Reality from Above

One man, one community, one escape. Many rules. Rules that cannot be broken. No no, you can't break the rules! There is no such thing as lawbreaking. Only lawmaking. But there was one law that needed to be made. The law that I have the right to escape from this tomb.

I was born into this world, a world which is only a city of tunnels. These tunnels are long and curve at points. If you look at a map of this town, you can see that it is just a giant pretzel. And you see, this world is inescapable. Only the hatch knows escape. But the key to the hatch is locked up. The key is in prison to keep it from breaking the number one law: Nothing shall go out the hatch, nothing shall come in the hatch. But now, this law must be changed. I must go out the hatch.

See but here's the thing that's crazy. Laws are unbreakable, and no one has the ability to break one unless the law is changed. You see, the city was built on laws. Each law is like one of the pillars that keep the ground above us from toppling down on our subterranean suburbs. I don't know who the original lawmaker was, but he was good. Something must have changed, because I hate the current one. But there was some truth. It began as the motto: Haven is here, above is apocalypse. No one wanted to go up there, but they still communicated with those up there. Something up there was bad, but I figured it out far too late. By that time, I'd become a cockroach, the wretched indestructible survivor that everyone wanted to kill and get out of their house.

I must find other cockroaches, because everyone here was waiting with bug poison. Dad spit his from his mouth like a hose. Mom had a sweetly-scented poison. Everyone else was spraying it blatantly into the streets. No one wants me here. I need to get out.

So a new law must be passed. I don't see why they don't make the law already. They don't want me here, so why don't they let me leave? This world is crazy. Everyone is insane. Only I know the answer to this problem. I must leave.

I see the faces of the people these days. They all look at me with glaring eyes. In their minds, they are plotting to murder me! But murder is prohibited by the law, so no one has the capability to do it. Because laws can't be broken.

I know why they hate me though. It was because of an accident five years and fifty-seven days ago. Of course accidents aren't allowed any more, but back then it was possible. I was simply wandering the streets, as kids always did those days, and I came across a tunnel I had never seen before. I walked into it, and I found a big room, with a large pole with an antenna and some cables. It was sticking out of a hole, little did I know that it was called the hatch. Back then, the hatch was the last hope of communication. They wanted to talk to people above the pretzel, but no one ever really answered. Maybe we didn't care enough. Not that it mattered anyway. Our haven was thriving without them. Well that didn't last long, not long at all.

Back to the hatch. No one was there at the time, no one except for an animal. It wasn't like the ones we kept in the cages. Perhaps it came from the hatch. I later learned that it had. Maybe it was evil, or maybe we were being punished. But it wasn't bad at the time, not until I refused to listen to my dad. Before then, it was pure! It was cute and fluffy and had a small little nose. It was a bunny.

I loved that bunny. I took it home with me, and I took care of it. But then my little brother played with it. The bunny got mad and bit him, and little brother was bleeding. I put the bunny in a box and put him away, so he can't bite my little brother. A couple days later, little brother was dead, and so was bunny. My dad got mad. He told me to get rid of the bunny. But I didn't. It was the first time I had disobeyed anything, and it was my last. But it wasn't illegal, so it was possible.

I never knew people could die. Little brother was the first I'd ever seen. They took him away, and last I saw he looked like he was sleeping. He was young, and the thought of death was weird. But after what followed, I realized that death wasn't really a thing. They're just sleeping. They always come back.