CHAPTER 10
Outside
When Lucas finally unlocked the door at the end of the tunnel, he was the first one to get out, falling on his stomach. His arms failed to act quickly enough and his head hit the ground as he landed. Lucas suddenly regretted not having attended some extra gym classes at school.
His limbs felt weaker and his eyelids heavier as he laid there inside the tall grass, breathing in fresh air. But Lucas knew there was no time for sleeping even though he had hardly had three solid hours of sleep that night. He concentrated on his mission and got back up at his feet before yelling, 'It's all clear, come on out.'
Anne's head peeked out from the open door and her eyes grew wider than they usually were. She carefully got out by placing one leg after the other on the ground underneath the opening.
Her mouth dropped at the breathtaking view. A vast, green field spread all across the horizon. The grass was taller and greener than it had ever been inside the dome and Anne had never seen a sky so big and detailed before.
Felicity came out right after her, Sonia followed her. Each one of them got hooked by their surroundings. The sky was filled with small dark clouds that appeared grey in the moonlight and its colour ranged from deep blue to light purple as the moon was at its peak and the sun was struggling to rise through the blackness.
Lucas understood it was on their best interest to start moving before the break of dawn but he just could not take away their very first moment of freedom. Most of the kids had sat down on the ground. Sonia was lying down, her eyes and whole face hidden from sight, her hands running up and down the grass as she breathed in and out and in and out again.
Felicity stood alone, in front of everyone else. Her gaze was set to the sky, nowhere in particular. And for once, Carlos thought he saw a spark in her eyes but it was gone when he looked at her again. 'It's sad,' he thought. 'Someone so beautiful ... It's sad that she's so empty.'
And then Carlos stared at Anne. She had stretched her arms like the wings of a bird as she let the soft breeze playfully run around them. 'Can you feel that?' she asked without looking at him.
'Um, what?' he wondered.
'That-that excitement ... Is this how it feels like to be free?' she asked and turned to face him. Her flushed cheeks, her blond hair, her bright eyes, they all seemed to combine perfectly now with her sideway smile and the word "free" sounded so beautiful and promising to Carlos coming from her lips. He smiled.
'We should get moving,' Pierre suggested and Lucas inevitably agreed with him so the seven friends began walking along the valley.
***
The control room had been there ever since the school was built there too. It was a relatively small room. It had just enough space for three people to sit on comfortable leather desk chairs and supervise the school premises through the large monitors connected to the CCTV cameras.
A cup of hot black coffee was resting next to one of the guards' arms. The nametag on his grey buttoned shirt read "Isao".
It was a quiet night, like most nights are for those inside the control room so Isao did not bother checking on each one of the small monitors that covered the wall on his right. Instead, his eyes travelled on the opposite wall which was painted into a huge map; a map of the Earth before the distractions. 'Such a shame,' he thought but a sudden thud interrupted his thinking.
His co-worker had just returned from the bathroom and he was making his way to his narrow office stacked with numerous folders. 'He didn't even wash his hands,' Isao thought to himself in disgust and pushed his plain, black glasses up to the curve of his nose.
Isao turned to face the monitor screens once more and picked up the cup of hot coffee. He took a couple of slow sips and placed it back at its previous place. As he looked up, he noticed a movement somewhere along the panel of monitors.
'Robert?' he asked but he did not budge. Isao's eyes scanned the screens until he finally found the source of the movement. 'Robert!' he yelled and his co-worker almost fell of his chair in alarm.
'What?' he grunted loudly.
'Corridor fourteen, dorm fifty nine. Zoom in!' he ordered and his raised voice was enough to get Robert up and running.
'Oh, no!' Robert yelled. 'They're-No! This can't be-What do we do?' He kept cutting off his own words.
Isao kept calm. 'The phone ... We need to inform them. They will handle things from now on,' he answered in a steady voice. He walked over to the other side of the narrow room where a bright red telephone was screwed on the wall. He picked it up and pressed the only button there was to press. He heard static for a second but then a clear voice spoke to Isao.
'State the emergency,' the man said and his words lined up in a command. Isao did not hesitate.
'Some students are trying to leave the building,' he said, trying to hold his voice steady. 'Corridor fourteen ... dorm fifty nine,' he added and a shiver travelled down his spine. His shirt was suddenly too tight and its collar constricted every movement of his neck, blocking the air from entering his mouth.
'We will take care of things from now on,' the voice assured the young guard but his words felt like a warning.
'Who are you?' Isao felt the need to ask. 'And exactly how will you take care of things?' But he did not. It was none of his business and he was smart enough to avoid losing his post inside the safety of the control room. Besides, very few people must have known the answers to his questions.
