Rose Guns and Tongues

A class assignment for a short Dystopian Story: The world is a desert, humanity has nothing left except for a legend of hope. A legend of hope that will soon be diminished.

Part 1

 

            Legend says they sent people to the sky once. They sent men to land amongst the masses of hydrogen and helium called stars, showing off the light of their final moments. I wish people down here would shine when they die. Here, no one takes notice… One day you’re there, the next you’re not. Legend also says they put people on planets. There was a planet called Mars, the government sent colonies there to build domes and create life. I don’t believe that legend; why would the people of the past send life to another planet when they could barely sustain life on their own? Legend says that it ended badly: that I believe. It was around the same time the plants died. The earth turned to desert and soon only the factories thrived. Soon after that, the air became toxic, too. It took almost a year before people realized how dangerous it had become. At first it made people sick, then it would kill them in one breath. Social status fell, money became worthless, no mode of transportation, no electricity, the entire world collapsed.

            I hear there was a lot of crying during that time. Is crying hard? Here, only newborns cry. Not even the children cry. In fact, society is quiet. Even when the soldiers come and kill a woman’s third-born, they do not cry. After all, it’s their own fault; the soldiers are a constant reminder of the two children limit. What the soldiers say is law. Sometimes there are dead children in the sand, but no one sees them because no one goes outside.

            My mother does not speak to me, and father is too sick to move. I’ve considered dragging him outside and leaving him with the rest of the bodies, but I am not that cruel. My brother does not speak to me much either, he only barely tolerates my presence. I know that they regret choosing me. Every day their eyes shout out how they wish they had kept my brother instead. My family thinks I am bad. They are worried that I will get them killed. Little did they realize that he was

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worse than I. I heard from the other children in the tunnels that he sneaks out, like me.

            It is worse for the tunnel children when they go out. If I am seen by a soldier wandering in the middle of nowhere or near their facilities, I can blame dementia. They would check my shoulder, see that I am registered, and send me home with a guard to wait for a fixed mask. If my brother is caught and seen as an unregistered, he would be killed instantly. That’s the danger all tunnel children face. I haven’t visited the children in twenty-one times of my waking up. I plan on seeing them before I take out the facility.

            Visiting the tunnel children is dangerous. It is a miracle that the base has stayed a secret from the soldiers, who are constantly moving farther and farther into the desert drilling searching for any hope of life. If I head north of the cluster and keep going until the air is so thick my mask squeals under pressure, then I am close to the compound. The air is a thick storm on the ground all around the compound. It is a concrete square with a hidden door to keep the toxins out. Once inside there is nothing. In the middle is a hidden door that opens up to a ladder. I grab the two edges of the ladder, and slide. It’s seems never ending, that slide. Down and down into an underground cavern. I can hear the sounds of laughter and conversations, the hidden ones. I land inside to reveal a well-lit cavern with three sections.

            People of all ages roam about, happy and laughing. These caverns are the accumulation of all third-born children who were swept away, safe from the soldiers. I wander through with various people greeting me. “Kuudere!” a familiar voice shouts out excitedly. I turn to see a tall, pale, purple-eyed, white-haired boy leap towards me with his arms open. He hugs me tight and my gas mask digs into my chest. I let out a raspy breath so he knows to let me go. “How’s life in the smog, sista?” Saelo winks at me. “Not bad, mista.” I laugh. When Saelo was younger, he would pronounce “er” words with an “a” instead; we joke about it now. My parents do not know what he looks like, or how he acts, so they have the perfect image of                                                                                                                                    

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what they think he is like. “I have a few mines for you,” he says leading me into the cavern on the left.

            The hidden society under the compound drinks water that Tsundere and I bring them, and eat the meat of deer. It is almost as if the mysterious deer are offering themselves, for they come to be killed of their own will. The people down here are smarter, too. They have better gas masks, the entire tunnel is lit, they make up stories and activities and can build mines and other military based machinery. If I could, I would spend my days underground rather than with the statues. I visit them every now and then, though, I would not be so invested if my twin brother, Saelo, were not among them. I talk with them awhile, brief them on the situation above ground, then return to the statues.

           

Part 2

 

            There is no day and no night, for there is no way to tell. There is no way to tell time either. We don’t have jobs and we do not attend a school like people of the past did. We simply live. We sit like quiet statues breathing the thick air produced by our special, concrete square homes. We sit still because we are told to. I cannot sit still. I cannot spend an endless amount of time doing nothing but making stories from the dancing shadows on the wall. I cannot act like the others when my brother is in constant danger.

