Before reading part two, check out part one here.
I paced around the tiny cell again like I had been doing for the past two hours. One, two, three, four, turn. Repeat.
After they drug me inside and down the countless steps, I couldn’t help but notice the vast amount of young teens locked into cells similar to mine. As I was drug past them, most would stand with their faces pressed against the bars, staring lifelessly at me. Some were hidden in the shadows of the shallow cell, with their heads resting on the wall, appearing lifeless. I quickly began to feel panic sink into my stomach. Now, I stand here pacing, my agitation evident. I was in the middle of one of my pacing rounds when I felt a small stone hit me on the side of the head. I leaned down and grabbed it, inspecting it as I took in the dark room.
As I scanned the room I felt someone’s eyes staring at me from across the hall. I saw a girl my age with long brown hair similar to mine looking at me. We stared at each other for another moment, the silence and intensity making me uncomfortable. Finally, she shook her head slowly and disappeared back into the shadows.
“Hey,” I called, unsure of what else to do. There was no reply except a cough somewhere off to my right.
Eventually sometime in the night when it was quiet in the basement, I heard heavy boots marching across the floor. They came to rest right in front of my cell. I jumped up, brushing myself off with my body tensing. The same woman from earlier stepped into the faint light. “That’s her. Bring her in for questioning.”
With that the door creaked open and I was once again roughly dragged/carried into a small room where I was strapped to a seat. The woman came into the room followed by two men that stood on both sides of her. She looked calm and collected but she carried a sense of authority.
“Name,” she said.
“Anne,” I answered.
She leaned closer, her face only inches from mine. “Let’s try that again. Name.”
“Anne.”
“Listen, we can do this the easy way or the hard way…whichever one you want,” she paused a moment. “Now, name.”
“Anne,” I locked my eyes with hers. She stood up, walked over to a small filing cabinet and grabbed a folder. Throwing it in front of me I saw my name printed on the front. Violet Anne Callaway was in red across the top.
“How did you find this?” I asked. “The government and all forms of identification have been gone for years.”
“How I found this is of no concern to you,” she answered. Suddenly her harsh tone got a lot lighter. “I need your help Violet.” I stared at her, unsure of what else to do.
“Let me show you something. Guys, untie her.”
I was quickly ushered out of the room and together we walked up the stairs. Going from the dark basement to the upstairs was drastic. The upstairs was lit and looked just like a normal homely interior. We walked into the study that overlooked a backyard and made our way to a bookcase. The woman grabbed a rusty red-colored book out from the shelf and reached to the back, pushing a red button. Suddenly the bookcase opened, revealing an elevator. She gave me a half smirk as I tried to compose my shock, and together we stepped inside. “We have to take precautions,” she explained as the elevator went down.
“How did you find this place?”
“We didn’t find this place. We built it,” she shifted her weight from one foot to another.
“So what you’re saying is you knew something like this would happen, did nothing to warn the general public and instead made a safe house for the select few of your choosing? Wow, congratulations. You could’ve saved so many lives but you didn’t.”
“I know you’re angry, you have every right to be. We just felt that if we warned the public it would’ve created more chaos. People would’ve turned on one another to save themselves and their families. We weren’t entirely selfish, though. We sent our people out into the different states to spread rumors of this safe house. You’re just one of the few who have been close enough to it for us to take in.”
“So why do you need my help?” I asked, still processing everything she had said.
“There’s an operation we are trying to complete and we need someone from the outside who has been around the survivors long enough to help us,” she paused as the elevator came to a stop and the doors opened, revealing an elaborate bunker of computers, satellites and other utilities. People scurried around, busy doing whatever was required for them. “We are trying to rebuild this nation, form a government. But we need people to go out and talk with those who have survived, assure them everything is fine.”
“And you want me to do that?” With that she nodded her head.
“Think you can handle it?” she asked as a young man approached her and ushered her to a nearby computer.
I looked around the room, suddenly feeling something I hadn’t felt for a long time: hope. Maybe this was how I could make my family proud, together with this new group of people, I could make a difference. The world may not be entirely lost. For the first time in three years I felt a smile cross my face, and it felt good to finally have a purpose and drive in this new world. Maybe the old way of life isn’t entirely gone, and with the glimmer of hope I now have, maybe I can give that to those who were like me. I vowed in that moment to give everything I have to helping restore some of the previous life, and to never give up hope.