The City

Jack

I wake up cold and wet in a capsule that looks like a sci-fi cloning tube.  I look around me; I was in a science lab.  I see other capsules beside the one I'm in, some with people in them, others deserted.  I step off the platform onto the tile floor. I wonder over to a tube that was beside mine.  There's a girl in it.  She looks as if she is sleeping and is almost floating in the half ice half water capsule that she's stored in.  I touch the side of the tube.  It's cold but the condensation on the outside told me that it is slowly melting.  The girl has dark hair that falls past her shoulders, her skin looks pale maybe caused by the below freezing temperatures, but her face has smooth features.  I pull my hand away, my fingertips feel frozen now.  I start to walk a path that was in the middle of the row of capsule.  I assume it will eventually lead to a door.  While slowly walking I examine my surrounding and it seems safe.  I don't hear any movement so I figure there are no diseased people here.  There were no groans or screams of victims in a rush trying to save their own skins.  It was quiet.  This place is something that I was no longer used to.  I haven't had this much peace since the riot.

The riot, the thing that ruined everything, took my parents away.  It took everything away.  After that we were on our own.  We, me and my sister, were on our own.  I remember the night I was taken here.  It my turn to be the look out, we had a routine.  It was my turn to be look out and her turn to look for supplies.  I was on the flat roof of an old restaurant we had found, it had already been closed down be for the world went wrong.  That meant that there was no food inside so we had to search for it.  At first it was easy, there was a rival restaurant across the street and it was filled with preservable foods.  We lasted months off of what was there.  We dined like kings eating canned vegetables, canned beans, uncooked seasoned pasta, etc.  With our luck we even found seeds and we started a garden on the roof tops.  Everything was better than, just me and her on top of the roof, on top of the world.  This night, though, was different.  There was a weird feel to the air I couldn't explain it but I knew something was wrong.  I watched my sister glide down the later and jump to the ground.

"Come on, Jay, you don't have to go," I pleaded with her, "I'll go tomorrow we have plenty of food to last us til' the morning."

"Jack, I'll be fine, you know I can protect myself. I don't need my big brother hovering over me all the time," she yelled up to me with a laugh. I smiled back to her.  Sometimes I felt like our relationship was better than it was before the riot because now we rarely fought.  Back then it was all so complicated we fought for hours over the smallest things.  I started to thinking to when we bickered over the remote TV sometime we even argued just because we were in the same room.  They were all just stupid mindless arguments.  Now that I think about them they don't mean anything anymore, they never really did.  "Be back soon okay?" she said giving me a wave while walking in the opposite direction.

After she left I laid on the rooftop looking up at the horizon thinking about life beyond this world.  For once, things were going good and even though the world was in chaos I didn't want it to end.  About an hour later there was a rattling from the ladder.  I jumped to my feet ecstatic.

"Hey, Jay, I hope whatever you got was worth the wait.  I was starting to think you ran off on me," I called to her, not much later I realized it wasn't Jay.

A man emerged to the top of the building and I grabbed the handle of the rifle that I always carry around my back.  The tall man put his hands up in self-defense."Don't shot! Don't shot! Please, I didn't come here to start any trouble.  I just want to help.  I know a place that is safe.  Just put down that gun and we'll talk, let's be civil," he called to me.

 I lowered my gun and walked cautiously to him.  I told him to turn around and a patted his pockets down.  He was tall, lanky, and wore glasses that had a crack in the right frame.  I remember the man tried to get me to come to a new city he kept rambling on about.  He wouldn't shut up telling me how it was safe, organized, and it will be a new start for the world.  I told him no countless time and began to walk away.  He called to me saying something about how the outside isn't safe.  He said that he needed me to come, that other people's lives dependent on it, that the future depended on it.  I remember that the last time I rejected his offer he throws me on the ground, handcuffed me, and shoved me in a tank.  He kept saying he was sorry, but it was for my own good. "I'm protecting you," he said.  If I ever saw him again I had a few choice words I'd like to of said, but at least my sister was safe.  I hoped that it was true and she really didn't need me to protect her anymore because now she was on her own.

How long had I been in there, year or two, maybe more? It seems they're waiting for the ice to defrost on their own.  Finally the path I was walking came to an end.  I stood in front of two doors that had a sign above reading 'Test Subjects'.  I opened the doors and walked in.