            As the three statues sit still, looking at nothing, I pull on my armor. Bulky black pants, boots, tank, armored shirt and coat. I roll up the collar of the shirt and strap it beneath my bulky gas mask. I make sure that no skin is showing, when the air gets too thick it burns flesh. I tie up my sandy hair through a hole in the mask. The statues do not notice when I leave.

            When the door opens, it triggers a powerful, mysterious force. Ensuring that no toxins enter the home, the door flies open and I am thrust outside with the door snapping shut even faster right behind me. My boots scuff lightly against the sand.                                                                                                                                    

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When I was a child, I would be knocked clear off my feet and the shock of it would            

make it hard to steady myself. Now I am used to it. I glide out, almost floating with the wind, and land softly.  It is dark, and fog hangs low. A cluster of short, small concrete rectangles surrounds me. They have no windows and the doors are not visible from more than two feet away.

            I suppose, really I live in perpetual night. The people say that day and night had different colors and that the one we live in now is the color of night. It’s never anything but this night color here… I heard night was more of a blue-black color; the color now is a grey-purple. I look up and I see nothing. It is like looking at a plain grey wall. The soldiers do not tell us if  they are clouds or fog. The soldiers have not told us where we live either. The hundreds of concrete rectangles and the short, sandy walk to the ration hall are the entire world for us. It wouldn’t matter if there were a way out of the desert; if the soldiers say to stay, then we obey. If we do not obey they will cover us in painful roses. I am not afraid of death, I am not afraid of the toxic air, but I am afraid of the roses.

            I walk past the cluster of concrete structures and enter an empty expanse. Flat sand surrounded by grey and purple. I walk until the cluster is out of sight. I can hear each grain of sand crunch beneath my feet. I can see each detail as if there were a million torches around me. When you live a life in silence and darkness, you become of those things.

            Soon the flat ground begins to rise and lower. The tiny mounds soon become large slopes I cannot see over. This is how I know I’ve arrived. I hear the faint sounds of machinery and men speaking to each other, it’s the soldier’s base. The soldiers speak more than the statues. They are lively, happy, expressional. They have electricity and drinks that come in open containers. I lay flat at the top of a slope and I can see it, a large facility. They have windows with light pouring out. I see the men fight, laugh, drink and eat. Very few people have seen how the soldiers live. Many of them are old and no longer have the energy to venture out or help with sabotage.

           

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            There was a man once. He was one of the best and could get in and out of the facility unnoticed. One day he got sick, sick like my father. He could only walk a few steps before collapsing. He had no choice but to spend each day restless and jumpy, surrounded by plain walls and statues. It drove him crazy. I was walking to the ration hall with a member of each family trudging along nearby when I heard it. I was used to the loudness of the soldier’s facility so it did not startle me. I turned around to find the source of the screams while the others held their ears and curled into balls, shocked by the loud noise. The man came sprawling out of his house and fell to his knees. He held his head and thrashed about as he breathed the toxins. When his screams quieted, the others continued walking without notice. Only I stayed behind, staring blankly at his still body. I know I will be like that one day. I intend to do as much as I can until then.

            The ground shudders and the dark sand is flooded with light. Three massive vehicles with guns and flashing lights emerge slowly from the large front doors of the facility. Tsundere says that they are called Tanks. Their engines sputter and gas protrudes up into the air to join the rest of the smog. They speed up and roll off, away from the Facility.  I follow them until my legs ache and my throat is cold. They arrive at a drill site in the sand. They drill and drill until the ground crumbles and they take life from the caverns underneath.

            Soldiers come out of the vehicles. These are ground soldiers, different from the ones who laugh inside the facility. These ones have sick skin, broken hair and cannot live without supplement. Their skin is covered in burns because they do not wear much armor. Blue dots that glow race across their masks sometimes, that is when they are given supplement. Tsundere says they used to be called “drugs”, but when the people of the past started using them to control the military they changed the name.  They walk to the drill and send more gas to the air. I don’t understand how they can continue to make things worse when the world has become a desert. Some men stand and wait, some work the machines on top and others go down into the hole created by the drill. I run when the ground begins to shake in a way that I feel it will break. The soldiers do not see me run to their tanks. I go underneath and

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place a small metal circle that grows and has spokes to hold onto the tank. I do this with each vehicle. I sneak back to the tank closest to the drill. I crawl into the control pit and am ready to start it up.

