The Revolt

PART ONE

--PART ONE--

His arms, slick with sweat, work to lift the hundred pound pole above his head. His face, bunched with concentration and strength, focuses on the ground in front of him. The whip marks on the dark skin of his back stretch as he moves. The muscles in his neck tighten as he grits his teeth in effort. His dark hair, plastered to his forehead with sweat, shines in the sunlight. His milky brown eyes are glossed with the pain of work.

I exhale a heavy sigh. My own hands have stopped arranging the guns in order on the dusty canvas lying off to the side. Completing my assignments, though necessary, is virtually impossible with a god posted right in front of my station. I can't help but watch him.

"Amanda!"

Just barely hearing my friend's warning, I feel the horrible, but familiar, sting of the long whip as it slaps across my shoulders.

My eyes immediately dip back down to the ground and I cringe, arching away from it. But I can't escape it as it comes down a second and third time.

"Nuuuuumber Eleven." The harsh voice of my director slices like knives through the thick air.

I grit my teeth against the pain, giving my everything not to cry out. I know it will only result in more punishment, and I have enough marks on my back to last a lifetime.

"Look at me."

I turn my eyes to the director, squinting at the intense sunlight making his figure a silhouette. His usual oddly-amused smirk is on his face, but a grave shadow marks the rest of his features. He leans down close to me and lets out a puff of revolting breath as he says, "You'll do well to keep your eyes in your own sector."

"Yes, Sir," I mumble, turning around and gently placing the black Benelli M4 shotgun on the sheet.

He "hmph"s his sound of dismal satisfaction and continues to patrol around the perimeter.

"God, I hate him," I mutter, returning to my job of lying guns neatly side-by-side. Out of the corner of my eye, I watch as I always do as he walks the border of our sector, tracing the sides of a sharp-edged square.

Allie, the girl beside me, is busy scrubbing shotguns with a dirty rag, which she the passes off to me. But right now she isn't paying attention. Her eyes nervously flit all around us, as if she's waiting for the director to come running down to us. I know he's well away from us, and the digits--the other workers around us--won't say anything, but there's another director in the sector beside ours that doesn't stick out as much as our own does. She could sneak up on us without our realizing it. And although she wouldn't be able to do anything to us since she can't cross into our sector and because it's not her sector to run, she can still tell our own director and punish us indirectly. It's not like he needs a excuse to crack the whip on us a few more times.

But we're not just keeping tabs of the directors, praying they won't think we're taking a break or worse, talking. No, every single one of us is also peeling our eyes for any sign of the one man in the only spot in the food-chain above the directors. Chief.

I've never personally met Chief, which is why I'm still breathing, and I only know one person from my sector who has. Apparently he resides in Sector Nine, since that sector's in charge of physically running everything. Chief's the only person who has the ability to cross the cursed borders, and, through legend and talk, can bring any number of people across with him.

Oh, the cursed borders? Apparently if anyone were to cross them, they would go up in a puff of smoke and never be seen again. Or so they say. My belief in the tale doesn't stand very high, but I've never seen the borders in action, and don't want to take the risk. Maybe the border alone won't turn us into a human bonfire, but who's to say there aren't snipers waiting for a foot to inch over the line?