Words, Lines, and Stories

Fluffy's Catch

It had been years since what was left of the population of our country had to move underground. I myself was a few months old baby when it happened, I had never seen the world above. The closest idea I got about it was from the glimmer in my mother's eyes when she daydreamed about her childhood.

Only a few selected people were sent up on short missions regularly, coming back with the news of how dangerous the world above still was. Dangerous but healing, the conditions for life were improving gradually.

There was no reason to rush it; we whispered to each other, nodding our heads. Apart from freedom, we lacked nothing. We had enough food, which we learned to grow in the tunnels, hospitals, housing units for the many families, schools...

Classrooms in which we learned about how our country had lost the war against its neighbour, a land that once had been its sister, almost mother. We had fought bravely despite being inferior in many aspects, but we couldn't have won against the chemical and nuclear weapons in the end.

Our country, along with those sharing our borders and those sharing theirs far and wide, had been poisoned, swept away, and only those who had hidden in time survived.

However, it wouldn't take long now for us to walk outside again, maybe a few more years for the poisons to clear. We were getting excited, despite what we whispered to each other, nodding our heads, we couldn't wait for the day when we would be released outside, and see if we could live like our ancestors had in the past, before the war, repopulating the abandoned, desolate land.

That was until one of our cats, who, seemingly immune to whatever was still up there, brought back the thing instead of the usual bird or a mouse from one of his escapades.

A small creature that looked like nothing the older people who remembered the life above had ever seen, not in reality. Was it something... alien? Had there been an invasion from the space that we had missed while we were hiding? Or was it an animal that evolved into this unknown form to adapt to the altered conditions outside?

Suddenly, no one wanted to go back up. Underground, we were not free, but we were safe. We had everything we needed to not only survive but to live comfortably. The decision was taken the same afternoon, quickly and unanimously by the council, and announced after dinner for everyone to accept without complaints.

We would stay put for the foreseeable future.

That night, I followed Fluffy on his nocturnal hunt. I had never imagined taking my first steps in the world above like this, a refugee, a criminal breaking the rules I had respected without questions or protests my entire life.

But they had already taken my freedom. I had nothing else to give them, but I had the right to know what was happening in the world above our heads, that unknown place I had been taught to consider my real home and forbidden to visit for the foreseeable future-- that could well turn into my lifetime. They had no reason to rush...

I wouldn't let them take my home from me, too, neither my own people nor the aliens. I would see what was happening with my own eyes, then decide what to do next.