ROT

Chapter 1

        It's been sixteen years since the Blast; I was five at the time, and can't remember much. A white smoke trail in the clear blue sky, the t.v. turning off my favorite program at its start, and then the explosions. I lived in the average picket-fence suburbia, but it was more like hell in the hours, days, years that followed. My parents died when I was seven because they didn't take the military-issued drug that was supposed to protect the populace from the radiation. Because of that, I grew up on the streets, distrusting of everyone and knowing better. The rest is history.

        It's chaos outside, but I live. I need to live.

        I'm part of a resistance group now, the half-passive half-aggressive organization that opposes the current government. One of the Blasts destroyed our perfect little democracy, including all of its figureheads, and now only the faulty military has the power to regain control in the chaos. If you don't rule with an iron fist in these times, you get assassinated within a matter of hours.

        The military oligarchy, the National Defense Force for the Masses, or NDM, goes by the saying 'Fight for the people', 'Everything for the people'. Their heart may have been in the right place at one time or another, but it's not any more. I know that for sure. Why else would they carry out mass genocide on the civilians they swear to protect?

        The resistance force is ROT, or The Resistance of Truth. The ancestors of one of the original founders were from what used to be Liechtenstein, a small country near the late Germany, and unlike the military our history and family are important to us. 'Rot' is 'red' in German, which stands for the blood of the countless people that will be slaughtered in the name of justice if we don't stop them first. No matter what they do, we'll keep trying- we have our own underground network of things ranging from passive graffiti to bombings of military transports, and taking care of the biggest causes of concern within the NDM. But unlike them, we don't kill indiscriminately. We fight for the weak, the powerless, the people that are just trying to live peacefully but can't because of all the shit that's gone down within the past sixteen years. Political pressure from what's left of the other countries, war over farmland and similar invaluable resources, and now we've been driven to civil war- it always gets worse before it gets better, and I pray to whatever god there is that that saying's true. If it's not, we're all doomed.

        But all that's in the future, and while that future is more important than any of us ROT members, all that us cogs in the wheel have to think about is the present. The present, not the past or our future- the civilian's future, sure, but not ours. Those who think about their own future here or the 'what ifs' usually don't last the week. They either get themselves shot, or turn themselves in without even a fight. That makes you a traitor, which is something we don't like. Traitors are the lowest scum because they side with the enemy, they side with the NDM- they give away information, our information, and get the rest of us killed. They go against their family and shoot us in the back. Literally.

        Because of those traitors, a part of my family died. Because of those traitors, Ray died. It was in May, I remember that much, though with the weather it didn't feel like it. The weather is never normal anymore, and once the nuclear winter wore off it left desolate wastelands all across the country, as far as the eye could see. Nothing really grows anymore, and in most places the nuclear fallout debris isn't completely cleared away yet. The city's food supplies, all of the cities in the damn country, have been too contaminated with radiation to eat or they're already gone. That's why we weren't in the city, we were in one of the abandoned towns, collecting whatever was edible. We would have brought it back to our underground base in Nashton, which was a few good miles away, if one of the rats hadn't given the NDM our plans. We should have known better, going to the same target that we were discussing before he left. Everyone thought he got blown to bits by that last bombraid on our city, but I guess we can't trust anyone anymore. A pity. Josh Brewer was a good guy, or at least I thought he was. Now I'll just have to make sure he's really dead when his funeral bells ring.

        "Ray," I had said, and the sandy-haired man in his late twenties stopped and glanced over his shoulder at me. I grinned and adjusted my fingers into a square, with his picturesque face in the middle. "Smile for the camera. We're making history, here."

        But as I took the make-believe picture, he was shot in the back of the head. He fell to the ground and was dead before my mind connected the raid to Brewer, which was in all actuality saying a lot.

        "Ray!" I yelled, but not too loudly. He had been ready to go out of the late grocery store, and was laying sprawled in the doorway now, in a puddle of his own blood. Out in the open, he had been an easy target. I would be, too, if I didn't hide.

        Sprinting for the trapdoor cellar at the other end of the store, I yanked up the rusted iron ring from underneath the rotted putrid green rug and vaulted myself downwards. The heavy sound of boots forced out the echoes of white noise within my mind, and I stopped my sporadic breathing at once. The NDM soldiers hadn't heard me.

        "He's dead."

        "Good. Just get his bag and let's go."

        The bag- the food that we had found was in that bag, and I cursed myself for only grabbing my own. ROT needed that food, the children back at base needed that food, Angela, who was pregnant-

        Where was Dan and Kevin; had they gotten out of here before the soldiers came? I didn't hear any other gunshots besides the one that got Ray, but that didn't mean that they weren't dead too. The NDM loved their bayonets, the cold steel meeting living breathing flesh, the squeal as they twisted and turned the knife within bone. The sick bastards, I would-

        "A terrorist, isn't he? Why else would he be sneaking around out here?"

        His superior corrected him, and it just went to show how 'intelligence' and 'rank' didn't mean a damn thing. "No, he's alone. The Rot, or whatever they call themselves, always run in packs. Like a bunch of damn wolves."

        I breathed an internal sigh of relief. Alone? Good, so nobody else was found. But why did the only casualty have to be Ray? Ray, who had been by my side since I first came into contact with ROT, who had taken me under his wing when he was sixteen and I was only nine. Ray, goddammit you bastard, why did you have to be the one who-?

        But they were leaving now, and I had to make sure I kept my emotions in check until they got into their car and drove away.

        "These damn terrorists," the more immature of the soldiers spat. "You kill one, it breeds two more. Like insects."

        I could only listen to their insults from my cramped hiding place under the floor, and was powerless to do anything about it.

        With the NDM in full control, we were all nothing better than the terrorists they called us. The winners write history, but that saying has always existed-

        That one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. And I know which one I am.