Shroud the Past

   I thought he was dead. I truly did. But yet there he was, standing in the middle of the street, face illuminated by a streetlight, smiling his smug smile I had once hated so much. 

   Some people are brought into your life to fulfil a certain role, to assist and guide you through the journeys you will embark on, to meet a need that you might have expressed, and to aid you emotionally or physically. Some others, well, they bring life into your world, and their only goal is to make you laugh, grow, and experience the most of it. They themselves are the adventure, and lead you through the most ceremonious moments of your life. Sometimes, you are lucky enough to get both of those people.

   It was an endless wave of gray. Gray clouds, gray buildings, gray uniforms, and sleek, metal guns. I watched in horror as they stormed into the Factor, in frightening synchronization, all marching with emotionless faces. Any sane person would be completely distraught, attempting anything to avoid heading where they were being forced to. They might as well have been descending towards their deaths, knowing that they were heading towards an inevitable loss, which would result in death, but these people weren’t sane. They had been altered and adapted to the point where they could barely register their own actions let alone emotions. I shivered, I couldn’t imagine having to live but not as a person. They were alive yes, but barely more than human shells wrapped in a layer of false sense of sentiment. 

“You’re going to fall over the ledge if you keep straining your neck like that.” 

I was slightly startled, but immediately recognized the smug tone. 

“Yeah but it still won’t be nearly as long as yours.” I smirked as I watched him go slightly pink in the ears and playfully slapped him. I turned around and headed back down, leaving the roof and an embarrassed boy behind me. I knew he would eventually follow me, and sure enough, the echo of footprints resounded as he chased me down the stairway, trying to get close enough to hit me back. 

Simon Coulter. My childhood best friend, a self-proclaimed ‘nerd’ who was easily distinguishable by his gangly figure and abnormally long neck. A generally awkward person, and twin of Kemp Hunt Coulter. 

Also my childhood best friend, athletically inclined, and surprisingly unbothered by the amount of people that fell at his feet. It was never just Kemp, always Kemp Hunt. It didn’t even go together well, but when I was three, I thought his name had been Kempunt. Just one word. Even after I found out it was Kemp Hunt, I always called him by both, and he insisted on being called by both now, so of course I only called him Kemp now. They were quite different in their own ways, but had two significant similarities- they had lost their parents at a very young age, they didn’t know how, and only remembered living with us; they also had the most arrogant smiles. I used to hate it, it was such a complacent, “im-better-than-you” smirk, but now I’ve grown to love it, and found myself making the same face when I felt pleased.

Kemp always claims he had fallen for a Rank 4 girl. We were in rank 3, the midpoint, the standard. We didn’t have the luxuries of rank 1’s, which was president level, but we were much better off than rank 6’s, the lowest class. Loving a girl from a different rank though? This was something unacceptable in the Alley. 

The Alley, the mess of the country we lived in, controlled by the Order. They would prefer the term ‘led’, but every single action, thought, day, and life was completely controlled by them. There was no other way to put it, and the outcome was the strictly regulated nation. People were forced to behave indistinguishably, wear the same clothes, eat the same things, live the same routine. We had trackers in our arms, and a watch that told us what to do daily.

 Another thing about the Alley- you never mess with them or dare to violate the rules, the consequences were huge. Execution and death were the ones people preferred. Depending on how big of a rule you broke you got different punishments, the most common one being the degrading of your social stratum. We were divided into different classes depending on our economic status and family name; it was easy to be downgraded into a lower class, but the Order was picky about who could go up. 

The Alley had an exhausting list of statutes, with 862 regulations to be kept. Rule number 728- ‘One is only allowed to involve in intimate relationships with an individual of the opposite sex who corresponds in the equivalent stratum”. So Kemp directly violated a rule just by deciding to like that girl. The Order finding out would probably mean his class being lowered, but that punishment was bad enough for him, he would have to be separated from his family and mine. 

Just from a short viewing of the rules you can identify how hard living in the Alley was. Surviving wasn’t hard, but living the life you wanted is predominantly impossible. Yet, we were the ones who were seen as privileged, and there were people who had it off far worse. These people dressed in identical gray uniforms marching down to the Factor? They had it the worse off of us all. 

