Plunge

Chapter One

The lights outside flash, and a split-second later Cassandra's eyes open, alert with the slightest hint of fear behind her wide-eyed gaze. Thunder follows, and she begins to hear the rain assault the thin glass of her window. She exhales, a thunderstorm is not an airstrike, and this realization soothes her frayed nerves. 

"I thought it was one, too." Cassandra whips her head across the room, following her brother's voice to the blankets on the floor next to the window. He looks awful, the whites of his eyes blurred with sleeplessness, and he shakes in the sporadic light of the lightning. 

"Have you gotten any sleep at all?" Cassandra works to steady her voice, she's calm, collected. She hopes he doesn't see through the facade. "They say that rain helps people fall and stay asleep, the white noise helps distract --" she drifts off. To address the state of the world is to accept it, and she has no desire to do so. Regardless, Luka has already drifted off, eyes tracing the raindrops' trails, analyzing their tortuous paths in search of similarities and differences. 

"Fine," she mutters to herself, turning around to face the door of the apartment, but the potential for sleep has disappeared. The damp air makes the room reek of paint, and Cassandra debates breathing through her mouth. Every option holds its respective dangers, so she settles, pulling the blanket around her head. The layer of fabric isn't much, but keeps the worst of the toxins out of her lungs. Her feet quickly go numb from the cold brought by shifting the blanket, but she leaves them be. The November air reminds her she's still alive.

She coughs, and Luka's focus leaves the raindrops, the intensity of his green-eyed stare directed solely at his sister. Cassandra coughs again, a side-effect of the cold creeping up her legs and the particles within her lungs. He pads over to her, shifting his weight to make his footfall silent. 

"Cass, you can't breath this in. It'll kill you." He stands over her, holding what's left of the breath he drew next to the window. The slight form underneath the blankets makes in appearance, and the shadows of her hollow face reveal a stubborn stare.  

"What's the point? Losing a couple of months of life from breathing this in doesn't make a difference if I die tomorrow." She hates herself for saying it, but the cold has crawled up to her knees, and her patience has shrunk with her warmth. One side of her chastises her for her impulsive complaint; as older sister, it's her job to retain whatever sanity she can salvage from the world.

He lets go of his breath, watching the cloud in the air form and dissolve as the warmth of his breath fades away. "I'll at least keep you company then," he states, crossing his legs on the hard floor next to her blanket, an expectant stare and a hint of a smile gracing his face. 

It works. Cassandra slowly sits up, drawing her legs into the warmth of her small blanket, glaring at her brother. She can let go of her life, but she can't rationalize jeopardizing his. "You're a manipulative bastard," she grits through her teeth, but a hint of pleasure permeates her voice. It's a reminder that he cares, that more occupies his mind than raindrops on a window. Together, they head for the window, Cassandra's blanket trailing behind her, picking up the dust that litters the floor of the unfinished house. It had been a blessing to find it, for their's had been taken over by the Company in the first days of the oligarchy's control. They made it out. A mother, a father, and a younger brother did not. 

"So, what's the plan for tomorrow? We need warmth -- a lighter, matches, anything. The nights are only going to get colder," Luka asks, straining to see the outline of Cassandra's matted hair and sharp nose in the changing light. She says nothing, inhaling the clean air of the far side of the room. The thin window did nothing to keep out the cold air, but the cold air helped diffuse the paint fumes. A curse can be a blessing. 

"M said that a couple of miles out there's a department store that's still being operated. The Company hasn't gotten to it yet, and we still have mother's ring." Cassandra's chest tightens, how can be so insensitive? 

"No," she croaks, meeting his gaze for the first time in the entirety of conversation, "we are definitely not doing that." She racks her brain for options, constraining herself to opportunities that involved only a minimal chance of death. "We could scavenge," she proposes, deciding on the most harmless of the options she could think of. 

"Yeah, or we could go ahead and turn ourselves into the company, volunteer to be soldiers in their awful war," Luka laughs incredulously. It's a bitter laugh, and he stops as her gray eyes flash, "Oh, you're serious." 

His eyes lose track of Cassandra's face as his calculating mind turns over the numbers, calculating probabilities and worst scenarios.  "I guess we can," he decides, choking on the words as they leave his throat, "but the Southwest Sector is off limits, and if we so much as hear a whisper about a Northward advance from the Company, we have to run." 

"Of course," she sighs, trying to understand her enigmatic brother. "That was a given," a pause, her breath hitches in her throat as she thinks of the question. "How long do you think it'll be before the Company moves north? They've been moving east and west ceaselessly for the past couple of months, so I don't understand why they're leaving us alone. It's too good to be true as it is, and with winter descending, every day that passes closes our escape routes." 

"Our hardships are their hardships. They don't have to fear hypothermia or frostbite the way we do, but the snow is an inconvenience to them as much as it is us. I think we're safe until spring unless their activity changes. Plus, there's nothing for them here. The resources lie opposite of us: natural gas, coal, oil -- all of the things you need to fuel an army. We have one industrial center and a couple of towns, each separated with mile upon mile of woods.  We're an asset, but they don't need this land. Not yet." Luka closes his eyes, and for a second, the deep lines of exhaustion carved by insomnia leave his face. "There's hope for us yet, big sis." 

His faith in assumptions and calculations comforts her, and she closes her eyes, too. Together they sit, backs against the wall beneath the window, her eyes closed and his open once more, watching light and dark battle through the empty room and listening to the baritone of thunder.