He returned to his chair, ignoring Roberts puzzled stare and hoped for a raise in his next salary.
'You think they'll catch them?' Robert asked and seemed more concerned than he should be.
'Yeah. I think they'll catch them,' Isao answered lazily. 'And then they're going to kill them.'
***
Carlos looked around him in the search of Sonia. Next to him, Felicity and Victor were being awfully loud and Anne was quiet as always so he needed Sonia to cure his boredom. His hazel eyes found her in the back of the group, walking alone with her head down, and wondered what thoughts could be troubling her.
He walked up to her and smiled but she zipped up her deep red zip-up sweatshirt without looking up at him.
'What's wrong?' he asked without raising his voice.
'Edith should have come with us,' she answered after a couple of seconds and her eyes started to water again.
'Hey, look at me. She made her choice, okay? Now we have to make ours. We either survive or we're done for, you know that,' he answered.
'We could have persuaded her to come along, that's all I'm saying,' she insisted in a quiet voice.
'She chickened out. That's what she did and we don't need that kind of people with us. She could have bailed on us at any moment. Now cheer up, will you? I can't stand seeing you like this,' he admitted.
She said nothing and just walked by his side until they heard Felicity's voice. 'Look! A flower!' she yelled with the innocence of a child as she picked the flower and placed it where her hair met with her right ear.
'You know you're not supposed to pick flowers out here. We didn't leave that place to make its outside worse,' Sonia commented only to receive a poisonous look from Felicity. Felicity returned next to Victor and Sonia returned to her silence.
Carlos wrecked his brains trying to figure out which way he would maybe cheer her up. 'You know who you remind me of?' he asked, leaning toward her ear. He did not get an answer but he was not expecting one. 'Little red riding hood,' he answered to his own question and looked at her deep red sweatshirt that matched the redness in her eyes.
She forced a smile that did not reach to her eyes but Carlos soon lost interest in her company and walked up to the front of the group again.
***
Outside the school's main entrance, the members of the Force were gathered in a big circle. They all carried weapons on their hands, belts and backs and their uniforms were plain black and intimidating to the students that were indiscreetly peering through their windows instead of sleeping.
A couple shouted commands followed and the team of merely fifteen men started walking away in a quick pace.
Upon exiting the dome, the Force's only goal was to capture the seven escapees alive. That was the order they had been given.
The Force was a large group of mostly guards and a few civilians whose mission was to retrieve runaways or capture and kill fugitives. It was not the first time the Force had to deal with runaway students but most of the time the students did not make it out alive. There had been two cases however where the runaway students managed to trick the guards, attack them and hide away until they would lose their trace.
The air outside the dome was colder than inside it. There was no hint of gases or pollution in the atmosphere and the night was more than just pleasant. Afraid the guards would be captivated by the beauty of their surroundings, the leader of the Force took the first couple of brave steps.
***
The sun was high up in the sky even though it felt as if only a few minutes had passed since they left the city grounds. At the sight of the last green patches of grass, they all were hot, sweaty and somewhat indecisive on whether that was the right way or not.
'It's on the darn map!' Lucas yelled once more.
'The map you made! On your own!' Pierre shouted back at him. A vein was popping on the side of his forehead and his left hand was noticeably shaking.
'You think I made up this map? In my own head? I know for a fact that-'
'You know what? I'm tired of you two fighting while we just left that place! Lucas, do what you know best, and Pierre, let's just stick to the plan, shall we?' Carlos suggested, causing everyone to fall back into silence.
'Lucas?' Anne called after a minute or two. 'I-I thought you said it might get cold out here. Well ... I'm sweating like pig...' she complained in an apologetic way.
'I'm so sorry Anne but ... I didn't calculate the temperature difference between day and night correctly. I-maybe we should take a break and change our clothes before walking through this?' he asked and pointed right ahead of them at the desert-like scenery.
'That sounds good,' Anne agreed and she collapsed to the ground for a moment, hiding her eyes from the sun with one hand.
The boys rolled up their trousers and switched their sweatshirts and shirts with T-shirts. This relieved some of their sweating as well as their need for fresh air. A few minutes later the girls arrived from behind the tall bushes, wearing plain T's and shorts that reached a little higher than their knees.
'Someone's been eating,' Carlos remarked playfully, teasing Sonia.
'Oh, shut up!' she answered in the same voice tone as his while pulling her hair up in a ponytail, pretending she was not at all hurt by his comment.
