Imperfect Freedom

Four

I'm excited. For the first time in a while, I am excited. Elle and I wait by the door, ready to go.

It wasn't hard to get past the Matron guarding the dorms. All we did was make sure the kitchen cooked lamb stew for dinner. Matron always fell asleep after stew.

Sorrel said he'd meet us here at midnight. Where was he?

All of a sudden, hands clamp down on my shoulders and I open my mouth to scream in surprise but other hands shove a gag into it. In the darkness, I can't make out anything but slight silhouettes against the blackness.

"Don't make a sound." A gruff male voice commands and I do as told. The lead me out the door and out into the darkness. Fear starts to fill me. What was going on?

I hear another voice curse silently. Elle.

"Electra, stop fretting she'll be fine as long as she's telling the truth." Another voice says, this time female.

"I told you, she's telling the truth! She isn't a Complex spy for hells sake!" Elle replies. Wait, Electra knew these people?

I manage to spit out the gag. "Elle, what's going on?" I ask, and I'm surprised by how scared I sound.

"I said don't make a sound kid." The guy holding me says angrily and shoves the gag back in.

The push me along through the dark, me stumbling every two seconds. Questions whip through my head like a tornado, and suspicions rise about Electra. What was going on?

They lead me a fair way, and then I start to make out plaques in the ground, engraved with names and messages. The graveyard on the southern edge of the Complex. I had never even been to the graveyard.

The plaques are in neat lines, the white marble standing out in the moonlight. White flowers sit on graves, most getting trampled on as we walk on them. The thought occurs to me that we are walking over the dead, but I push it away.

I couldn't think about that now. Not with the churning in my stomach and the gag in my mouth.

We walk over the flowers and plaques, the darkness concealing our every step. As we get deeper into the graveyard, the plaques start to fade and the faint outline of the date the lying body below died gets fainter and fainter. I even see one dated back to 2059, only just over ten years after the war.

I notice the change in the writing, the sad quotes and RIP's changing to black letters. The first reads an A, and the next reads a C.

"The black part of the cemetery. We're almost there, don't worry Mae." Electra says, explanatory.

But I am worrying. What was going on?

I look up and see an approaching building, an old tomb, one that has a door and everything.

As we get there, one of the people leading the group stops and knocks on the door, once, then three times and then a pause and two more knocks.

I hear a lock click and the door is gently pulled inwards. The man behind me, holding my shoulders forces my neck down, so my head is facing the floor and all I can see of the person who opened the door is black shoes. I am led down a set of stone stairs that opens to an iron door with an old fancy lock.

"Dammit, who has the key." The person leading says, and a single old key, the kind you see in the history books is passed forward. The door is unlocked and the first thing I notice is the smell. Like damp soil, it fills my nostrils an I almost cough because I'm so overwhelmed by it. Then I feel rather than smell a heavy sour taste fills my lungs and nose. I cough, in the process the gag in my mouth coming out and see slightly green gas around me. But no one else is affected. I see Electra watch, a sad frown on her face. I feel myself drop to my knees, gasping for air. This wasn't right.