Chained - Everything you know is a lie... by Susanne Valenti
Chapter Four
I felt cold. I let the letter drop onto the dressing table and hurried back out of the room. There was no way to know if Kaitlyn had ever gotten the message. Only a fraction of the population survived the change.
"Anything up there?" Taylor called from downstairs.
I shuddered and moved towards the sound of his voice. I called back to let him know what I'd discovered. I didn't mention the letter.
"The other room down here just has one massive table and a bunch of chairs. Why would they use a room that's bigger than your whole apartment for a table?"
I followed Taylor's voice until I found him and tried to stop thinking about Kaitlyn and her family.
"They obviously used to have a lot more space available than we have in the city. And my apartment isn't that small." I scowled. I wanted to protest more on behalf of my accommodation but it really was very small.
"So this is basically an apartment? For one family?" he asked, ignoring my comment.
I looked around again, taking in the pure scope of the place. The wide open areas, the views through the windows that actually had space beyond them. I had one room with a kitchen, bed and sofa sharing the space and another tiny box for a wash room. That was my entire apartment within Harbour city and even that was bigger than the apartments people lived in on the lower levels. Some of them had to share public bathrooms.
It must have been such a different life back then. In the city, only the privileged few got to go up onto the rooftops. Very occasionally, Taylor and I would sneak up to see the sky and breathe the fresh air. Technically when we did so we were breaking and entering but the old guy who owned the penthouse had never noticed us and we only risked it at night when he was sleeping. We knew it was stupid but it was worth it to spend a few hours under the stars.
These people had spent every day with the wind blowing around them, flowing through their hair, filling their lungs. I hoped they knew how lucky they were while it lasted.
My eyes started to fill with tears and I raised a hand to brush them away. It bumped uselessly against my visor and I cursed.
I crouched down and started taking the sample bottles out of the bag that Taylor had left in the hallway. Some contained a swab which needed to be wiped on surfaces, others were just empty bottles for collecting soil. I pulled a swab from the first one and ran it through the layer of dust along one of the counter tops in the kitchen before resealing it inside the tube.
Taylor took another swab bottle up the stairs and I headed back outside. I looked down at the little black bear that I was still holding. I wanted to take him with me but there was no way he'd make it through decontamination.
I walked to the window and placed him on the sill so that he could watch the world go by. He looked very lonely.
We spent the next hour exploring the rest of our area, filling our sample pots as we went.
The heat of the sun piercing through the fabric of the biohazard suit was exquisite. I longed for the feel of it on my own skin. It was hard to imagine how this world used to be and although I had never experienced it, I missed it somehow.
"I think we should go up to the penthouse in the day," I said as we walked.
"Are you mad?" Taylor asked.
"We could make sure he's out," I said. "I want to know what the sun feels like on my skin."
"Hot. It feels hot. I'm not going to SubWar so you can find out what hot feels like. We'll go to the sauna next time we hit the gym."
"Great." I let the subject drop, he'd come round eventually.
There was another tree in front of the last house in our search zone. This one had two pieces of rope dangling from a large branch that held a seat a few feet from the ground. It swayed in the wind as we passed it.
Inside the house were photographs of a small child being pushed on the seat by his mother. Taylor looked at the picture for a few moments before grabbing my hand and pulling me back out to look at it again.
"It moves!" He pushed the seat and it flew into the air and back towards him again. "Get on."
"No way." I backed away from it. "Those ropes must be a hundred years old."
"Okay, I'll go and you push me." He moved around and tentatively put his weight onto it. The ropes groaned and creaked for a few moments but they seemed to hold. Taylor carefully lifted his feet off of the ground. More creaking ensued but the ropes held.
"I'm ready. Push," he said.
I walked behind him, placed my hands on his back and shoved. Not much happened.
"Stop pushing like a girl," he teased.
This time I took a few steps back and ran into it, putting my weight behind the shove. He flew forward and swung his legs out to propel him further. Taylor was whooping and laughing as he swung up towards the sky, held still for a fraction of a second, then hurtled back towards me.
