Stay Alive: A Curtis Everett Story ✓

Chapter 7

*2031*
Curtis's POV

It's been 4 years since I lost everything, since Emery lost everything. Now was the time to act. We had gotten a contact that was going to tell us how to get through to the water tanks. And I was ready for this to end. The tyranny, the misplacement of power and food, all of it.

"Line up." One of the guards said. We stand in our lines and I still go to reach for Sirena, even though she's been gone for so long. He counts off and one by one the rows sit down. Edgar starts a ruckus and Tanya jumps in. They've taken another two children this morning and her boy and Andy's were both stolen from us.

They grab an old man and hold a gun to his head. I'm suddenly transported back to 4 years ago when Sirena was held in the exact same way. "You want him fucking dead? Is that it?" The guard yells.

"Still going for it are we?" Gilliam asks.

"Come on. Let's go. Let's do it." Edgar says in my other ear. I make my way through the crowd, moving through people as if they're not there. I step up to a guard and put the barrel of the gun to my forehead. When nothing happens as he pulls the trigger, I know we've won.

"They've got no bullets!" Edgar yells. They grab the battering ram we've fashioned and I force the container of protein blocks off the cart they bring it in on, enabling us to place the battering ram on it. I swing up to ride on top as I ride through 3 of the 4 gates, before engaging with the guards that are further down the hall. Before one of the guards wielding a giant block can crush us with it, Gray comes running up from the back and stabs him in the chest with his keys.

We free our guide, who in turn frees his daughter. There's something weird about her. She... senses things. "Yona. It's Yona right?" I ask her as we wait for her dad to open the next gate. She nods. "How old are you?"

"17."

"17, you're a train baby then?"

She doesn't answer directly, just looks down. "How about you?"

"Seventeen years on Earth. Seventeen years in the tail section."

"Earth. What was it like?"

"I don't remember."

"Why?"

"I don't want to remember anything before I met Gilliam... Or her."

"Who's her?"

"My wife... my Sirena." I say. It's the first time in 4 years I've said her name out loud to anyone, even Emery. "Yona, are you clairvoyant?"

"Clairvoyant? What's that?"

"Well, you always seem to know what's behind the gates. Do you see things in your mind?" Instead of answering she gets up and I follow her to the gate. She stares at it for a while and I watch her eyes go as big as saucers.

"Don't open it." She says quietly.

"What?" She yells to her dad to lock the gate back up but it's too late. The gate opens, revealing a small army of guys in ski masks wielding axes. I send up a final "I love you" to Sirena with a promise that I'll be joining her soon. "Be careful." I say to Edgar when he comes up by my side.

We go through a tunnel, already most of us are on the ground, dead or bleeding out. It goes pitch black and we can't see the hands in front of our faces, let alone the axes and spears that are being used to slaughter us. Someone has Edgar in a choke hold, knife to his throat. But it's either him or Mason, Wilford's right hand... woman, although she wouldn't refer to herself as that. Right hand man is how she always spoke of herself. I turn away as I start to see his body fall to the ground and I grab her in a choke hold as we get out of the tunnel.

The train car fills with light and I see the true extent of the damages. There are plenty of my people laying on the floor, and I almost collapse when I see that Emery is among them, one final look of determination etched on her face. My only thought of comfort is that she is at least reunited with her sister again. "Everybody stop!" I yell.

"Do what he says, for crying out loud!" She cries.

...

"Not in the bum, Curtis." She's spewing. I looked at her, surprised. "Yes, Wilford knows you well, Mr. Curtis Everett. He's been watching you. And we know you won't harm your own people. Too bad you couldn't save your wife. What was her name? Sirena?" That did it.

I rushed her, pulling out a knife I got from one of her soldiers' dead bodies. "Shut the fuck up!" I yell, putting the knife to her throat.

"Curtis, I can help you." She pleads.

"You can fucking is what you can do. Don't you dare talk about my wife. Not after it was your people who killed her, even though she was innocent."

...

Andrew and Gilliam are the next to die as we go through a classroom of future brainwashed puppets in the making. I shoot Mason point blank. The time for negotiations is over. I'm out for blood, and I won't stop until I have Wilford's head on one of the spikes he used to kill my people.

...

I lose Tanya in the steam car. And I tell the horrible story of our origins to someone who really doesn't give a crap before I'm led into the very front of the train. "Curtis? Is that you?" Wilford asks. "Curtis, dear boy. Come in. Let's take a look at you. You hungry? You did a man's work, coming all this way."

I watch as the bitch who took Timmy and Andy pull out the chair. "Please, sit down." She says.

"You are the first human being to have walked the total length of this train. Tail to engine. Did you know that? Well done, bravo. None of your people have ever been here, to the engine. Well, that's not entirely true. But I, I have never been to the tail section." He says with a small chuckle. "But everyone has their place. This train is a closed ecosystem. We must always strive for balance. We can't wait for natural selection to occur. We'd all go hungry waiting for that. The next best thing is to have individual units kill off other individual units. Sometimes we need to fuel the fire ourselves. The Revolt of the Seven, the MacGregor Riots, the Great Curtis Revolution.That wasn't what Gilliam and I were planning on 4 years ago when we set this in motion. But we did know you would be the one that would lead this new one."

I furrow my brow in confusion. "What?"

"You didn't know? Hmm. Although I'm not surprised he kept it from you. The front and the tail are supposed to work together. Your little insurgency was supposed to end at Yaketerina Tunnel, and you and your survivors would go back to the tail section with more space."

"You're a fucking liar. Gilliam would never do that." I tell him.

"You didn't know your mentor half as well as you think you did. There were many things he didn't tell you. I wonder if you'd still feel the same if you knew just what he kept from you." He says before nodding to Claude, who gets up from her chair and leaves for a moment. She comes back and she's not alone. My breath catches in my throat and I choke back a sob.