The country we live in- The Alley, used to be a small part of the world called ‘America’, and it made up only a small percentage of the rest of the globe. What used to be the other six continents were now just inhabitable, dry pieces of land that was known as the Outside. They haven’t been populated since the War in 2046- the war that brought the rest of the world to America’s feet, and the war that demolished everything and everyone outside of America’s close range. The president at the time- Duncan Firth - was a ruthless man who rounded up the remaining men and women, the Outsiders, and forced them to go out to the Outside and traverse through. They were to specifically search and terminate the Hinders- wild beast who were muttations of wolves and hawks. A lab of Outsiders had mutated them as a desperate scheme to eradicate those who were trying to hunt the remaining Outsiders. In the end, they were found and brutally executed, but many of the Hinders escaped and are still continuing to breed. Those people in the lab might have been able to actually carry out their plan if they had managed to hide a bit longer- those Hinders were vicious and merciless, and hard to kill. With the body and agility of a wolf and the speed and hunting instinct of a hawk, they could easily overpower you with their bloodthirsty drive.

The Outsiders were put in gray uniforms to distinguish them from our blue ones and the Order’s white ones. The job of those people in gray? To eliminate as many Hinders as possible. They were allowed to come back once they killed exactly seven each, but killing just one was nearly impossible. Even if one did manage to assassinate all seven required, finding your way back was another labor by itself. The Order did nothing to help them, and they were forced into the deepest parts of the Outside to forage for the Hinders. One time the Order sent out a few people on a hovercraft to get an estimate of how many of the muttations remained, but they could barely make anything out between the thousands of dead bodies abandoned throughout the areas. 

A thought that had bothered me countless times though- who were we to be given such prerogatives? There is, after all, a flicker, if not small, of insubordination in everyone, a small flame that made us long for a life past the controllment of those in reign. Who were we to be safe and away from such uncertainty that those who were battling for their lives had to face? It was a mere divergence in where we had chosen to live before the War. It was a mere sliver of luck that had barely hung on to us, but yet secured us onto safety and protection. I knew it wasn’t in my control and I shouldn’t feel so guilty, but sometimes, I lie awake wondering if I would still be alive if my family hadn’t chosen to live here.

I woke up to the sound of intense banging and shouting. Through the heaviness of my eyelids the numbers 4:13 blinked back at me in red lights as I tried to fathom the commotion around me. There were so many loud noises, and I could barely register them as I shook the heaviness from my tired eyes away. I heard angry screaming and desperate cries, and jumped out of bed. I hesitated to go down the stairs until I heard Simon yell out sharply. I sprinted down the stairs, each one creaking in protest as I slammed my body weight against them trying to make my way down as quickly as possible. I entered the bright room in a haze of fear and confusion, only to be met by a lingering emptiness and a door hanging wide open. Another sharp cry rang out, and I realized it was coming from outside the house. I rushed out, all thoughts of sleep leaving my body as adrenaline rushed through my body. I sprinted out, the cold wind harshly slapping my cheeks. I was underdressed to a fault, and I trembled as I ran over to the Grays’ house. My mother was clinging on to my father’s arms, face pale and her body trembling, though I didn’t know if it was from the cold or fear. My father was pleading with two officials, a stunned look on his face. 

“Please, they lost their parents at a young age, they don’t even know who they are, they couldn’t have known” His voice cracked, but he kept his stare on the officials. The officers didn’t seem to care, they shrugged his hand off and continued to drag a flailing Simon out his door. There were tears running down his face as they twisted his arms and pinned them back.

“No, stop! You’ve got the wrong person, I swear! I swear, I swear…” He closed his eyes and muttered again, “I-i swear…” 

   He seemed to have almost given up, keeping his eyes close and letting the officers drag him away. 

   “No, stop!” I yelled out desperately, but realized I wasn’t the only one who had called out, Kemp was running past me, lunging himself at his brother and latching on. “I… said… stop!” 

He yelled through gritted teeth and swung drunken punches towards the officers, but two more seemed to appear out of nowhere and grabbed onto Kemp. I was screaming and tears were cascading down my face, I had no idea what was going on, and the whole situation seemed like it couldn’t be real, but as the bitter wind slapped against my face and I saw my mother fall to her knees, I knew this wasn’t some kind of nightmare. I took a trembling step towards the struggling group and then took another, before I was pounding after them.

“Hey, stop! No, you can’t leave too!” I heard my father call out pleadingly, but I didn’t stop. I ran, striding one foot in front of the other, as tears and raindrops ran down my face, becoming indistinguishable as I yelled out. 

