The World We Made

Chapter 1

I was a tower about to collapse. Every bone, every muscle, every system in my body was falling in on itself. Bringing down everything around it like a hurricane until the last poles in this building had given up. I was nothing but a crying mess on the ground, my nails dug into skin until they bled. And all Blake did was watch, as if he knew the ending of this story. As if he just tagged along to watch me crumble. He knew all along and he told me how this would end. But I still read this book the whole way through, hoping, believing that it wouldn't end like he said. I should've listened to him.

"Are you happy now?" he asked but he wasn't looking for an answer. "You got what you want, didn't you? You wanted to get your friends out. You sacrificed everything and everyone that I cared about just so you could save them!"

"But... but why are they all gone. What happened to my friends? They were supposed to be in this room. Flynn said they weren't supposed to be killed for another two days."

"Think, Cassidy. You weren't very secretive about what you were doing. Don't you think master would've caught on and told the company? Don't you think the company would've killed them before you could save them?"

No, no, no, no, no! That's not true. They weren't dead. They couldn't be. Master wouldn't have ordered for them to be killed early, not because of me. Would he? No, he wouldn't have, that'd be inhumane... no, no, no. That'd be inhumane to me, not to society. I had to accept that murder was normal here, even if it was wrong, even if it went against what I believed was right, it was normal.

"Was it worth it?!" Blake shouted, almost screaming in my ears. "Was it?!"

Guilt was clawing at my insides. The rush of emotions was trapped inside me. Guilt. Pain. Regret. I was overwhelmed. It was all my fault. It was all because of me. They told me to stop. They told me to think twice. They told me that I was wrong! But I didn't listen. Instead I told myself that it was for my friends, that it was for the people that cared about me. Somehow those lies became the truth in my head, and look where it got me. I was cruel and selfish. I criticized society's way of living. But then I realized that I was the problem all along.

"Sorry, sorry, sorry." I stuttered.

"Sorry isn't going to fix anything! Everyone I ever cared about helped you to save your friends. And you were so caught up on saving your own friends that you didn't care if mine died along the way. Did you ever even notice that you destroyed my whole world!"

"But... you said that you didn't care enough about the slaves to cry for their death. Then why are you crying?"

Blake glared at me through his bloodshot eyes. "Don't believe everything people tell you. And especially don't believe everything you tell yourself." He spat.

Blake wasn't just angry, he was crying. He had lost everything. I wanted to fight his words, I wanted to prove him wrong but deep down I knew he was right. They all died because of me. How could I have been so delusional to believe that what I was doing was right? I'm the problem, not society. I chose to believe in myself when I was wrong. I saw the world and saw the worst in it, but I was just blind. It seemed wrong to me, but it never was.

...

The sluggish lump of somehow edible product made me want to regurgitate. The revolting aftermath of mashed, unknown, potentially fatal product was revolting. This lump could've been anything. But as prisoners to a world of chaos, it was all we had to survive.

Reluctantly swallowing a mouthful of my food, my eyes danced around the room, taking in the time to observe my surroundings. Everyone was slightly disturbed this morning, they always were at the start of the week.