The pack of travellers had now started entering a dried-up area, a zone of total isolation. A sea of sand stretched out across the horizon and the sunlight was more blinding than ever. The air felt heavy and thick, warm as the children inhaled but relieving as they exhaled.
After an hour or so, Felicity started complaining.
'But we can rest for good in a couple hours,' Lucas insisted. We will find shelter behind these huge rocks. You can even see them from here!'
'But it's like my legs are going to break!' she shrieked.
'Felicity, I understand you but we're in a very vulnerable position right now. We could be watched and not know it so we'd better spend the night there, hidden, protected,' Lucas explained himself as calmly as he could as he pointed at the tall rocks that were clearly visible in the distance.
'Fine,' she said. 'But you better let me rest as soon as we get there,' she added and her words were filled with bitterness.
Pierre sighed and shook his head. 'You should have heard me Lucas,' he whispered inside his own head. 'Prepare to admit I was right all along.'
***
The kids walked in silence for almost three hours until they could not walk any more. They all felt like their faces were melting off as the sun made them hotter and hotter. Their dry lips, their sweaty foreheads and their weak legs kept telling them they had to stop.
Pierre kept his eyes almost closed as the sunlight made them hurt and blinded him. He wiped off a drop of sweat, which had escaped from the side of hair and was now racing its way down his cheekbone, with the inner side of his thumb. The weather was never like that in New Earth, not even during the heat waves of July. Pierre never liked the sun. It made his eyes red, causing them to ache.
Pierre's eyes had the lightest shade of blue a person's mind could ever imagine. They were actually a clear light grey color that could hardly be described as blue; it was even lighter than the color of the crowded pavements of New Earth. He always looked washed off. His skin had the pale color of the moon; it seemed made of porcelain, fragile and smooth. His hair was the whitest blonde and had many natural highlights in the color of the ice.
He always felt strange compared to his friends and actually everybody he knew and he always looked strange. His parents and family were worried about him looking so pale and sick so the doctors of the city got him tested for genetic defects or other, simpler health problems. Some doctors even suggested he was an albino but they had not seen an albino in decades and tests eliminated that option too.
Everything was normal, they found nothing so they assumed he would healthier and get darker as he grew older. He never did.
Pierre looked around him feeling everyone was dragging their feet onto the heavy sand, leaving long trails behind them. It was a strangely hot and dry day. Pierre hated hot days. He once had a two-hour conversation with Sonia about the subject. They both loved rain. They both loved listening to the sound of rain hitting the street or the sound of wind sneaking through cracks on the walls or openings under doors. But that was before he started acting strange.
He closed his eyes and pretended this was another rainy day; something usual and ordinary for the people of New Earth that was now the only thing to make him feel better. He felt the tiny drops touch his skin. He felt the humid air and that kept him going until Lucas decided it was time for the team to take a break.
'Do you think they're onto us by now?' Anne asked as her thoughts played games inside her mind.
'Who? The guards? Of course they have,' Carlos answered but regretted his answer as soon as Anne's face turned white. He looked around the ground for a second and then sat right down on the sandy ground.
'And that's why I insisted on getting a move on,' Lucas mumbled angrily but he tried to ignore the fact that his words did not have the affect he had hoped they would. Instead he momentarily looked at Sonia who had just let her hair down.
The brown waves of long, silky hair were released from her hair band and Sonia slowly shook her fingers through her hair to get rid of any bits of dust and dirt. She then proceeded to pull her hair on a tight ponytail again while wiping the sweat off of her forehead.
She sighed at the realisation they could be attacked at any moment but she pushed those thoughts in a dusty corner of her mind to pick up later when her heart would not beat as hard.
Fifteen minutes later, Lucas' foot stepped on the side of the first sharp rock and his hands helped him climb on top of it. 'Yeah, um, we need to reach the other side. If I'm correct, which you should all hope I am, there are caves and cracks on the back of these huge rocks. We can camp and sleep there for the night. How does that sound?' he asked before making any decisions by himself.
Carlos raised his thumb and everyone else seemed to silently agree so Lucas carefully made his way up the next rock.
The others followed, dragging and carrying with them heavy backpacks. But as they had all climbed up a few levels higher, Anne lingered to admire the view.
As she felt a warm yet somehow refreshing breeze play around her hair, Anne spread her arms like wings and stared down below her feet, right at the edge of the small cliff. Everything felt crystal clear up there. She closed her eyes for a moment, letting her other senses thrive. Her hands moved around a little as if she was trying to touch the wind and she looked down the cliff again.
'Free,' she whispered and the word tasted so sweet and satisfying in her mouth. 'I'm free.'
