To Darkness We Fall

Rebirth

"Breaking news: New York City has now fallen to a series of natural disasters, including a tsunami that has devastated Midtown Manhattan."

The woman on the television didn't get to finish her sentence before she shot her head toward her left with big eyes, listening intently to the person off-camera. She gasps, and so do I. She stands up quickly, not caring to smooth the wrinkles on her pencil skirt. I bite my non-existent nails, peeling off the caked dirt underneath with my front teeth. She scurries away. Then the camera is swept to the ground, drowning...

It all goes black.

"Enough TV for today," Michigan claps behind me. I jump at the sudden noise, then turn my head away from the twelve-inch screen. The DVR makes a hum, then stops. Michigan's tall and thin figure is illuminated by the dim, flickering lights of the train car. She must have found a hair tie, because her stringy blonde locks were tied back so that it only brushed her shoulders. "We need you to help dig."

"Now?" I asked, though I already knew the answer.

She smacked her cheek with a closed fist. Now, or punishment is what she meant.

Back before the Great Disaster, most people talked with words. After it, about 32 years, most of the books were wiped and many survivor camps didn't have teachers. We weren't lucky down in the Underground; most of the people down here were just brimming 28 years old, so no one had what would be called a 'formal education'. We didn't read, couldn't spell, and often communicated in signs we'd made up over the years to hide from the outside world in silence. Not that we were being looked for, anyway. We were forgotten, unwanted children. Now, we're forgotten, stupid adults. The New Youth. 

Michigan didn't have digging duties today; she was on repair with a few others. A few weeks ago an earthquake had broken down the 12th street station's defenses, and so our tallest and strongest were ordered to get on the job as soon as possible. Though she didn't look it, Michigan was possibly the most able of us; before being found, she had been a recruit for a militia-like group---we never knew if it was by choice---and was trained to kill anything that moved. If her gun hadn't jammed when she was found, she'd never be here; a lot of us wouldn't have been.

I never liked digging, yet I did it anyway with a rusted, broken pipe that could hold some dirt. It never worked quite right, I'd thought, but I hadn't known any better. Wilder and Quincy, two boys older than me but with younger faces than I ever had, were digging in silence, their heavy breathing filling the still air with signs of disgruntled life. Occasionally, there were grunts that would surface to expel their exhaustion. We were looking for lithium for flashlights and any supplies that had been fossilized. Most of the time, nothing came up. But there was still that hope that something would show its face.

Wilder looked over to me, searching for my eyes as I avoided his. He was trying to get my attention, but I never wanted it; he never had anything good to say. I was forced to meet his gaze when he stopped digging.

Wilder had these kinds of dull blue eyes, yet they still could be seen without light. The soot on his face smeared onto his lips, it being even more prominent with the paleness of his skin. He was thin, like the rest of the New Youth, and wore ragged brown clothes and an old denim jacket that had a ghost print faded on its back. He was twenty four, brought to the Underground as an orphan at twelve. His voice had a slight lisp with a crooked-tooth grin, but it wasn't often heard. Wilder was quiet, like the occasional sewage rats that scavenged what little we had left in the Underground. 

He motioned to my man-made shovel and swiped the knuckle of his thumb across his lips, then used it to push up the tip of his nose. Dig faster, he meant. I scrunched my nose and whacked my head, bringing it forward to form a hi-sign. I know! He smirked and went back to his work, so I went back to mine.

In the past---in the old generations---work would be for adults. Now,  the term 'adult' ranged from right when you learn to walk to right before you couldn't move anymore. A lot changed, I've heard, since the storms 45 years ago; not that I'd recognize anything was different, anyway. I was born 27 years after the Great Destruction, after everyone had settled into their new lives. Many who lived above didn't want the children they'd bore, whether by voluntary stupidity or by unfortunate force. I don't know exactly which was the case with my birth; all I know is that I was found on the side of an Interstate and brought here: into the old subway tunnels of New York, New York. I'd slept in an abandoned A car with a few other girls until that tunnel caved in, and since then we've stayed in a C car with a small, cracked television and a DVR that only played what was recorded before the Destruction, graciously left behind by someone who didn't need it anymore.

I finished my shift and signaled to another boy who sat lazily on the third rail that had been deactivated years ago. He sighed and rolled his eyes, then took the pipe-shovel and left to work. I replaced the unnamed boy of around 24 and fingered the holes in my shoes that Mother had found above for me. Mother was 36 years old and had never had any children of her own, but as a child herself had taken herself and the other kids who were left outside of their camp as prey by their own parents to the tunnels. As they struggled to build their own compound below, they began to recruit others who were abandoned by their families to become one another's. Of course, this sort of bond didn't prevail when the need to survive trumped 'love'. Sure, we could protect each other, for our own sake; but we would never love, or fall for anyone. That was an old luxury for the privileged or for fools.

Michigan was wandering around while on her break when she passed by me. She almost continued on her way, but something pulled her down next to me.

"What?" I turned to her.

"Nothing," she began as she dropped her head onto my shoulder, "my feet just hurt." I looked to see her blistered toes peeking through her flats, blackened from rubbing against the gravel.

"Oh." I let her stay next to me, and we sat in the silence that filled the tunnel.

This day was normal. It only varied by the time we'd wake up, though it didn't matter much anymore, and the amount of food we had. We were all close because of shared struggle, of knowing we were only accepted by each other. Even if we didn't speak, we understood one another. That was the New Youth, our world that remained untouched by the above, whatever lied up there.

The thing is, everything eventually dissolves. You just don't know when it'll happen or why.