The Mindless Man's Paradise

Chapter sixty-four

  We were to wake up at 8:00 am the following morning.

  We would be given appropriate clothing, and we were to wear it.

  The gravity of the situation was hitting me, and I was starting to grow anxious.

  As we ate dinner, I didn’t gorge out as much as I had the previous night. I ate my food meticulously, shoving around crumbs, and poking my gelatin.

  What was the point of eating? I was going to die, wasn’t I?

  Any hope that I was going to live seemed so suddenly stupid and I mentally chastised myself for ever thinking such a thing. It had only been false hope, it turned out. Because there was no way to escape, and even if we had an opportunity, there was no way we’d find a way out of the winding underground tunnels.

  After dinner, we went into a blank room for our Final Lesson, whatever that meant.

  We sat in two measly wooden chairs in the center of the room, and waited for whatever was next to happen.

  For fifteen minutes or so, we sat in silence. But after the silence, a movie screen rolled down rather eerily.

  Suddenly, my brain flashed back to my trip at SHQ when I was confronted with thousands of pictures of war and destruction.

  A robotic voice came over an intercom and said, “Welcome to your Final Lesson.”

  We said nothing, we just waited for the metallic voice to speak again.

  “As you know, HQ’s goal for years has been to keep The Land from destructive wars.” The screen lit up with a picture of a group of men laughing and signing a paper. It was a very common picture back in my schooling days. These were the men who had created HQ. “But do you know what inspired these men to do such a thing?”

  Obviously, this was a previously recorded voice, and we knew better than to reply.

  The silence that fell over the room was stark, but we maintained our cool.

  But the obvious answer was that question was that the men had witnessed war itself. It was what I had been told my entire life.

  “War had broken out. It was worldwide.” Images of guns, bombs, dead people, and other unsightly things flashed by on the screen. “It was called World War III back then. The Earth’s population practically decimated itself, and by the time we had, the only place that was slightly habitable was The Land, formerly known as the United States of America.”

  I had known almost every aspect of that statement. Except for the last part.

  “The former leaders of that country, plus some intelligent individuals from the other remaining survivors grouped up. They discussed a new form of ruling. These men soon became known as HQ. These men targeted the core aspects of war, essentially, anything that differentiated a person from another was terminated. This included names, music, social status, creativity, the naming of ethnicities, division of cultures, states, and countries. It was heartbreaking at the time.

  “But if you look around yourself today, you have seen no war. You have seen no fighting. But it is people like you who seemingly desire such things to happen. You have named yourselves as if you are better than any other citizen of the Land. You have participated in public violence, which has most likely scarred those bystanders’ lives.”

  “And you don’t think cutting off our heads in front of a crowd will scar lives, then?” Cyrus busted out.

  “Recalculating.” said the robot voice.

  We waited in the most suspenseful quiet, as the robot-lady calculated.

  “That is intentional.” she replied. “It is a lesson to be learned. If others see what has become of two Infractors such as yourselves, they will stay from Infracting in such a way.”

  “So now, your Final Lesson is this: people like you are potent. You are a disease that must be eradicated. War is not an action, war takes form in humans like you two. And when you die, and in those few seconds of awareness that will occur after the beheading, remember that.”

  The flashing images stopped. The woman’s voice terminated. And the screen rolled up.

  Goosebumps littered my body, and I found myself shaking. I wasn’t sure why, but all I knew was that I was, and that I wanted HQ, The Land, the Society, I wanted it all to just poof away. It was overwhelming how incredibly jacked up my world was. If my world couldn’t poof away, maybe I could.

  I closed my eyes at the horrid thought, and brought my hand to my forehead, burying my face in it. With my other hand, I gripped Cyrus’s hand as if it were the only thing keeping me tethered to this world.

  “You okay?” I heard Cyrus ask.

  A tear leaked from my eye, and I quickly wiped it away, not allowing myself to falter. I would be strong.

  I nodded. “Yes, I’m fine.” I nodded again, as if I was convincing myself. “Let’s go back to the room to sleep. Big day tomorrow.”

  He looked at me somberly, and stood up to pull me in for a hug. I savored that hug. I savored that moment, in fear that it would be one of the last of its kind.