            A deer races across my vision. The men pull out their rose guns and aim. The deer prances around lightly and tip toes mischievously around the men. Deer are the only animals that live in this desert. The man closest fires a single, precise shot and the deer goes down. I flinch as I hear it. The ripping of skin and splash of blood and exploded organs. The rose gun has an unpleasant sound on its victims. Blood pours out of the deer and the men drag it towards the tank I reside in. I pull the release lever and tie it to the chair. I put it on auto and bash the power button. It spews smoke and screeches as it hurdles forward. I leap out and crash to the ground. Then I run. I run as the circles under the tanks explode. I listen to the tank I leapt from drive itself into the hole with the drill and explode. The drill goes down with a heavy bang.  Once again I run until my body aches all over. I have no remorse for killing those men. They are just as mindless as the statues.

            At home the statues are asleep. I undress to just my bulky pants and loose black tank. I wash myself with liquid soap that dries into my body. I look into our broken mirror and examine my shoulder. The deep, dark jagged cuts forming a series of lines and boxes are covered with crisp red blotches.  I observe one near my neck. It was from when I met Tsundere. He checked my shoulder and saw the marks. He was not a ground soldier and without the supplement his brain was free to understand that my gas mask wasn’t broken. He took me home, and since then he has been my inside source on soldier activity.

            I go to lie on my mass of cloth on the ground. It is hot. It is nothing but hot and dry in my world. I curl up with my coat and let my mind wander. We are out of rations… I’ll get more when I wake up. Sometimes it is frightening, not knowing how long I have been asleep. The world keeps going but I lay still.

           

 

 

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Part 3

 

            I awake and see the statues still sleeping. I get up and dress. I pull the last ration in the box and eat it. Rations are tan rectangles that are white on the inside with red-brown strips up and down. Tsundere says the tan is bread, the white is meat, and the red-brown are a mix of something called vegetables and fruits. It is supposed to keep us healthy and alive. The ingredients have different names but they taste the same. The taste of nothing. I do not drink any ration liquid; it is filled with a light supplement to keep the people under control.

            I am thrust out the door and walk to the ration hall. A pile of stone blocks surrounds the entrance to the hall. I walk down and disappear beneath the sand. I walk down a dark set of stairs, focusing on the single light at the end. I go through a door that sucks out the toxic air. I arrive at a large cavern. Torches line the walls and large iron bars block the way into the rest of the cavern. I walk deeper into the cavern on a path set by the soldiers. I enter a large room filled with long rows of shelves. The shelves are filled with thousands of plain tan boxes with large black print numbering them every 25. I casually walk around and browse the shelves. I see many people mill around thinking hard about which box to choose, even though we all know that each box is identical. I walk to an outer shelf and reach for box on the highest shelf labeled “75”.

             I turn and see Tsundere conversing with another soldier. He is dressed in impressive silver and black armor with a high-tech gas mask hanging down across his chest. He is tall and regal with dark skin. He glances over at me with his squinted eyes.  He smiles at me and quickly ends his conversation with the soldier. He walks over and pretends to count the ration boxes; soldiers are not supposed to converse with statues. One does not need a uniform to see that he is a soldier. The soldiers are all the same. The statues are pale and have different hair meanwhile the soldiers only have dark skin with black hair. They all have the same brown and black slanted eyes too. When I asked Tsundere why, he said that it was just how things have always been and that his commander told him that the dessert was their original

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place, and even though there are more statues than soldiers, us statues are the ones who are out of place.

            “I heard you got the drill,” Tsundere mentions quietly. I smile triumphantly while debating between a #75 and #255 ration box. “I’ve placed all I can in the underground,” he says as his hand slips me a flask. “Good, I’ll do the rest after I visit Saelo,” I slip the flask into a concealed pocket in my coat. “Are you sure you want to do this?” he asks nervously. “Of course! We’ve been planning this for so long, there’s no way I’d back down now.” I say. His eyes lower and his face is somber. “I could do it instead…” he says quietly, “No. If they find out it’s you this entire thing will have been for nothing. This is going to have the same ending no matter what we do and I rather have mine ended by you, not the other way around,” I set down the #255 box. “We’ll be there soon,” I turn and walk out of the ration hall, leaving Tsundere with a worried expression.

            I stand behind a corner and make sure that no one is looking.  I pull out the flask and drink. Cool and sweet on my tongue. Tsundere slips me ration liquid free of supplement. Once empty, I set it down in an unnoticed corner: Tsundere will pick it up when he leaves. I walk up the stairs and head out.

            I tighten my mask more as I leave the cluster. Suddenly, a boom. A loud thunderous crash in the distance. It is not like the booms of thunder that rumble inside the thick air. It is filled with panic and fear. This far out, there’s only one place it could have come from. I break into a run and my brain becomes fuzzy with panic. The fog around me becomes thick and steaks of lightening shoot down from all over. A storm. A storm on the ground. I run faster, I have had too many close encounters with the frantic lightening.