I realised too late. The seat and Taylor hit me hard in the chest. I was lifted off of my feet and flew backwards through the air before crashing down onto the dusty soil. I smacked my head on something hard which thunked on the outside of my helmet and made the whole thing vibrate. My breath whooshed out and I coughed, clutching at my chest. A moment later, Taylor was at my side.
"Are you ok?" he asked as I sat up, taking a deep breath and waiting for my head to stop spinning.
"Yeah, I think the helmet took the hit for me. It's not broken is it?" I reached up and ran my hands along the back of it but I couldn't feel anything.
Taylor twisted my head to get a look and shrugged. "I think it's okay,"
"You think? Don't think. Is it okay or not?" My heart started to race.
"Yeah, it's fine. There's a bit of a crack on the ventilator but you can still breathe can't you?"
"If I couldn't breathe then we wouldn't be having this conversation," I snapped.
"That was amazing." A huge grin split Taylor's face in half and he was the little boy I had known forever.
"Which bit? The part where you flew or the part where I fell on my ass?" I grumbled.
"My bit." He tried, without much effect, to rearrange his features to look more concerned. "You should try it." He offered me a hand and pulled me to my feet.
"Are you sure my suit is alright?" I ran a hand over the ventilator nervously while Taylor rolled his eyes.
"I told you, it's fine. So?"
I considered the seat. Taylor started making chicken noises under his breath, chasing away any last feelings of doubt I had. I strode over and sat down, gingerly putting my weight onto the old plank of wood.
"Ready?" Taylor was behind me with his hands on my back.
"Yes."
"Lift your feet up." I did as instructed and held tight to the ropes on either side of me. Taylor's hands left my back for a moment, only to return with force, knocking me and the seat forward, up into the air. I screamed.
I had never felt anything like it. My stomach dropped out from under me and blood pulsed in my veins. My palms were sweaty and I was utterly terrified. But I didn't want it to stop. As I swung backwards, Taylor rushed in to push me again. I swung higher this time and I tipped my head back to look up at the blue sky stretching endlessly above us.
Again and again Taylor pushed me and my stomach swooped and I squealed in delight, kicking my feet in front of me.
Eventually, the seat slowed and finally stopped still.
I stood up, feeling wobbly.
"That was the best fun I have had. Ever," I said, grinning at him.
Taylor grinned back and was about to have another go himself when the GPS started beeping at us.
"It's time to go," he moaned. "You hogged all the fun."
"Well I'm also going to have one hell of a bruise," I said, feeling the ache on my backside where I'd landed in the dirt.
"Does my ventilator still look okay?" I asked. Taylor tipped my head back to get a better look.
"I think so." He knocked his knuckles against it and I heard a faint pop.
"What was that?" I grabbed
at the circular tube and shook it. "Can you hear hissing?"
"No." Taylor looked worried.
"Is that 'no' a real no, or is it a 'I don't want you to panic' no?" My breathing came rapidly and the hissing seemed even louder.
"No, I really can't hear it." Taylor stepped closer to me and tried to tilt his head close to my ventilator to listen.
"Call your dad," I said and the effort of speaking sent a ringing to my ears. There wasn't enough oxygen getting into my suit.
Taylor stared at me for a second before realising I meant the radio. He dropped the pack to the ground and started shoving things aside.
A sample bottle tumbled over the lip of the bag and started to roll away down the road. Taylor jumped up and chased it just as I started to feel light headed.
I tried to call him back but I couldn't draw in a breath. I coughed. My limbs felt like they were too far from my body.
I put a hand out to the tree to steady myself but it was further away than I'd thought. I staggered but managed to stay on my feet.
Taylor caught the bottle and turned back, he looked at me with a concern lining his features.
I clutched the ventilator, willing it to start working again. My lungs were burning, there was no oxygen left in my mask. I looked up at Taylor as fear gripped my heart and I stumbled onto one knee.
Taylor was already running, he caught my arm and peered into my eyes.
"What is it?" he asked.
