Leave The City - A Trench Story (tøp)

Shy Away

I awoke in the morning to an annoying voice coming through the screen. I quickly ran over to it to see if Tyler would be there again, unfortunately it was just the man and the woman again.

"Welcome back to Good Day DEMA! We're your hosts Sally Sacarver" "and Dan Lisden" "and today we're taking a trip back in time!" "Have you ever wondered what the popular band Twenty One Pilots was like before the DEMA council picked them up and put them back on their feet?" "Well let me tell you Dan it wasn't so pretty, now was it?" "Let's just say that working with DEMA has definitely improved their style!" "You can say that again!" "Well I just might, but for now, let's take a look at what Tyler and Josh were up to when they made their original song "Shy Away"!"

My heart raced as the screen switched from the hosts who I now recognized to be two of the bishops to a strange 3-pronged symbol and then what looked like Tyler, but instead of his hair being pink as it was the last time he was shown, it was his regular brown, but it was long and pushed back, with a few pieces hanging down the front. He looked tired, and worn out. The video was close up to his face, but he just looked down and then aimlessly turned back to look at a blurry figure in the back. I managed to make out that it was Josh, sitting at the same contraption as he was yesterday, his hair was long and curly, his face also sullen. Tyler raised his hand and began to sing into a handheld device. It was a black stick with a silver sort of ball of the end.

"When I get home you better not be there, we're placing bets you won't shed your modesty"

His eyes seemed to meet mine, but his expression stayed the same as it had been before. His eyes full of nothingness, alternating between looking up and down at the ground. The screen switched between Tyler and Josh for a while. It then showed a strange place. Dark with a few streetlights, and then Tyler with his hair split into two and tied up on top of his head. He was leaning against some kind of box that read "phone". He held up a black object to his ear. He paced around the cement area. At one point there were other people behind him, all wearing light blue masks with holes in them. They were dressed like Tyler and Josh, holding objects that seemed to be creating some of the music. The video continued on for a few minutes, with the lyrics "Don't you shy away" repeating over and over. When it finished. Lisden and Sacarver reappeared.

"Well I have to admit that it is quite a catchy song but I think I prefer DEMA's version better." "I agree. Although I think we might have gotten a glimpse at some of the other nineteen pilots." "Oh yes, always thought it was strange that there was only the two them."

I was thinking too hard to cringe at their dumb joke, but I couldn't help but notice how they were acting like Twenty One Pilots had been around for a long time. Where were they getting this "old" footage from? Tyler never made a song. We hadn't even known what songs were until we found the radio a few years back. Still, I tried to figure out what was going on with them, and why were the bishops appearing? There was no way that any real citizen of DEMA would be allowed to see them  in anything other than their robes and hoods, and yet, here they were, acting like some sort of fairytale characters on a music broadcast. Obviously they were trying to show how vialism had improved people's lives, using Tyler and Josh's supposed band as their outlet, but who were they trying to convince? Surely they wouldn't risk people already inside the city hearing music and upbeat lyrics. The song was pratically telling people not to give up on their dreams, wheras all the bishops ever spoke about was almost the exact opposite. Anyone who had any aspirations outside of DEMA was shut down immediately and threatened with a neon gravestone over their head within seconds. So who could the bishops be trying to communicate with? Did they know about the Banditos? Surely they had heard of the old legends about runaways, but they couldn't know where they were. After all, how would they have gotten their messages to them? The only way I was able to see them was through this screen right here in my cell. I had never seen anything like it before. Still, it made me wonder about the possibility of people out there, farther than where Tyler and I had gone, maybe they were never in DEMA to start with? But who could survive out there without at least some provisions from DEMA? The only reason that the human race wasn't extinct was because the bishops had created the city, and created the laws and structures to protect us. We wouldn't have survived without them. At least, that's what they had always told us. Although, I was beginning to realize just how little the bishops could really be trusted. After all, they captured us, imprisoned me, and were now using Tyler and Josh to deceive others into believing that DEMA was some kind of paradise when all it really was was an oppressive work base that just so happens to believe that its citizens need food and water to survive. What made me even more angry was how they twisting the good that music was to coax others into the city. Music had always made me feel so amazing, and from all those talks with Tyler about how certain songs made us feel, I could tell it did the same for him. Music molded our emotions, changed the way we think, and spoke to our very souls. And yet, here it was being used as propaganda to trick others into a world of lies. It was almost as bad as the brainwashing that was being used on Tyler and Josh.

I decided to sit down against the wall of my cell, in front of the door so I could watch out of the small, rectangular window at the top, in case the paper that covered it from the outside ever fell down, and wondered how long it would be until I was given something through it. They wouldn't just let me starve in here, would they? Then again, maybe that would be better than getting dragged into whatever it was they were doing.

Unfortunately, I didn't have to wait very long until a guard unlocked and shoved open the door, tossed me a piece of bread, and then grabbed my arm, dragging me out of my cell and down the hallway. I decided that there was no point in resisting. I walked with him as he brought to what was most likely my inevitable doom. But instead of bringing me to the room marked "termination" I was brought to a door with a sign taped on it that read "Filming". Before I could ask any questions, I was sat down in a chair, and a female guard began combing my hair and putting some kind of powder on my face. I tried to protest, but a strange noise began to sound, distracting me from my pleading thoughts. It was a low, soft sound that filled the room, and I looked in a mirror and saw that a pair of big headphones had been placed on my head, different from the ones that Tyler and I had used when listening to music, but sounding music all the same. The sides were cushioned and blocked out the noise from the room around me. The strange sounds intrigued me as I began to lose my focus on my previous thoughts involving Tyler. A comforting voice spoke to me about the importance of the law, and the safety that structure brought. With each word, I could feel myself falling farther and farther away from my desire to escape. I saw my eyes glaze over through the haze that had drifted between me and my sight, and I felt my muscles relax from the tenseness that they had been in previously from when the guard had brought me here. My shoulders dropped and my eyes drooped, all the while I was being fixed up for some kind of filming that was supposed to take place. I didn't understand it all, but it didn't seem to matter. All I knew was that I was safe here, and that I was right where I was supposed to be.

Where was that again?