Project Hysteria

Juice?

2025 16th February (nine years after World War III)

I didn't sleep last night. Andrew fell asleep a few hour after the soldiers shot... I don't really want to think about it.

"Penny for your thoughts?" A tired voice says from the other side of my bed.

I look over at Andrew and give him a pathetically fake smile as he sits up leaning against the head of the bed.

"I was just thinking about last night, it started off so well then... That happened," I say and he purses his lips and looks down at me.

"Well it is obvious that whoever he was, was dangerous judging by the way the soldiers shot him no questions asked," he says.

I yawn before talking, "Do you... Do you think he could've been 'Blight'?"

"Actually, that's not a bad idea. He struck me as someone as foul as them," he says and I sit up quickly.

Hm, I'll humour myself for a minute.

"Surely all of the Blight aren't bad," I say, not that I believe in them I just want to hear what he has to say.

"They are threatening us humans, and they are too powerful for their own good. I'd imagine that, that much power would have the capability to make anyone hungry for destruction," he says thoughtfully.

"But what if one isn't persuaded by their power, what if they are trying to help us?" I ask and he raises an eyebrow intrigued with my question.

"Trying to help us how? Like win the war?" He questions.

"No... Uh... Can you keep a secret?" I ask him not sure if I could trust him.

"Of course, Sia, what is it?" He asks.

"My parents, before they were... Executed, use to tell me that there is no war anymore-," I start but he cuts me off.

"They play footage on the TV all the time," he says.

"My parents said it was from when the war was actually happening and they just keep replaying it. They said that the Government only want us in the safe zone so that they can keep a closer eye on us and by keeping us all separated from each other we can't find out the truth and revolt. Dad used to say that the Blight don't exist and are only a way for the government to kill people that they didn't care for-," Andrew cuts me off again.

"And what did your mother say about the Blight," he asks enthralled by what I was saying.

"She said that she had met one, and that they are real and are trying to free us from the grasp of the governments tyranny," I say and he furrows his brows.

"That's a load of shit you know that right, Sia?" He says suddenly after a few seconds of thought.

I look at him shocked, "But that's what my parents told me!"

"Sia, you can't actually believe that, even if that was true, you would just end up the same as your parents," he says and I look away from him and lie back down onto the bed.

"You're right," I say through a clenched jaw.

Asshole, even if you were you could've said it a bit nicer.

After a few minutes of silence Andrew speaks up again, "hey, Sia, what job do you want when you turn eighteen?"

"I'm not sure, probably a farmer, what about you?" I ask, I never really though about it, my parents always planned on leaving here and going out to the wasteland.