Simon and Kemp turned around simultaneously, and Kemp feebly called out, “They think we’re Outsiders, don’t worry, we’ll be back” Simon nodded, “You can tell them we’ve been living here our whole lives once we’re back, it’s just a misunderstanding. Try not to miss us too much!” They both chuckled weakly, their laughs fading as they were pulled into an official Order vehicle. 

I stopped running and fell to my knees. They’ll be fine, they can’t be Outsiders, I’ve known them practically my whole life. But as I ran back to my parents, a horrifying thought occurred to me- we haven’t known them our whole lives. We had no idea where they had been before they were three, they had appeared suddenly at our door, both only toddlers, and we had taken them in for fourteen years before they moved in next door. They couldn’t tell us where their parents were, only knowing they were dead. Was it possible they were Outsiders? Another tear fell down my face at the thought of losing them, they were like brothers to me, and whatever the Order had planned would assure they would never see us again. 

Two days had passed without a word from the Gray brothers or the Order. Every minute passed by dreadfully, and there had never been a time when our house was so quiet. Our day went by as normal, our watches making sure we were on schedule. I cried frequently, it just happened throughout the day, and I heard my parents cry a few times too. Everything just seemed so wrong, our world was flipped upside down. 

It was not until four days later we finally got news, an official from the Order pounded on our door and delivered the statement- the twins were proven to have Outsider relations, and were to be executed in the Factor in four days. I fell to my knees and sat in silence. I felt like I was being dragged underwater, everything was suddenly muted, and the small vestige of hope that I had held onto ever so desperately had been ripped from my grasp. My body began trembling, and I completely fell to the floor. 

No. They weren’t Outsiders, they were innocent. They had been living the same lives we had, what made them different? They had been brought up as people of the Alley, but in the end, it didn’t matter. In the end, they were going to be ripped away from us and mercilessly killed. 

I cried out and screamed, everything around me was muted. I felt my mother's legs trembling against mine, and my father was muttering inaudible words to us. I stood up and threw myself at the Officials, but they effortlessly shook me off, and flung me off against the table. The last thing I heard before blacking out was the door slamming shut, the noise caused by the impact resonating through my empty head before everything darkened.

I woke up with a dryness in my mouth, my entire body stiff and aching. I lied on my bed with my eyes closed, as if opening them would prove that the jarring reality of yesterday was real. A single tear escaped and ran down my cheek, joined by another, and another, until a dark patch had grown on my pillow. I let out a frustrated yell, and sat up, tears now freely falling onto my lap. I threw a punch against the wall, and kept swinging until my parents bursted into my room. My mother cried as my father tried to wretch me away, but he broke down and began to tremble, silently weeping into his hands. The sight of both my parents sobbing was too much, and I ran out of the house and into the cold streets. My body shuddered as the frigid winds whipped past me, my thin gray sleeping wear protecting me from nothing against the bitterness of the day. I gritted my teeth and ran, not knowing where I was heading, I just needed to get as far as possible from what was behind me. 

Some people are brought into your life to fulfil a certain role, to assist and guide you through the journeys you will embark on, to meet a need that you might have expressed, and to aid you emotionally or physically. Some others, well, they bring life into your world, and their only goal is to make you laugh, grow, and experience the most of it. They themselves are the adventure, and lead you through the most ceremonious moments of your life. Sometimes, you are lucky enough to get both of those people. I once had both of them in my life, a certain Simon and a Kemp Hunt. I also lost both of them, to the unrelenting and brutal force and power some people held. I lost them both solely because of where their parents had lived before they had been killed. I lost them both exactly four years ago. 

I ran that day out of fear, only daring to hope the small ignition of resentment and anger would get me through. I lived off of pure survival instinct and luck, and although the first few years I had feared them so much, the ones in white never showed up. Let her be, they must’ve said. Let the poor, despairing girl be. 

But throughout the four years, I never stopped thinking about the twins. The cruel and unjust end they were brought to because of where they had been from. Something they had no choice in, and something that most definitely didn’t define who they were. I never stopped thinking about them, until one day, I saw something that made my heart stop. That made me wonder if I had truly gone insane from the past that had haunted me. A lone figure stood at the end of the street. Had- had he escaped?

I thought he was dead. I truly did. But yet there he was, standing in the middle of the street, face illuminated by a streetlight, smiling his smug smile I had once hated so much.  

“Come with me.” he whispered. “Come with me and shroud the past.”