In the Deafening Silence [ BELLDOM AU ] [ COMPLETED ]

Droplets in the Ocean

// Dom POV //

Rain patters against the building as voices around me talk to one another in hushed whispers and murmurs of rumours. A puddle across from me is being filled slowly by a leak in the ceiling, creating a fixed point for me to focus on. The chaos around me is getting to be too much to handle and unbearable the longer it continues to go on.

We've been running, my group and I, from the government and their drones for weeks, ever since the Globalist was overthrown by his advocates. There's no safe place to hide in the city so myself, my neighbours, and their immediate family had left the inner city to find refuge on the outskirts; for now.

"Hey, Dom, can I steal you for a moment?" Thomas Kirk, my flat mate, had caught my attention from the expanding puddle and waved me over to where he was standing with our friends. Getting up from the concrete floor, I make my way over to where he stands and eye the map set in front of me that is marked with red and blue pins. "Mind helping us? You know the city pretty well. Do you know the best way out?"

"I suppose that our safest chance of getting out would be through the forest but I sure that's guarded just as heavily as the toll way. Perhaps we could use the old tunnel system and make it just past the check point outside the city," I suggested as my finger skimmed over the rough paper and a pin was placed everywhere my finger stopped. Tom looked to me and nodded his head in agreement as the rest of the small group stayed silent.

"And what if that doesn't work?" Chris questioned as he leaned over the makeshift table and sneered at me unhappily. I could tell that I wasn't the only one being affected by restlessness and uncertainty for Tom, Chris, and his wife, Kelly, all looked out of touch with reality. Shrugging my shoulders, I placed my hand into my jean pocket and stepped backwards. "We're dead then. Why not give in now before we find out we were just pawns in their game after we're killed?"

"Chris, don't talk like that. You know better than anyone of us that the government doesn't know what they're doing other than destroying our land," the young blonde woman stated as she gently slapped her husbands arm with the back of her hand. "When do you think we should leave, Dom?"

I hate being the one in charge. It makes me feel like I have a burden on my shoulders. If you call a life of a loved one a burden. All of these people blindly put their trust in me to get them away from the destructive drones and their handlers and to send them into a destiny that I don't even know. I have no strength in me to tell every single one of these people that we possibly won't make it out alive, let alone make it out of the city. What I can do now is lie through my teeth and hope that they believe me in their time of need.

"We leave at nightfall."