one day, they just wouldn’t come back. I think of Hopetown’s rodents and how humanity was gradually degraded to nothing more than frozen rat food. I think of all the people who left their towns to escape the taxes that they couldn’t pay. They were looking for better lives, for the lives that they knew they deserved, but all that awaited them was a cruel end.
I think of how my fierce desire to live slowly faded into a faint pulse. I think of how passionately I hate the CGB and how they managed to feed off of the Tragedy. I think of how meaningless my hatred is and how unlikely it is that anything will ever change. I think of how I wouldn’t allow myself to be happy, just because I knew it would end, and how the Blast had made me so afraid of endings that I was too afraid to even start.
Then I think of the day the Rebellion came to Hopetown and the solution to all of my hate and fear took a physical form. I think of the sense of belonging that rooted in me on the first day. I think of the first night I came up here and how Nathan came up because he didn’t want me to be alone. I remember how my relief, only yesterday, at everyone’s safe return. I think of Anna’s words:
we all have pasts.
I think of everybody’s unique stories, making us who we are. I think of all the diversity, how different we all are from each other and yet, we fit together so well. That is truly beautiful.
I think of all the stories that never happened, that never even had a chance to happen. I think of all the futures that were extinguished. I think of all the dreams that can never happen in this world. I think of my own dreams. I used to have so many, and now, they are all gone. All of them have been crushed one by one, in some way or another. Some are no longer applicable to this world, some I gave up myself, afraid of something else taking them. So what do I even have left to live for anymore?
The race of my thoughts pauses here. I have reached an unanswerable question. What
do
I have to live for? The very existence of that question disturbs me.
I retract my fingers deeper into my sweater. What reasons are there for my existence? I don’t see any futures for myself, I don’t have any dreams that I can realistically fulfil. Nobody depends on me. I just...am. I don’t know what exactly that says about my life, because I am not sure how needed you need to be to be meaningful, but either way it’s a little scary to be more afraid of life than death. And I know that if the way I live doesn’t mean anything then neither will the way I die. And that is something that I will not stand for. I don’t want to die meaningless. I
can’t
die meaningless. My life has come together the way it has because of my fear that my death wouldn’t mean anything.
So I suppose that is the purpose of my life. To die right. It seems a little strange: living for the sole purpose of dying, but…Well, there is no
but
. The sheer idea of it is terrifying. To begin something only to end takes away from its value. So in awaiting the end, I practically state that I am not worth anything. What’s even more terrifying is that it doesn’t scare me. I know that it’s wrong, but nothing stirs in my stomach, warning me to prevent it. But if my obligation is to my last moments, then so be it.