The Clean Ones

Chapter 22

Chaos was the only word to describe it. I'd never, ever seen the Community in such shambles before. What was once a pristine, polished metropolitan city had become a rugged battleground.
The glass buildings that, at one time, had stood clean, without as much as a single finger print on them, were shattered. They no longer reflected various shimmering colors onto the paved streets when the sunlight hit them at a particular angle. Several of the glass buildings had become nothing more than piles of shards. The ones that remained intact weren't in much better condition, though. Gaping holes were punctured throughout the glass. Blazing fires raged inside one of the skyscrapers. On the pavement below another, I could have sworn I saw a stain of blood.

I walked.

I didn't know where I was headed, or what particular direction I intended to go in. For the moment, I forgot about Perri. I forgot about her and Lilliana and Delta and the twins and... Everyone.

Blank. My mind felt blank.

I took off into a sprint. Numb. My legs felt numb.

Where was I going?

I came to a halt when I reached the plaza. The large fountain in the dead center of the plaza no longer spewed out crystal waters. Any loose coins that had been tossed to the bottom of the fountain were gone. Children no longer danced around it.

I walked some more. Most of the market stalls had been abandoned for what looked like quite some time now. The permanent tents that had been set up were ripped from their posts and now lay crumpled and torn in the streets. I made my way over to Perri's stall, which looked just like the rest of them. The smell of cinnamon and cloves and rising bread could no longer be detected from five miles away. You couldn't even smell it if you were standing five feet away. I stepped inside what was left of the stall. Her oven was charred in several spots, and some of the buttons looked as if they had been ripped straight out of the metal backing. A burnt pie still sat on the tray inside the oven, as of waiting to be served to a loyal customer. It looked like it was full of fresh raspberries, perhaps, though it was so beyond burt and molded over at this point that it was too hard to tell. On the remains of the preparation counter beside the oven was a bowl of curdled milk, clumped sugar, and a stick of butter infested with maggots.

What happened here? What had once been a symbol of happiness and prosperity in the community had completely disintegrated. Did I really do this?
I scanned the remainder of the plaza. I snorted to myself as my eyes focused on the one structure that, despite all the chaos,ms till remained perfectly intact- the Cleansing chambers. Of course Mayor Johnson would have thought to make them completely indestructible. Of course he would've ensured that his precious little experiment remained unscathed. Of. Course.

As I walked over to the chamber, I felt an overwhelming sense of rage. How dare he. How dare he try and strip these innocent people of their thoughts. How dare he think it's okay to take away a person's sense of self. He did this all to help end a war? Well, it seems to me like all he did was jumpstart another one.

No, you created another war, Cale. Not him.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to run away and hide from this disaster I've created. I wanted this mess to be over.

It wasn't just the destruction that was getting to me. Peoples we running amongst the streets, screaming and terrorizing one another. I counted backwards in my head. Just how long had it been since these people were Cleansed? The answer: a month. It had been just over a month, which meant all of these people should've been Cleansed last week. If they were, then they wouldn't be acting like this. Something was not right here.

Why weren't these people Cleansed?

Death is the fate of the ill and the unstable, not the Cleansed.

But why were there numerous dead bodies laying amok. The promulgation didn't explain why people were killing each other.

Maybe, that was exactly why.

They'd been so sheltered their entire existence that they had absolutely no idea what to do when the truth about the world came out. They couldn't handle it. It tore them apart mentally. Here they were, swept up in this promise of eternal happiness, only to be greeted with the information that their whole concept of happiness, of life, was false. Life is hard. People die painful deaths every single day. Yet, these people were sheltered from that reality for almost twenty years.

I walked up to the chamber and began to kick it. I clawed, and punched, and kicked. And, within seconds, I let out a strangled scream. The brute force of my actions left small dents within the solid metal chamber. But I didn't care. I couldn't care.

I didn't cause this mess. This damn chamber did.

"I didn't do it," I muttered. "I didn't mess up this town. I didn't-"

I felt something cool touch the back of my neck.

I continued to attack the chamber until I heard a familiar click.

A venomous cackle.

I ceased my attack and spun around, only to come face-to-face with a loaded pistol.

"Not much of a kiddo now, huh, Liam?" Perri sneered with a laugh, and pressed the barrel of the gun deeper into my forehead.