            Then, I see it. Large drills burrowing into the sand and six large tanks. In the midst of it all, the compound. The small grey box had a large hole blown into the front of it. I run inside and slide down the rims of the ladder leading me deep underground. My body emits an uncontrollable scream as I land inside the cavern. Hundreds of dead bodies lay strewn about the floor. I run to a cavern on the right,

 

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then middle, then left and each way the people of the hidden society I love are dead. My mind now has only one thought: Saelo.

            “Saelo!” I scream out. His body wasn’t in the three caverns I already checked, there was only one option left. I run to the cavern on the left. I climb up a pile of stone and hoist myself up into a small hidden hole. I run down a series of jumbled passageways and come to a large green wall. “Saelo!” I shout once more. I push open the door of the wall and fall to my knees. By the left wall lay Saelo. He was slumped over, quiet, with a shattered mask next to him. I go to his side and hold him. Sobbing uncontrollably, I bury my face into his chest. His limp head falls back and his white hair moves to reveal light burns around his neck.  I sob his name again and again, wistful to hear a heartbeat. I do not know how long I sat there. I cradled him until the tears were gone and my mind empty. I sat, staring emptily at his cold body.

            I hear a crash from above and the sound of footsteps echoing in the distance. For the first time I felt true fear. It washed over me and put my brain into a confused panic. I bolt out of the room and back to the ladder. I climb up and rest against the wall next to the hole the soldiers created. My body is shaking uncontrollably and my legs wobble. 

            “Hey!” a deep voice shouts. A soldier climbed up from the ladder with another behind him and I break into an off-balanced run. I made a mistake. My body was so concerned with running that it did not pay any attention to the patterns of the lightening. If I don’t pay attention… SNAP! The sky emits another frightening crash as a lightening bolt shoots down from the sky. My body collapses into the sand as the bolt rips through my left shoulder.  The pain shocks my body for only a moment, then all is numb. Blood pours from my burned shoulder. I scream out and begin to run, barely missing a shot from a rose gun. I clutch my shoulder and run with awkward steps hoping to outrun the soldier

            I run until the soldiers are lost in the fog behind me.  I arrive at a mound of sand. I walk to a sunken-in part and push in. The sand gives way and I fall inside. This is my secret; something I hope will never be discovered by the soldiers. It is a small, dark cavern. The special thing about it is the liquid. Clean, pure water in a

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massive puddle in the middle of the cavern separating two sides. I go to the water’s edge and drink. Clean, energizing and healthy. I look up to see two deer on the other side. The deer live on the other side of the water. Sometimes there will be hundreds of them. I scoop up the water with one hand and pour it into my shoulder. I grunt in pain as it runs through. I wash out the majority of blood, but unfortunately my arm is now numb and can barely move. I look up and stare into the deer’s eyes. He turns and I see his back had been nicked by a rose gun, a disturbing, gory, festering wound.

            Suddenly I am filled with rage. All previous pain is a distant memory. Now the only thing that mattered is destroying the soldier’s base. I leap up and block the entrance to the cavern. I was not supposed to die from a shoulder wound. I would stop at nothing to die the way I had planned. I bolt across the desert, refusing to stop until I reach the base.

            The government destroyed this Earth. They turned the military into mindless monsters. Even after pollution turned the air toxic they still continued. They built bigger factories and faster drills. They said they would find an answer underground so they kept drilling. Tsundere says that there are places left in the world that still have green and rare animals. Only scientists and soldiers live there. Only the best and brightest of soldiers who have done something heroic are transferred there. So that is the plan. Destroy this desert’s source of pollution and restriction, and get Tsundere to where nature is green.

            “The alarms are set,” Tsundere says as he hands me the rest of the mines. “You don’t have very long to place the upper level and control center. “ he switched his rose gun on. “I’ll be quick,” I reply with a smile he can’t see. He stares at me for a moment, and then embraces me. I feel him shaking. I know he feels terrible, he feels bad because I do not. He spent much of his free time searching for a better way to do this. The factory sounds out with a blaring alarm, a signal to stay out of the engine room due to gasses. I push him back and run off without a word.

            The facility is large but easy to navigate.  I run throughout it, quickly placing the mines. Up and down I weave through skillfully avoiding the soldiers. I come to

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the center of the building, my main goal. I step into the control room and leap at the soldier sitting at the controls. We struggle for a moment, but I have the element of surprise on my side. I held him until he went limp. He collapsed to the floor and I went to the controls. I placed a mine under the main desk and played with the buttons until I figured out what did what. Eventually I found the controls to the engine rooms. There were multiple engines scattered throughout the facility. I turned up the dials and watched on the cameras as smoke and steam billowed from them.  When the engine blows, so will the mines.

