Tunnel(On Hold)

1: Midnight Writings F

There is a place that only the damaged have entered, some have never left. Many come and go as they please. They who have never touched this place are truly lucky. It's hard seeing the innocent crumble under the weight of the pressure handed down to them by their parents. Then again it is pretty lucky to see people around here that are truly the children of their so called "Parents".

Most of the children are delivered here by four people in black hazmat suits. No one ever sees their faces. They bring around five children every two months. Then again it's the same here though in more rare cases. When a woman gives birth to a child that has less than a 30% chance of contracting an illness, conditions and so on, they take the child and send them away with men in red hazmat suits. They call these people the carriers. I've only seen two woman go through this in my life time. The odd thing is that they were crying but had smiles on their faces. It's not like they won't get to have a child after all. These mothers and many others become wet nurses to the children brought to our towns. The children that are taken get to live in the bright side society.

This is where the so called "Elite" live. We only know a minimum about these people. We don't know how they look. What they eat. What jobs they have. Their government. Their every day lives. All we know is that they all have less than a 30% chance of illness, conditions, and so on. It's what they preached to us in our lessons. What they preach to us in the hospitals. What they preach to us in the streets. This and the fact that they get to live above ground. Only the sick and the gardeners and the cattle keepers get to go outside. I guess you could say, "So do the cattle."

The most developed part of our communities are our hospitals. They are placed above ground and go all the way down to the ground floor. I honestly haven't been in there much. The building elevators reach all the way to the roof which has tall walls blocking the outside of the society from our eyes. It's used purely for getting fresh air and sunlight.

The gardeners on the other hand get to roam freely among the green houses that are right outside of those walls. They have their own elevator and from what I've heard, still have walls keeping them here. The walls are at least 20 feet tall made of concrete and what I'd suspect to be iron bars as support.

The community I live in has the people all go monthly to the hospitals roof to ensure our health. The sun is nice, it never seems to be cold when we go out there, it does rain sometimes though. When it rains we have to head back inside and wait for it to stop. After an hour of rain the outside visit will be canceled. I can't stand having to stay inside while it rains. I've only got to feel the rain on my skin once. It was relatively warm. Much warmer than our shower water. We only get to shower once a week for five minutes. They collect the water for us to shower and drink from from the rain. We recycle the soapy water from our showers to clean our houses, roads and clothes. Some might find this gross but we have strict guidelines about showering and such, along with quite a few filters to catch to spare debris and dead skin. We use what we have.

I live in the female barracks. They separate us to discourage us from repopulating without filling out the right paper work. Of course we don't get to use paper, that's reserved for the books and even then most of them are online. We don't use a lot of electronics either. We only get the left overs from the Bright's. If we tried to produce those types of products under ground our whole society would suffocate. I've shared a room with three other girls since they decided to send us to work. Once the teachers thought we were ready that is. I personally work in the shipping sector.

This is where the food, water, medicine, textiles, and technology is transported between the communities. I personally only travel between the 15 local communities. We package and transport everything that comes in through the pipes and the grey hazmat men from the Bright's. If you haven't caught on yet, we like our multicolored hazmat suits. The pipes are where people throw their mail and packages into a hole and it goes to our basement area. We don't really have what use to be called mail men. I read about them for a project during my time in lessons. Those who send mail, like letters, are only the leaders of the communities. No one else really needs to. The packages on the other hand are how everyone else communicates. If we need to go in to get a new vaccine we get sent a syringe with a date written on it, or if we need to meet up with someone we send a picture of the location. Everyone has a polaroid camera as issued by the government. The packages tend to be small. Boxes only big enough to hold four regular sized polaroids. We all only have two of these boxes that we reuse and use to send our responses to the sender.

People call us the moles and hogs (short for ground hogs) since we're really the only ones who travel offend other than the committee members, the community leaders. We call them badgers. The reason to understand that one isn't all that complicated if a person is ever unlucky enough to conversate with one of them about their business.

Now why would I want to be a mole? Simple really, so that I can travel. Without the freedom or need to go somewhere else, to see new things, to have change, life would be dull for me. Not worth it. I've never seen a tree that was fully grown. never seen anything more than the sky and clouds during the day. I just want to see the outside. I would have become a gardener if I could just have kept that damn tulip alive during class but a guy decided to put salt in my plants water and it couldn't get the water it needed. In the end he still didn't get the one gardener position open to our year. He tried trimming the roots, slipped, and cut a gash up the side of the stock. My only other class I'd chosen to take was for the shipping sector. Only four people from my year were chosen to become shippers. The other three were guys.

Currently I'm on my way back to the barracks. During work we get to use battery charged trucks but out of work we either have to walk or use a wheeled object made by the welding sector. One of my roommates works in this sector and was able to make me a fully metal bike for my last birthday. Granted it took her two years of collecting scraps but I wouldn't trade it for the world.

Her name is Jessie Carter Clemens. We all have our name set up like that, in threes. Mine being Aldora Raisa Vlahos. They don't name the children until they reach two years of age here. Once they reach their second birthday the children sector sets a generator to produce two names and you take the host families last name. The host family being the people you stay with during the duration of your studies.

Jessie was a rare case, being that she was born in the underground. In this case if the child stays they name them after their parents. If a girl the mother's first name, then their father's first name and vice versa for a male. The parent's get to decide who's last name the child shall get and they get to take care of the child from birth. In Jessie's case she got her father's middle name as her last.

As for how Jessie looks she is ethereal, it's the best way I can describe it. Her father had deep ebony skin and her mother was quite pale, this resulting in her mocha dusted skin tone. Her hair an unyielding mass of auburn curls leaning towards the red side, in the light of day it looks like a wreath of amber colored tigers eye. Freckles scatter her skin in a heavy amount, least so her face as they cover her cheeks and the bridge of her nose with only a few scattering her forehead, only one beside the right side of her lower lip. Her fox like hazel eyes lit playfully under her spider web of eyelashes. She's of average height and build, about a head shorter than I am. She has a quite muscular torso and arms from carrying metal and working torches all day.

If I'm honest with myself I've had a crush on her since we both took the gardener course three years prior. Yes, I've had crushes on other guys and girls before her but we seemed to have a spark stronger than most. I had asked her to start dating around two months ago and she responded with a kiss. I think it would be safe to think that I had thought correctly. We haven't really told anyone about us since we don't see any point of making a big deal out of it.

Or so I thought as I drive into the parking lot and lock up my bike. I charge up the six flights of stairs it takes to get to the room. 628. I repeat this number in my head as I walk down the hall. I open the door, them having no locks. When the door is fully open I see a sight that holds me into place. Jessie is on the lap of one of our room mates, Kas Donny Prim, a curvy girl of average height that works in the children's section as a cook. Not that she has to cook much since the children she works with are between the ages of 0-2 and most of them can't eat solids let alone have all of their teeth yet. She has dirty blonde hair, dark brown eyes, invisible eyelashes, and charming dimples. At the moment her cheeks are flushed. She opens her eyes lightly as the kiss breaks. As she sees me she smiles shyly as if embarrassed to be kissing in front of other people.

All I can think is she didn't know.

But Jessie did.

I nod pressing my lips into a flat line and shut the door and turning away from the room.