-Elodie Crawford-
I turned the key in the doorknob and opened the door into my brand new apartment. The door squeaked open, and I could feel some sort of resistance from it as if it hadn't been opened in 10 years. The apartment itself wasn't really wasn't much of anything at all. In fact, it kind of sucked, lacking a kitchen, but it was all that I could afford, and it would have to do for the time being.
This 'apartment' wasn't really an apartment, rather it was like an extra room in the attic of somebody's old barn. Said barn was in the middle of nowhere, the closest building a good 30-minute walk away, and all it was was some run down gas station.
So why on earth was I here? In the middle of the countryside, in the attic of somebody's barn, with nothing but a bag of clothes and a dwindling stack of cash? Let's just say there was something horrible in the city, something so bad that if I had stayed, I would have been dead. I was the lucky one of my family and friends. To be honest, I wasn't sure what had become of them.
All I knew was that my fiance was dead, and I was still alive because of him.
In the city, there was a group of people who called themselves The Change. It was a pretty stupid name and wasn't creative at all, but despite this, they still managed to reign terror on the people. They wanted to eliminate anybody who didn't agree with their political views. It had all started peacefully a decade ago. They wanted social change but would lash out at anybody who refuted their ideas. First, it was verbal lashing out, but over a couple years, it turned violent. They built up a headquarters in New York City which has since been renamed Semblance City and have been slowly expanding the borders of the city through military efforts.
Ironically, their message is "Peace, love, and equality".
I tossed my bag on the small bed jammed into the corner of the room, and as it landed, a cloud of dust exploded out of the comforter. The dust was visible in the air as it passed through a stream of light coming in through the three windows in the room. There were 2 on the long side that looked out across the farmland, which was overgrown, and one window overlooked the dirt road three stories below. The ceiling was angled to match the shape of the roof, but the whole space seemed to be heated and insulated, which was a relief, as the weather outside was starting to get colder. There were two doors along the side of the room with no windows, one led into a small bathroom, and the other to a fairly large closet. The door leading into the room was opposite the wall with the window looking over the street.
The room was quite stuffy being so high up in the building, so I cracked open a window to let the cool breeze from outside flow in. The white curtains that framed the windows blew inwards as I did so, but I instantly felt as though I could breathe again.
Down below in the overgrown field, there was somebody riding a tractor through the tall grass, chopping down a path as they did so. I couldn't quite tell who was driving, but there were only 2 people who I could assume were. For one, there was the old farmer, I believed his name was Marty, but I wasn't quite sure, as I had only met him once in brief passing as I headed up to my room. The other was his son, whose name I still wasn't sure of yet. Both men kept to themselves for the most part, but the younger one who was around my age seemed to be more outgoing than his father.
Despite the isolation of the farm, I was not alone. The barn had a few other rooms built into it. It was clear that the barn hadn't always been intended to house people, as most of the rooms were bottom of the barrel and thrown together. My room seemed to be better than some of the others on the floor below but was far from luxurious.
Stepping away from the window, I walked back over to my bag, my worn out boots thumping on the floor. It was tattered and falling apart from my long journey which had started just a couple weeks ago when I had made a break from the confines of the city to run through the forest to get here. I'd lost a lot on the way including my cell phone, which fell out of my pocket somewhere along the way, and more than that, part of my sanity.
I pulled a knife out of an outer pocket of my bag and turned it around in my hand. Guns weren't allowed. They were strictly forbidden from use except by government officials. Knives were in the gray area, though. Not quite legal, but also not illegal.
A loud bang came from somewhere downstairs making my chest tighten, and I quickly shoved the knife underneath my mattress before leaving my room to investigate where the sound had come from.
I shut the door quietly behind me when I left. Outside of my room was not insulated or heated, so it was significantly colder, but it wasn't too bad. Looking around, nobody else seemed to have come out of their rooms, but maybe they were already out and about since it was already quite late in the morning.
As I cautiously walked down the stairs that were just to the left of my room, the tractor that I'd seen in the field came into view, the farmer's son working to scrub some of the dirt off of its side. A tattoo inked the entire length of his right arm, a confusing network of black lines that seemed to have no purpose other than intricate decoration. His dark brown hair was slicked back, and dirt spotted his white t-shirt. His muscular composition made his shirt wrap tightly around his toned body, an attractive feat.
Attached to the waistband of his dark blue jeans, I noticed, was a holster with a pistol in it.
"You're not allowed to have one of those, are you?" I called out as I neared the bottom of the stairs. He whipped his head around, standing up from his crouched position on the floor of the barn.
"Have one of what? A tractor?" He asked in a slightly accented deep voice.
"No," I said, shaking my head. "I meant your gun."
He instinctively touched the place on his hip where the gun was resting. Standing up, though, it was concealed by his t-shirt. "Oh, right, my gun. Out here, people don't really give a rats ass about what those changers think. They can make 'em illegal, but that ain't stopping me from protecting myself. They can suck my --"
"Got it."
"You got something against it, miss?"
"No, no, really, I agree with you. They think they're doing something progressive, but they surely haven't figured out a good way to do it."
He nodded his head, and the slightest bit of a smirk came across his lips. "You got that right." He tossed the rag that he was holding onto the hood of the tractor and leaned his back up against the side of it. "How'd a pretty girl like you end up all the way out here anyway?"
I sighed, sitting down on the bottom step of the stairs. I was already covered in dirt, so I figured that sitting down on a dirty stair wasn't going to do much more damage. "Long story short, Changers found out me and my fiance were leading a rebellion against them and were trying to eliminate us and anybody we'd interacted with."
"Where's he, then? Your fiance?"
I swallowed hard, emotions making my chest tighten, and I fought the urge to cry, not wanting to embarrass myself in front of this random stranger. "Dead."
He averted his hard gaze, looking instead at someplace outside of the open barn doors. "Sorry about that."
"No worries, we knew it was coming either way, and only one of us was going to live, so he sacrificed himself when we were trying to escape."
He nodded, his face emotionless. "Nice guy, then, yeah?"
"Yeah."
An uncomfortable silence fell upon us, and I could feel him staring at me, but I chose to look at my feet instead. His presence was intense, something I hadn't noticed upon first meeting him last night when I arrived when he had shown me to my room.
"There's some food in the main house," he finally said. "Free of charge for the first week. After that, you've got some options." He grabbed the rag that he had put on top of the tractor and stuffed it in his back pocket. "There's some jobs down the street a ways, but if you're lookin' local, right here on this very farm is your best option. The work's tough, but we pay well. And food's free. Think about it a while, yeah?"
I nodded my head as I stood up from my place on the step.
"Alright, good, I'll see you around then," he smiled, and I could have sworn I caught him wink at me, but it was too quick for me to process whether or not it was real or if it was just in my imagination. He walked out of the barn, and I listened to the sound of his retreating footsteps in the dirt before making my way out of the barn towards the large white house where I could already smell bacon cooking.
A/N
Hey, readers! Long time no writing! I've been on a long break thanks in part to both school and writer's block, but I'm hoping to continue to write more from now on. I can't promise any consistent updates, but I'm on break right now battling a cold and am confined to my couch, so I should be able to get up another chapter soon.
Thanks for reading!
-Megan
Word Count: 1708