Like Animals

A Story by Tatiana Lexia

Just a little attempt at a short story. To clarify: I am a devout Christian. I'm sorry if this offends any of my fellow Christians.

"I'm just getting so tired," her eyes seemed so far off. It was like you could snap your fingers in front of her face, and she wouldn't see it, wouldn't hear it.

But I understood how she was feeling. I wanted to let her know that, I wanted to tell Asamaun that I got exactly what she meant, and that she didn't have to say any more. But that wasn't me anymore; I kept myself leaning against the tree, head down, eyes focused on the crackling fire that separated me from her.

"It's like we're animals," Asamaun continued. "We're helpless deer and they're hunters with guns. How are we supposed to live like this?"

Even I didn't have the answer to that, so I gave her a simple "I don't know" before falling silent again.

In the fourteen years that the Chip became mandatory, life became a crazy, sinister world of destruction. It was implanted in your left hand or forehead; people went about their daily lives with it. It literally carried their entire existence in its supercomputer database--your social security number, birth certificate, driver's licence. If you didn't have one, your life was considered gone, and you were taken away to prison to rot or die or whatever it was they did there now.

Christians don't like the Chip. It's the Mark of the Beast; if you wear it, you're aligning yourself with the devil. So you had people like Asamaun and me, people who were running and trying to find a place where we could live in peace.

We'd been running for almost three years now. There's only so much you can take when you've been without a stable home.

"Grundy," I jumped slightly, tearing my eyes away from the fire and catching Asamaun's sight. The flames danced in her green eyes, illuminating them into looking like cat eyes. "How many bullets do we have?"

I fingered the gun, clicking open the revolver. "Four."

"That's plenty." Asamaun nearly leaped from her place across the fire. She stumbled a few times, her eyes not quite used to the outer-edge of the darkness. She fell to her knees before me, excitement now showing on her face. "We can end it. We can end everything right now."

"End what?"

"Us."

I was silent. Suicide.

"We'd go to Hell."

"We're already going to Hell, Grundy."

"I'm not," I whispered softly.

Asamaun reached for the gun, I jumped and swatted her hand away from it. Her eyes shot to me in anger.

"You can choose to live, but I'm not. I refuse to live like this anymore."

"We just have to wait it out, Asa. God will protect us."

"To Hell with God!" She screamed at me. "Why would we go through something like this if He loved us? Or if He were real?"

I fought the urge to allow my mouth to drop open in amazement and disgust. How could she even think that God wasn't real? After all the things we'd been through in the last three years--barely escaping with our lives--how could she think that God wasn't watching over us? That He wasn't trying to keep us alive long enough for us to join in His Kingdom?

"Don't say things like that."

"It's true!"

"If it were true, we would have died a long time ago."

Asamaun fell silent, her glare still burrowing into the side of my skull. I kept my gaze focused on the flame in front of me, not letting my mind venture near the thought of losing Asamaun, whether it was by the hands of the Tainted, or her own.

I awoke later that night to a gunshot. Startled, I jumped and reached for the gun, which I had left next to me. It wasn't there.

The embers from the fire gave off enough light for me to see the outline of her body, the gun still clutched tightly in her hand. I sat before her body for some time, back hunched and head hung. My mind was blank the entire time, except for one thing: I couldn't live without Asamaun.

I found myself reaching for the gun.