The Underbelly (First Draft)

Sad Story

We entered a bar just off of the running track that was obviously my father's favourite viewing point considering how many whiskey bottles there were stacked on top of the glass shelves behind the bar. My father strode right over to the bottles and poured himself a generous glass of the golden liquid, he raised his eyes questioningly but I shook my head. I was never a fan of whiskey.

I strode over to the enormous window that spanned the entire wall and looked out onto the athletic field. It was still crazy to see people achieve such amazing feats. A cough brought me out of my wonder and I turned to see my father sitting on a reclining chair, its gleaming leather that caught the fluorescent light blazing from the fields. He gestured to the couch in front of him and I slowly walked over to it, still wary, and sat myself down.

He swirled his whiskey around in his glass as he collected his thoughts, he was frowning. I frowned in return as I became confused. My father, unsure of himself? It was then with a start I realised that it was very possible that my father has never spoken of this before. It was a new side to him and I wasn't sure how I felt about my father showing me his vulnerable side.

He cleared his throat with a large harrumph and sat up straighter, "I never knew my parents Merissa which is one of the many reasons I was a bad father to you." I arched an eyebrow and my father threw up his hands, "ok, ok it's one of the reasons I am a bad father to you. So now that that's out of the way I'll finish my story."

He got into a comfortable position and continued, "as I was saying, I never knew my parents and I don't mean in the way bratty kids today say it about their daddy or mommy not having enough time for them, I mean I grew up in the State's care." I was sitting very still, I never had any proper conversations with my father and any attempts were certainly not alone with my mother always in the background hovering. It was surreal to listen to the big scary man in my life to talk like this, "so I grew up in an orphanage not far from here actually. I stayed there until I was about fourteen. One day I was walked into the head matron's office and was told that I was being adopted. There were three women in suits with her and they told me to pack my bags because that I was leaving then. I was, as you can imagine, shocked and more than a little upset since I had made friends in that place that were my family."

He smiled to himself and I got the feeling that he was not really talking to me but rather to himself and I listened closely, he could very easily let slip information, "I was even sweet on a girl there and I was bawling my eyes out when I told her goodbye and she gave me a kiss on the cheek as a goodbye present. I still have the little plastic flower she gave me on our first date..." I cleared my throat in impatience, he looked up almost like he was surprised that I was there and then his expression cleared, "apologies for that Merissa. I was reminiscing. As I was saying, I was taken by those women and I soon found out that I was one among dozens of young boys taken by these women."

I felt like I was bringing up old and awful memories but I had to know the truth, "we were told that we were being recruited into the army to be part of a new program, they called us the splice soldiers. At the time I did not know what that meant but as time went on they trained us harder and harder and a boy would go missing overnight every so often and we would not know what happened. One night though myself and one of the boys Thomas, who I had grown close to, were exploring after curfew. We heard screams and naturally we followed them down the dark corridors. They were horrible screams, almost like the very reason for a person's existence was being torn apart over and over again."

My father took a sudden gulp of his drink and waited a moment before continuing, "what I saw I'll never forget. I know the surface people don't think much of us Underbellers but what they do to each other is far worse than anything I have ever seen. I saw four boys roughly my age but I couldn't tell who they were since they were torn apart like an overexcited dog with a rabbit. Thomas and I must have screamed ourselves because suddenly there were masked figures pulling at us, we tried to fight back but they must have injected us with something because we were suddenly unconscious. I won't tell you what they did to me but you can rest assured that what Chaz and the other trainers felt when you touched them was like a walk in the park in comparison." I blanched at that.