Anne stared behind her as the rest of the pack was walking away from her and she rushed to follow them without losing the smile that had forced itself onto her lips.
***
My name is Sonia and this is my first entry. I would include a date and time but I don't know either of them. Out here, time doesn't seem to matter anyway. Six classmates and I left the school and the dome of New Earth through the electricity cables' tunnel. All seven of us are 5th graders, just at the beginning of the year. With me have come Lucas, Carlos, Anne, Felicity, Pierre and Victor.
There was someone else with us too. Edith. She chose to stay behind on her own but I feel guilty for not persuading her to do otherwise. I will miss her even though we never talked much.
So far, our journey has been unbelievably wonderful yet absolutely exhausting. I'm having mixed feelings but I am thrilled to have finally escaped New Earth. Including the people inside it. I don't know when my next update will be but I have to stop now as our break is over.
***
The sound of water flowing close to her startled her at first but Sonia did not take much time before looking around for its source. Finally, under an oval-shaped rock was a small spring that started and ended inside the small rocky mountain.
'Guys!' she yelled with the enthusiasm of a young child. 'I found a spring!'
Sonia knew she could not wait before tasting fresh water in her mouth and she realised that was all she was craving at the moment. She rushed to get her hands wet under the spring. She filled her palms with water and drunk vigorously before splashing her whole face with it.
The others soon arrived, having their water bottles at hand but Sonia made them wait before she was done quenching her thirst for that delicious, fresh and reviving water. Her friends took turns using the spring and they decided to take a break right there since Felicity's attitude had started to get on Lucas' nerves.
Many painful steps later, the exhausted travellers reached the peak of the rocky hill and the view was definitely rewarding. Countless white clouds floated around the blue of the sky like deformed cotton balls floating inside a bright blue can of paint. The sun was warm but not blinding anymore and endless green patches of ground spread as far as the human eye could see.
***
Descending from the rocky hill was by far easier than climbing it, however, by the time the seven friends reached the ground of the other side, the sun was at its peak and Lucas' digital watch displayed three past five as the current time.
Within the next half hour, the children had quenched their thirst with fresh water and had fed on dried meat and a couple of cans of beans.
'We're all out of water,' Anne pointed out and looked at Lucas expecting him to come up with a solution. 'We only have the filtered water bottles from home.'
'Well, in that case-'
'I can go fill up some of the bottles,' Sonia offered to help.
'You can?' Felicity asked in doubt. 'Are you not tired?' she wondered.
'No, not as tired as you are anyways. I can do it,' she answered in confidence and the other two girls handed her their empty water-bottles in doubt.
'So, you're saying you'll do the whole route alone to the back side of those rocks? It's more than an hour of walking,' Pierre remarked but Sonia did not seem any less confident about her decision.
'Yeah, I'm going now so hand me in all the bottles I can carry...'
The others did not dare question her decision and nobody offered to come along so Sonia gathered nine empty bottles in a clear plastic bag and slowly made her way up the enormous rocks.
Sonia realised she was taking a bit too long to get to the top so she pick up her pace and moved faster, her knees pushing the rest of her body upwards. Reaching the small spring at last was relieving and Sonia hastily drunk more and more water while resting both her palms on each side of the rocky surface.
After her stomach was filled with the refreshing sense of water, she picked up two bottles at a time and filled them to the top. There were only two more bottles left to be filled when she heard it. It was a sound she could not identify so she searched around her and her finding was terrifying. A group of armed guards was heading toward the rocks and Sonia instinctively stepped backwards, trying to hide in the shadows. She hurriedly put all the bottles, along with the empty ones, inside the bag and carefully made her way up to the top, always checking for the guards down below.
From the top, she started practically running downward and jumping over small rocks so as not to trip. She opened her hands to keep her balanced and kept running like a lunatic. To her eyes, it felt as if she was now ascending with incredible speed, her vision was a bit blurry and her eyes had started to sting but she knew she had to find the rest of the pack before it was too late.
Carlos and Pierre saw her jumping from rock to rock as if avoiding stepping on some invisible fire. She was shouting something under her breath but both of them were having a hard time figuring out just what it was.
'Hey, hey!' Pierre shouted. 'Are you crazy? What is this all about?' he asked, still raising his voice.
Her feet touched the soft ground and the bag flew from her hand as she gasped for air.
'What's wrong?' Carlos asked as she was trying to pull herself to place and mouth a few words.
'Guards ... here ... they found us...' she mumbled. 'Guards!' she yelled in panic while tugging on Carlos' shirt.
'Guards?' he asked. 'Are guards coming this way? Sonia, did you see them?'
All she could do was nod.
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