Through The Wire Fence

ONE - The Fence

"Alyssa, I really don't think this is a good idea," Ashton chewed his knuckles nervously as I tugged on my overalls and fastened the gas mask around my face. Going outside required suiting up or dying from the gas. The choice was yours, but I decided long ago that I'd like to live to see the rays of sun filtering through the smoky gas day after day. It was my motivation. Without me, there would be chaos. My father would come back and take over, killing everyone under the age of twenty-five. I needed to stick around long enough to make sure that didn't happen.

"Shut up Ashton," I rolled my eyes, "what do you know about good ideas?"

Before the Great War, Ashton and I had been best friends. He was a class-A student and a serious womanizer, but he was also a terrible influence, getting me into trouble time and time again. Ashton wasn't the worst guy ever though, and given time, we'd probably end up getting married. To the rest of the kids out there, we were like the mom and dad of the survivors. People looked up to us. In our friendship and closeness, they saw stability and safety. Technically, we were dating, but it was unofficial; neither of us had ever mentioned it, but Ashton was always there, holding my hands during speeches, or kissing the forehead of my gas mask after a particularly bad day. Maybe we were what kept suicide rates down; maybe we were what inspired kids to suit up every day in a desperate attempt to survive the gas rather than giving up.

Seeing Ashton's unwavering worry, I frowned. "Look Ash, I have to do this. What kind of leader am I if I don't patrol for adults or check up on Dyslan?"

"A safe one," Ashton muttered, but conceded nonetheless. He grabbed his overalls and mask and soon we stood on the front porch, surveying the near empty streets. Long dead tumbleweeds bounced along the green-tinted streets of Alcatrone. Neither side of the Wire Fence was good, but our side definitely had a "pretty" kind of aura to it. I smiled through my mask, tilting my head back to soak up any weak rays of sunlight I could. Through the plastic, the heat was magnified and I quickly started sweating.

"Come on," I tugged Ashton's arm, "let's keep moving."

We trekked along, stopping to talk to a few little kids before we made it to the ominous hypocritical barrier that only enforced segregation despite what we told everyone. The Fence stretched high enough that the top was lost in the funnelling gas clouds above. Everything was green and grey as thick fog swirled around near the top like wispy clouds. Hundreds of feet above, the air was clean and safe, but also unattainable. Here on the ground, all we knew was dirt and poison. You couldn't see more than twenty feet in either direction down the fence; all you could see was smoke and fog and poison.

The ground was lumpy and uneven as we walked a few miles back and forth down the fence, checking for holes. Other patrols would be checking the other areas in the fence, but today, this district was mine.

"Can I help you?" A rough voice asked and I stood up ramrod straight. Next to me, Ashton froze.

"We're just patrolling," I assured the stranger on the other side of the Fence. It was a boy, I realised, though I could barely see through his dirty mask. That was another thing we had that they didn't: newer overalls and clean masks. Their side was sickly and disease ridden as patched overalls did little to keep the gas out, but our side was mostly healthy apart from the occasional flu. This Dyslian, however, didn't look sick.

From what I could see, he had dark shaggy hair, brown maybe, and dark eyes, but that could have been the layer of dirt caked to his mask. He had a strong looking face, with a jawline even sharper than Ashton and eyes that shone dangerously. They screamed overprotection and something told me his challenging attitude was just an attempt to keep the Dyslians safe from any potentially violent Alcatronians. Slung across his shoulder was a gun, most likely an AK-47, the belt pulled taught by his crossed arms and bulky overalls.