The Resistance

Chapter 2

        About two years ago, I was sitting on hill with my friend, Jake. Staring at the sky, he started talking.

        “Anna… What do you think life is?” he asked.

        “I don’t think I understand what you mean.” I replied after a moment, confused.

        “What do you think it is? What if it wasn’t real?” he was still staring at the sky, a blank expression on his face, a light breeze ruffling his hair.

        “Of course it’s real. What else could it be?” I asked. “Are you okay?”

        “No, you don’t understand!” I flinched at his sudden change in tone. “What if life was all just a dream? If memories were simply implanted, if your life was just a chain of events that somebody wanted you to have.”

        I couldn’t help but laugh. “That’s ridiculous. That couldn’t happen, it’s impossible.” Jake seemed to not notice my comment for a few minutes.

        “I’ll show you. And everyone else. We could all just be puppets.” he said, this time more fiercely. “I don’t want to live like that.”

        “Jake, you aren’t a puppet.  You’re you, and that’s all.” I reassured him. “Are you sure you’re okay?” I was truly concerned. I’d never heard him talk so crazy. Without saying another word, Jake got up and walked away. I didn’t bother to call after him. I figured he needed some time to think. Besides, talking to him about that was a little creepy.

        My mind fast forwarded to a few months later. Jake had become obsessed with his theory. He would disappear for days at a time, and every time I saw him he looked significantly worse. One day he came to me, nearly unrecognizable. His face was pale, almost an ashy grey. His eyes were bloodshot and sunk deep into their sockets. Dark lines creased his face. His hair was matted and unkempt. He looked like he hadn’t eaten or slept in weeks. Out of concern I accepted his request to help him. I figured if I helped, he’d finish whatever he was planning and go back to normal.

        Little did I know how wrong I was.

        Jake brought me to his current research facility. Constant paranoia caused him to move around a lot. It was a simple, a small room, a desk strewn with papers shoved in one corner. The only light came from a single flickering candle, causing light and shadows to dance across the walls.

        “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” I asked for probably the tenth time. He had been pacing around the room for a half hour, muttering under his breath. I had no idea what his plan actually was, since Jake had provided me no details, but I’m pretty sure this wasn’t part of it.

        “Yes, I do.” he snapped. He didn’t see me flinch. He walked over to his desk, picked up a large journal, and handed it to me. I flipped it open-

        Smack!

        He had knocked it out of my hand. “Don’t read it yet!” Jake yelled. “You can’t open it up until my test is over. It’s a report on everything I’ve studied, found, all my experiments. It cannot be leaked, yet at least.” I nodded hesitantly, rubbing my wrist. He had changed. This wasn’t the Jake I knew at all.

        He walked to the center of the room. “Okay, I’m ready.” he announced.

        “Okay. What’s your plan?” I asked hesitantly. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know, seeing how much he had changed.

        “There is only one way to figure out if this is real,” Jake started. “or a dream.” His hand reached into his stained lab coat.

        “Okay.” I replied, already lost. “How?”

        “To die. If it’s a dream, I’ll wake up in the real world. If it’s not… Well, I know it’s a dream.” he replied, as if this was the simplest thing to understand in the world. “I hope someday you will come to your senses and join me, Anna.” The corners of his mouth twitched up into what looked like was supposed to be a smile, but it came out more like a grimace.

        “You… You can’t be serious…” I said shakily, my voice barely a whisper.

        “But I am.” And with those words, he drew his hand out of his pocket, now holding a syringe. I jumped forward, trying to snatch it away from him, but I was too late. He stabbed it into his arm, and the liquid sedative was slowly draining into his body.

        “No!!” I screamed, clutching frantically at his arm. His body became limp, and he fell to the floor. Dropping to my knees, I pressed my head against his chest.

        Thump.

        I breathed a sigh of relief. I couldn’t believe this was happening.

        Thump.

        Why would he be so crazy?

        Thump.

        There was no way that this could actually be real.

        Silence.

        “No, no, this can’t be happening.” I whispered. Tears started to well up in my eyes. Why, why was this happening? Why couldn’t I have helped him? How could he be so stupid? Again, I tried desperately to find a pulse. No luck. He was gone, dead. His obsession had led him to believing in himself so strongly he was willing to kill himself. I set my head back down on his chest, and laid there sobbing for what seemed like hours.

        Once my tears had run dry, I sat up again. After searching the floor for the book, I opened the cover and begun to read. I needed to understand why he did this. There was one sentence on the first page.

        “Whoever finds this, please, protect it from being corrupted.”

        Closing the cover again, I clutched it to my chest and ran outside.

        Those memories were a harsh reminder of how much I had failed. The book had been taken from me by the government when they were investigating Jake’s death. Many of them believed in his reports and findings. The government had begun to change, with everyone trying their hardest to test Jake’s theory. Soon they had begun to collect volunteers. Hundreds of people died senselessly. People stopped volunteering for the tests after they began to see how foolish it was. Still convinced they had found something that could be true, be proven, the government began to force people to be used for testing. It started small at first, only using people with life sentences in jail and the like. But it rapidly began to grow to more and more out of desperation, and they started to take random people any chance they got.

        That’s when me and Ethan met. I had been cornered by a few government officials who had wanted to capture me. He swooped in and helped me escape. Within a week, we had formed the Resistance. It was just me and him at first, but we soon were able to find more people who were brave enough to go against the government’s mass killing spree.

        It was heavy to think about. The whole world had changed just because of my carelessness, and Jake’s outrageous ideas. That’s why I was determined to fix it, and return things to normal, once and for all.

        “Anna?” A voice shook me out of my flashbacks. “Are you alright?”

        "Yeah. Let’s get back to planning.”

        I will atone for my mistakes, no matter what.