Secrets of the Resistance

1 - House

The House had two floors and a basement. Natalia's room was in the basement, which she was thankful for, as it gave her some space from the others who lived upstairs.

They were lucky that the three of them had an entire house to themselves – Jani had seen people who lived in pockets like theirs often sharing two or three small rooms with almost a dozen others.

Now that Natalia was in the Resistance, she was seeing these things too. She'd been to grey, stinky cities like her own home town, where poorer families slept in one-room apartments, while at the other end of the block, the President's mansion occupied half the city, and had twenty rooms for three people, including a music room, a breakfast room, and a gallery or two, open to the public at a cost amounting to almost six month's wages for most people It was strange that even the wilderness struggled with space to hold people.

Here, in the woods, it was just Natalia, Jani, and Kaveh. Their nearest neighbours lived in a cabin half an hour away from the clearing, and the nearest border of the settlement was with a country that was too busy trying to keep its own people alive to expand its territory.

The woods were full of animals and plants that kept the three of them going. Jani set the traps and harvested the herbs, while Kaveh would go to the black market and trade their supplies for other items they might need, like medicines and clothes. Natalia was the one who fought for humanity's freedom. She was eighteen now, and had spent the first twelve years of her life seeing her parents work themselves to death just to make the dictator another decoration for his holiday home. She had been lucky to get away with her life and find a smuggler who would hide her in a hold and transport her across the Pacific. Then, she had journeyed for months, carefully avoiding the cities, until she'd been found by Jani and Kaveh. They were only five years older than her, but they'd sort of adopted her.

Back then, Jani had a sharp tongue, and was tough-as-nails. She always carried two knives, and would smile to your face while reaching for her weapons behind her back. She cut her hair herself, resulting in a ragged mess that Kaveh had to work on before she would attend meetings with the Resistance. Of course, now that Jani no longer attended meetings, her hair wasn't as short. Jani didn't do much of anything anymore, really, although she no longer spent the entire day in her room.

Kaveh had always been someone with a significant presence, towering over Natalia and Jani at six foot three. However, he was much quieter and gentler than his stature would have the casual observer believe – he nursed injured birds back to health on a regular basis, owned too many books, and Natalia had only heard him raise his voice once: during those days when Jani just lay in bed staring at the ceiling, not responding to anyone for what felt like forever. He had the warmest hazel eyes, and the gentlest of smiles that would make anyone's heart flutter.

Apparently, it had worked with Jani.

In theory, Kaveh and Jani each had a room to themselves on the second floor, but Natalia knew only too well that on most nights, one of the rooms remained unoccupied. She didn't hear anything, even when she climbed up the stairs one night to hunt for her log book, but she wasn't stupid. It only made her more grateful that she slept in the basement.

These days, Natalia was out of the House often, on missions for the Resistance, or attending meetings to find out her next mission. Over the past year and a half, she'd completed her training, and been handed minor assignments, such as delivering letters or parcels. Now, she hoped that she would be given something major, like organizing a coup or fixing supply chains.

"It's not been very long since you cleared training," Kaveh had said when she'd complained. "You can't expect to be given top-level missions so soon."