"I... can't-" I wheezed, but barely a whisper left my lips. My vision was going black around the edges and I coughed again, trying desperately to get some oxygen. The air didn't feel right in my lungs. "Breathe," I managed before everything went black.
The first thing I was aware of was a breeze on my cheek. Then the hard, cold ground beneath my back, and a hand squeezing mine tightly. My eyes were closed but I couldn't summon the energy to open them.
"Can you hear me?" Taylor asked.
"You're practically shouting down my earhole," I managed, but I felt weird and had to pause to pull in a big lungful of air.
"Thank god." He let out a shaky breath. "I didn't know if I should, but you weren't breathing and I couldn't carry you and no one came when I was shouting and then your lips went blue and-" I raised a hand in the direction of his voice and pushed it towards his mouth to stop the babbling.
My eyes felt heavy but I slowly opened them, squinting at the uninterrupted blue above me. I took another shuddering breath and raised my hand to my face. I pushed my long hair out of my eyes and felt it catch in the neck of the suit as I did so. My gaze slowly rested on Taylor in his full biohazard suit and I nearly stopped breathing again.
"Where's my helmet?" I gasped.
"I'm sorry, but - you were suffocating. I didn't know what else to do."
"Did you radio back? Did they tell you it was okay?" I asked. My heart started beating so quickly that it was almost painful.
Taylor's mouth fell open "I - I'm sorry I just didn't - you looked so - I forgot about the radio." His eyes locked with mine and I could see the anxiety there. I took another breath. My hands were shaking, I didn't know if it was fear or something else.
"Am I green?" I asked.
"What?"
"Am I green or purple or do I have tentacles where my hair used to be?"
"N-no," he replied, smiling faintly.
"Well I feel fine. I think. Chances are this place is fine, it's right by The Wall and they're looking at expanding out here so I'm probably going to be just fine," I said, reassuring myself as much as Taylor and ignoring the amount of times I'd said the word 'fine'.
"Great, so what should we do now?" he asked.
"Radio your dad. Tell him what's happened and why we're late. We can walk while you talk." I stood up and brushed myself off as Taylor rummaged about for the radio again. I glared at my hands until the shaking stopped.
I felt cold. I let the letter drop onto the dressing table and hurried back out of the room. There was no way to know if Kaitlyn had ever gotten the message. Only a fraction of the population survived the change.
"Anything up there?" Taylor called from downstairs.
I shuddered and moved towards the sound of his voice. I called back to let him know what I'd discovered. I didn't mention the letter.
"The other room down here just has one massive table and a bunch of chairs. Why would they use a room that's bigger than your whole apartment for a table?"
I followed Taylor's voice until I found him and tried to stop thinking about Kaitlyn and her family.
"They obviously used to have a lot more space available than we have in the city. And my apartment isn't that small." I scowled. I wanted to protest more on behalf of my accommodation but it really was very small.
"So this is basically an apartment? For one family?" he asked, ignoring my comment.
I looked around again, taking in the pure scope of the place. The wide open areas, the views through the windows that actually had space beyond them. I had one room with a kitchen, bed and sofa sharing the space and another tiny box for a wash room. That was my entire apartment within Harbour city and even that was bigger than the apartments people lived in on the lower levels. Some of them had to share public bathrooms.
It must have been such a different life back then. In the city, only the privileged few got to go up onto the rooftops. Very occasionally, Taylor and I would sneak up to see the sky and breathe the fresh air. Technically when we did so we were breaking and entering but the old guy who owned the penthouse had never noticed us and we only risked it at night when he was sleeping. We knew it was stupid but it was worth it to spend a few hours under the stars.
These people had spent every day with the wind blowing around them, flowing through their hair, filling their lungs. I hoped they knew how lucky they were while it lasted.
My eyes started to fill with tears and I raised a hand to brush them away. It bumped uselessly against my visor and I cursed.
I crouched down and started taking the sample bottles out of the bag that Taylor had left in the hallway. Some contained a swab which needed to be wiped on surfaces, others were just empty bottles for collecting soil. I pulled a swab from the first one and ran it through the layer of dust along one of the counter tops in the kitchen before resealing it inside the tube.
