The Insurrection

Part Two: Surrender (Chapter One)

"Find what you'd die for, and then live for it" ~ Unknown

The heavy pounding behind my eyes forces me to open them and wonder why the world is shaking.

"We've been drugged," Taika whispers brokenly.

That is when I realized the world wasn't shaking, I was. I take in my surroundings, the cell floor and walls made of cold, dark concrete, no windows, and one locked door with a slit toward the bottom. No sources of light only allowed us to see dim shapes. I spot Zahra, tears silently running down her pale cheeks. I look for Taika and see her curled up in a ball, shaking uncontrollably. Leon lies beside her solemnly, his body with us but he wasn't.

I shut my eyes, we failed.

I didn't fight the drug when it lured me back into oblivion.

"See you on the other side" But there was no other side. Those who dared fight against UniFed never make it to the other side. Deep down we all knew it too. It wasn't that we didn't care if we died. It was that we didn't want to continue living the life of oppression, and so we fought back knowing we wouldn't make it but did it anyway. Because it was better than dying as cowards in the shadows.

I peel my eyes open to the sound of Zahra humming an unfamiliar tune with her arms around Taika comfortingly. Leon is in the same position he was in before as if he never moved.

"What now?" That comes from Leon's direction.

Zahra stops humming and says, "We should start looking for ways out of here."

I scoff and she turns to me. "Do you have a better idea, Alan?"

"There is no way out of here. This is it. We failed."

Silence greets me before Leon chuckles harshly, "Never thought you were a quitter."

I snapped my head up, "This coming from someone who didn't even want to do this in the first place," my words hurt him as he flinched and I knew it wasn't fair. But I was tired and I no longer cared. We were going to die anyway.

"I'd rather not rot in a prison cell for the rest of my life," Leon says after a moment.

"Well don't worry you won't be waiting long. We'll be executed in no time," I say, "In fact, the only reason the American Chief didn't kill us on the spot was that we were live-streaming everything to the People and if there's one weakness of UniFed it's exposure and losing the media's narrative."

"But Alan, don't you think they would have already killed us by now, we've been here three days already and nobody's even paid us a visit," Zahra says calmly as if trying to soothe the pain we were all feeling.

I shake my head, "It doesn't matter, they will-"

"Zahra's right, something is wrong. If they wanted to kill us they would have done it by now. Yet we are still alive. Why is that?"

No one says anything before Taika sits up abruptly. "They are hiding" her voice cracks. She looks like she is physically fighting off her pain to push the words past her lips. "Father always said if UniFed was ever attacked the Chiefs, their families and UniFed Royalty would go into hiding, in bunkers underground until the attack dies down."

"For how long?" Leon asks.

Taika closes her eyes as if trying to remember, "One month."

We sit quietly trying to digest the new information. Could there be a way out? Do I even want to get out and face all the ruins we have caused? Even if I didn't I still had to, for Alex. I promised I would come back to him. He has no one else. I have to find a way back to him. No matter what.

"If UniFed and UniFed Royalty aren't here then who is guarding this cell?" I muse out loud.

The rest of the day, or night, we couldn't really tell at this point, Zahra, Leon, and I threw around ideas for our escape. We all had trackers buried underneath the surface of our skin so that the rest of the Insurrectors knew where we were. We had cameras everywhere so they must know by now that we were taken in. We just have to hope they send us a rescue team in time before UniFed comes back.

One month. That is all we had.