            I get up to leave and notice a strange outline in the wall. I go up and press on it. After a moment it clicks and rolls open to reveal another control room. I place another mine underneath the desk. I look up to realize that this is not like the other control center. This shows images from somewhere else, outside of the desert. My eyes widen with fear as I look through the paperwork on the desk. Somehow in the back of my mind I knew it all along.

            I race out of the building. I spent too much time inside the control room and now I may end up with the ashes of the facility. I can hear soldiers all around me, frantically looking for the intruder. I see the front lobby and consider passing it by. BAM! The facility thunders out a massive sound as the engines explode. They send off a chain reaction and all the mines with it. I take my chances and dash into the lobby. The soldiers notice me instantly and pull out their rose guns with lightening speed and begin to fire. I barely miss each blast as I run across the room, heading for the front doors. The men chase after me out the door. A shot nicks me in the calf rips my suit open. I stumble but quickly regain speed.

            Flames burst from everywhere and the soldiers pile out of the building. They chased me and for the first time, I am afraid of death. Before it was necessary. Now, it was a lie to keep hope alive. A sound I have never heard before, glass shattering. Glass is what the windows are made of. The explosions rip out of the building, worse than a rose gun. The ground soldiers cannot comprehend what is happening. The normal soldiers attempt to get their men out and catch me. I refuse to let them catch

                                                                                                                                    

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me. I will not let some petty fool become the hero. I run and run until I hear it, the powerful, swishing sound of a rose gun being fired.

            It is a nondescript feeling. A pain that envelopes me until every inch of my body is screaming in agony. It screams until all sound is drowned out and I hear nothing but muffled thumps and a pitched ringing sound. The pain increases and increases until I wish, I plead, I beg with my soul to die. Soon it increases until the point when I cannot feel anything at all. I fall to the ground and look up at the blank clouds above. I feel nothing. I hear nothing. I am stuck, frozen in a strange place. I do not feel it, but I am aware of what is happening. I know my stomach is being ripped apart. I know that blood is gushing out. I know that my organs and bones on the inside are being warped. I am aware of their twitching and strange contortions as they boil.

            I see his masked face above me. Tsundere, triumphant but even through the tinted eye sockets of the mask, I could see his tears. He is a miraculous shot. Hit me, right in the stomach. All the clothing on my stomach torn away. I look into his eyes and see how joyful yet sad he is. I wonder if he knows. If he knows what I saw in the hidden room. We have done this to send Tsundere to a place where nature is green, so he can be with the people who will survive longer than the others. I wonder if he will get there. I wonder if he knew all along and was just indulging in my fantasies of a green world out of pity. The images on the screen of the last places that are green on earth. Their green was dull though, it was not healthy. I understand now why the soldiers are told to drill. It is something to do, I suppose. Something to keep them busy and keep hope alive. The truth of it all is that there is no hope. Man-kind and its destructive ways have driven itself into the dirt. There is no place where nature is green. There are no more large cities, population is the lowest it has ever been, they keep the strict two children law to make us think that there is hope. We drove ourselves into the ground, and when there was nowhere to go we gave up our individuality to let the government take care of it, and take care of it they did.

            I lay here, staring up at Tsundere’s mask. I think about how the world had ended long ago, and the small desert colonies were nothing but a spec on this empty

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planet.  What a lie the soldiers have told us. There is no hope, there is no more food, there isn’t any more of anything. Now, I am transported from a place of eternal pain, to a strange tranquil mindset. I am happy to be laying here, mask off and sprawled out against the sand with a kind being looking over me. It is nice to know that unlike the other soldiers, who would have shot me out of hatred and training, Tsundere has killed me out of love.

            Now I end it all. Exploded organs, silent heart, open eyes and slight smile on my still mouth. My sandy hair blending in with the sand. My pale skin like a light against the bland world. The majority of my armor ripped off by the shots and blasts. In a still, perfect world where everything finally makes sense and my mind is calm. I do not know why I was afraid of the rose guns. They bring a strange kind of relief with them. They cause pain and turmoil on the inside, while on the top my body appears to be happy. What beauty those guns bring, releasing me from a world that is not worth living in, sending me off with a dripping red rose engraved onto my stomach. 

Author's Note

A class assignment to write a short Dystopian story.
The idea was much more developed and I wanted to go more into Saelo's story more but unfortunately my teacher continuously asked me to cut it down because it was too long...
PRONUNCIATION KEY.
Kuudere = COO-DARE
Tsundere = TSOON-DARE
Saelo = SAY-LOW