Taylor took another swab bottle up the stairs and I headed back outside. I looked down at the little black bear that I was still holding. I wanted to take him with me but there was no way he'd make it through decontamination.
I walked to the window and placed him on the sill so that he could watch the world go by. He looked very lonely.
We spent the next hour exploring the rest of our area, filling our sample pots as we went.
The heat of the sun piercing through the fabric of the biohazard suit was exquisite. I longed for the feel of it on my own skin. It was hard to imagine how this world used to be and although I had never experienced it, I missed it somehow.
"I think we should go up to the penthouse in the day," I said as we walked.
"Are you mad?" Taylor asked.
"We could make sure he's out," I said. "I want to know what the sun feels like on my skin."
"Hot. It feels hot. I'm not going to SubWar so you can find out what hot feels like. We'll go to the sauna next time we hit the gym."
"Great." I let the subject drop, he'd come round eventually.
There was another tree in front of the last house in our search zone. This one had two pieces of rope dangling from a large branch that held a seat a few feet from the ground. It swayed in the wind as we passed it.
Inside the house were photographs of a small child being pushed on the seat by his mother. Taylor looked at the picture for a few moments before grabbing my hand and pulling me back out to look at it again.
"It moves!" He pushed the seat and it flew into the air and back towards him again. "Get on."
"No way." I backed away from it. "Those ropes must be a hundred years old."
"Okay, I'll go and you push me." He moved around and tentatively put his weight onto it. The ropes groaned and creaked for a few moments but they seemed to hold. Taylor carefully lifted his feet off of the ground. More creaking ensued but the ropes held.
"I'm ready. Push," he said.
I walked behind him, placed my hands on his back and shoved. Not much happened.
"Stop pushing like a girl," he teased.
This time I took a few steps back and ran into it, putting my weight behind the shove. He flew forward and swung his legs out to propel him further. Taylor was whooping and laughing as he swung up towards the sky, held still for a fraction of a second, then hurtled back towards me.
I realised too late. The seat and Taylor hit me hard in the chest. I was lifted off of my feet and flew backwards through the air before crashing down onto the dusty soil. I smacked my head on something hard which thunked on the outside of my helmet and made the whole thing vibrate. My breath whooshed out and I coughed, clutching at my chest. A moment later, Taylor was at my side.
"Are you ok?" he asked as I sat up, taking a deep breath and waiting for my head to stop spinning.
"Yeah, I think the helmet took the hit for me. It's not broken is it?" I reached up and ran my hands along the back of it but I couldn't feel anything.
Taylor twisted my head to get a look and shrugged. "I think it's okay,"
"You think? Don't think. Is it okay or not?" My heart started to race.
"Yeah, it's fine. There's a bit of a crack on the ventilator but you can still breathe can't you?"
"If I couldn't breathe then we wouldn't be having this conversation," I snapped.
"That was amazing." A huge grin split Taylor's face in half and he was the little boy I had known forever.
"Which bit? The part where you flew or the part where I fell on my ass?" I grumbled.
"My bit." He tried, without much effect, to rearrange his features to look more concerned. "You should try it." He offered me a hand and pulled me to my feet.
"Are you sure my suit is alright?" I ran a hand over the ventilator nervously while Taylor rolled his eyes.
"I told you, it's fine. So?"
I considered the seat. Taylor started making chicken noises under his breath, chasing away any last feelings of doubt I had. I strode over and sat down, gingerly putting my weight onto the old plank of wood.
"Ready?" Taylor was behind me with his hands on my back.
"Yes."
"Lift your feet up." I did as instructed and held tight to the ropes on either side of me. Taylor's hands left my back for a moment, only to return with force, knocking me and the seat forward, up into the air. I screamed.
I had never felt anything like it. My stomach dropped out from under me and blood pulsed in my veins. My palms were sweaty and I was utterly terrified. But I didn't want it to stop. As I swung backwards, Taylor rushed in to push me again. I swung higher this time and I tipped my head back to look up at the blue sky stretching endlessly above us.
