To Darkness We Fall

Father

Nearly all of us cried when Thomason's body was tossed in front of the gathering crowd. Down from the meeting car, he bounced off of the ground, his eyes lifelessly staring at us with his own grief of what the Underground had become. Only did our bodies stiffen when Mother came running down the tunnel, screaming at the sight of her closest child.

"What have you done?" She cried, swooping his limp body toward her own. Silence filled the air; Mother had never been weak, had never cried. Yet here she was, tears spilling out like the floods decades ago. Her tears fell onto Thomason's face, glossing his eyes and filling his open mouth. My, if he hadn't died already he would've drowned just by her grief.

As if her mouth had been covered without warning, Mother's sobs stopped. She slowly looked up, exposing her puffy face. Her entire body rose and, as if she were a god splitting water, moved through the crowd that had formed toward the Founder soldier who had mercilessly spilt blood.

Still, the man stood tall and proud, looking down at the thin woman. After what felt like hours, Mother raised her hand and smacked his face with all her force. Her long and choppy nails clawed his right cheek, blood smearing as her palm made its way across. The soldier stood in shock; all of us did. As he raised his fist, the Youth charged at the brute, the force knocking him onto the floor. Boys and girls, men and women, all on top of one man. I crawled up his body to his face, throwing blows onto his mouth. My grief was overpowered by my rage, where I was no longer a child but a monster. Blood spit onto my face whenever my knuckles made impact with his teeth, his face indenting. Bones from all over his body snapped and popped as everyone avenged their brother, not stopping until the man's grunts and screams went silent.

In the heat of our insanity, none of us had realized Damon standing atop the meeting car, watching us return to our humanity. Only Mother stepped forward, balancing herself on the tracks.

"Your people will never hurt mine. You will never kill here. Do you understand?" She roared, threatening to climb up and knock him down to reassert herself. He said nothing, but he broke eye contact with Mother to observe his soldier's body lying unrecognizable behind her. If it weren't for his uniform, he'd look like trading meat.

"It must have been a misunderstanding, you see—"

"No care for a misunderstanding. You watch your people and I watch mine." She turned on her heel and broke through us once again, this time continuing down the track to her own car. Damon watched her as she left, then studied us. Our bodies were malnourished and bony, but we were ruthless, just as much as his Founders are. Soon enough he turned to the ladder and walked the opposite route on the tracks, leaving us to realize what we had done.

I found Michigan's eyes in the crowd; hers turned down at the bloodied body and blackened with terror. Death was frequent in the world above, but down in the Underground it was merely a cautionary tale. I pushed through the dispersing group and found myself face-to-face with her. Though Michigan's eyes watered, she knew better than to let them fall; quickly she pushed past me and down the tracks, wiping her hands on her jeans as she left.

"Who's going to teach us now?" Cassidy, a thin blonde girl by the age of fourteen; she was recovered a few months ago from a power plant camp. As she began to sob, others did, too. I couldn't cry, there was too much hatred in my heart that stopped tears from even brimming. One wasn't enough, because they would keep killing us. Somehow a voice in my head kept telling me this, and for so long I refused to believe it. I refused to do it until a week later, when we were called to a meeting by the banging of a chest.

Our faces twisted in both disgust and confusion as the meeting car didn't display Mother with her bang, bang, bang. It was Damon, with a smirk that only meant something evil. He shushed our whispers so that only our shivering could be heard. Behind him were all his soldiers minus one, standing tall. But Mother was missing.

"There has been a terrible accident," he began, believing we didn't already know that whatever he would say was no mistake. "Agatha—"

"It's Mother!" someone I couldn't see shouted. Damon shook it off, looking toward him with pity. Then, he continued his narrative.

"She was trying to escape, she couldn't take Thomason's passing and..." he drifted off, turning his head away from us. As if he really cared. "She must have found one that was booby-trapped, and..." he stopped again, nodding his head toward his men. One stepped forward, with striking blue eyes that glowed with violent fantasies and an intimidating height. He tossed to us something that he had been holding behind him this entire time, something we'd sadly not realized. The item rolled shakily, leaving behind a trail of brown spots. A few of us stepped forward to get a closer look, and Wilder, with courage or curiosity, kicked it with his foot. He collapsed when it turned to look at us with familiar eyes.

"Mother!" Wilder shouted as the silence erupted into screams. There lay her head, but where was her body?

My brain went numb as I fell to the ground, my eyes foggy with tears and shock. I'm not sure who I fell onto, but they dropped to the ground as well, willingly so. Through the blur of people running I saw a scrawny man, along with some others, charge at Damon, but quickly fell to the tracks in a splash of blood as bullets rang through the air.

Thud. Thud. Thud. That's what filled my ears as bodies began to fall, joining Mother. They were dying so quickly; all this time we hid from the vicious world above just to be taken down in our home. I couldn't bear the thought of the Underground becoming a haven of Founders. They did not find this place, they conquered it.

"As part of this tragedy, of the loss of your precious mother," he slurred his words, mocking us, "I will graciously become your new leader. And I do not take defectors lightly." He motioned to the dead. "I, from this moment on, will be your father." Those of us who survived, who were too weak to retaliate in a burst of grief and rage, stay silent. I looked to the last of us, the Youth: about a dozen of scrawny, hunched adult children against tall, strong, and ruthless savages.

The Underground, I realized now, was now an extension of the world above. We are not safe, we are not free. That was the last time, I vowed, that I would stand with my siblings and congregate for a meeting. By morning, I'd be above these tunnels, for I could no longer trust the world I once called home.