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The Story:
“And on your right, you will see the beginning stages of construction on the new White House.”
A peppy guide on the train tells us every detail we never wanted to know as we pass certain landmarks of the war or the rebuild program. I was too young to remember much of the war, but I remember my parents dying in it and the same explosion scarring my face.
Her facts and details about the war don’t work in distracting all of us from thinking about the control facility we’re being transported to. All children 17 and under orphaned by the war must attend a special facility for training to understand our place within the new codependent society that has been formed. It’s probably just to keep us from being recruited by the Freed, an anti-codependency faction.
An hour of wonderful silence passes before she starts squawking again.
“On your left, you can see a new dam that will soon provide equal water distribution to every household.”
More like equal rations.
“And on your right, this city’s power plant was once controlled by Russia, but we won it back in the Battle of…”
She is cut off by a thud on the roof of the train. The interior lights flicker as the thud sounds again and again, moving toward the guide. There is more silence for a moment, but this time, it’s unwelcome.
The door on the side of the train opens, and an armored man swings down into our passenger car. The guide screams, but he throws her out of the door. He presses a button on a device fitted to his ear and the door closes. We’re alone with him.
He strolls through the aisle without uttering a word. When he reaches me, he looks at my scars and smirks, pointing to similar ones on the opposite side of his face. He continues to the front of our car and turns to face us.
“This train and its contents are now under the ownership of the Freed. You were headed to a training facility, and you still are. But you’ll be going to ours instead. Welcome to the Freed!”
Think this story should become a book or a short film? Let me know in the comments below!