Again and again Taylor pushed me and my stomach swooped and I squealed in delight, kicking my feet in front of me.
Eventually, the seat slowed and finally stopped still.
I stood up, feeling wobbly.
"That was the best fun I have had. Ever," I said, grinning at him.
Taylor grinned back and was about to have another go himself when the GPS started beeping at us.
"It's time to go," he moaned. "You hogged all the fun."
"Well I'm also going to have one hell of a bruise," I said, feeling the ache on my backside where I'd landed in the dirt.
"Does my ventilator still look okay?" I asked. Taylor tipped my head back to get a better look.
"I think so." He knocked his knuckles against it and I heard a faint pop.
"What was that?" I grabbed
"No." Taylor looked worried.
"Is that 'no' a real no, or is it a 'I don't want you to panic' no?" My breathing came rapidly and the hissing seemed even louder.
"No, I really can't hear it." Taylor stepped closer to me and tried to tilt his head close to my ventilator to listen.
"Call your dad," I said and the effort of speaking sent a ringing to my ears. There wasn't enough oxygen getting into my suit.
Taylor stared at me for a second before realising I meant the radio. He dropped the pack to the ground and started shoving things aside.
A sample bottle tumbled over the lip of the bag and started to roll away down the road. Taylor jumped up and chased it just as I started to feel light headed.
I tried to call him back but I couldn't draw in a breath. I coughed. My limbs felt like they were too far from my body.
I put a hand out to the tree to steady myself but it was further away than I'd thought. I staggered but managed to stay on my feet.
Taylor caught the bottle and turned back, he looked at me with a concern lining his features.
I clutched the ventilator, willing it to start working again. My lungs were burning, there was no oxygen left in my mask. I looked up at Taylor as fear gripped my heart and I stumbled onto one knee.
Taylor was already running, he caught my arm and peered into my eyes.
"What is it?" he asked.
"I... can't-" I wheezed, but barely a whisper left my lips. My vision was going black around the edges and I coughed again, trying desperately to get some oxygen. The air didn't feel right in my lungs. "Breathe," I managed before everything went black.
The first thing I was aware of was a breeze on my cheek. Then the hard, cold ground beneath my back, and a hand squeezing mine tightly. My eyes were closed but I couldn't summon the energy to open them.
"Can you hear me?" Taylor asked.
"You're practically shouting down my earhole," I managed, but I felt weird and had to pause to pull in a big lungful of air.
"Thank god." He let out a shaky breath. "I didn't know if I should, but you weren't breathing and I couldn't carry you and no one came when I was shouting and then your lips went blue and-" I raised a hand in the direction of his voice and pushed it towards his mouth to stop the babbling.
My eyes felt heavy but I slowly opened them, squinting at the uninterrupted blue above me. I took another shuddering breath and raised my hand to my face. I pushed my long hair out of my eyes and felt it catch in the neck of the suit as I did so. My gaze slowly rested on Taylor in his full biohazard suit and I nearly stopped breathing again.
"Where's my helmet?" I gasped.
"I'm sorry, but - you were suffocating. I didn't know what else to do."
"Did you radio back? Did they tell you it was okay?" I asked. My heart started beating so quickly that it was almost painful.
Taylor's mouth fell open "I - I'm sorry I just didn't - you looked so - I forgot about the radio." His eyes locked with mine and I could see the anxiety there. I took another breath. My hands were shaking, I didn't know if it was fear or something else.
"Am I green?" I asked.
"What?"
"Am I green or purple or do I have tentacles where my hair used to be?"
"N-no," he replied, smiling faintly.
"Well I feel fine. I think. Chances are this place is fine, it's right by The Wall and they're looking at expanding out here so I'm probably going to be just fine," I said, reassuring myself as much as Taylor and ignoring the amount of times I'd said the word 'fine'.
"Great, so what should we do now?" he asked.
"Radio your dad. Tell him what's happened and why we're late. We can walk while you talk." I stood up and brushed myself off as Taylor rummaged about for the radio again. I glared at my hands until the shaking stopped.