Mama, Hold On

Chapter 9

There it was. We were in one of the snowiest and northernmost areas of the world. The unfamiliar snow trickled its way up to the horses' wobbling knees and nearly all the contour of the land was hidden under thick white sheets. On the journey here, three men had died of hypothermia due to a lack of preparation. Each of the drunkards had originated so close to the Equator, these levels of cold were previously unimaginable to them. And I myself was used to this weather so I'd forgotten to suit my men up. So after losing three souls, we raided a village for furs and skins, and even then, the cold still tricked its way into our bodies. The frost was swift and was ready to pounce and kill at the sight of skin.

A few hundred feet ahead, were the gates to Thirty-One. Unlike other districts, Thirty-One was very active in its hatred for Lenties. There was large outcry worldwide over Thirty-One's habits, but its security and money, it was able to build such mighty gates that most didn't even dare to come this close. Even the nine men I had behind me were all visibly shaking under their mounds of fur. As much as I'd wanted to fret over it and yell at them to rise to the occasion, but I didn't. I looked up at the ungodly large gates in our path, swallowed, and realized I couldn't blame them. Thirty-One was dangerous.

While other Districts simply closed their doors to us, Thirty-One took in crazed Lents, tortured them and raised their children to work for them. They used the fruits of the enslaved Lenties to not only increase the security for each district section, but to also slowly invade the world. They had districts in the south, east, west and north--all over. They were a global superpower and had plans to take control of more Districts by marrying and selling off Lenties and providing more materials in less time in a single region than any other whole District in the world. What my men and I were trembling at was simply the Northernmost region--one of the smaller areas. 

Thirty-One only accomplished this with the forced labor of thousands of Lenties. For their whole lives, they were all locked up. The only joy any of them experienced was sex--with a randomly selected partner at that--and giving birth. Once the child was born, guards didn't even give the mother time to nurse. She was stripped of her child and sent back to work. And that's it. That was all the knowledge anyone knew about the insides of Thirty-One. It was heavily guarded, for good reason, and I was more than surprised that a patrol hadn't come to try and kill us yet. No one really knew who lead this whole thing or how Thirty-One really started up. Some say it's as old as time itself and without a true leader, others claim the leader is immortal. The one that made the most sense to me is that a single child is groomed into leadership and then they grow up and do the same with a child of their choice. Whoever they were, they were hidden behind hundreds of Thirty-One guards--nicknamed the Thirties.

One of my men rode up to me, shaking, warning me that if we were to ride much further, the section's security would sense us and alert the Thirties. However, I dismissed him. I knew this. And like the person I was, I'd prepared for what to do when the gates opened. A picture had surfaced from a dead journalist's newspaper. It featured hundreds, maybe thousands of Thirties all lined up and ready to kill. I knew what to do. The only hitch would've been if a patrol was out and saw us ahead of time--and that didn't happen. So, we rode further and further. I could sense the tensions radiating off of the nine men and their horses, slowly heading towards the gates with zero complaints. Though, they all obviously had their doubts, none were voiced as they loyally obeyed. I almost smiled in appreciation of their full trust in me.

Right there, we entered the danger zone. Just like that. We all knew our lives were in danger. I'd never faced anything on such a scale and none of my men had ever done more than our few village raids. The whole group paused, afraid. Overhead, I spotted a small box. It was doted in wires and brandings and was attached to an electric slider higher up on the gates. Slowly, it started to make its way over us. A red scanner followed it, struggling to find pieces of identification and eventually recognized us as intruders. Alarms went off and the large metal doors slowly creaked open, ploughing the snow before them. As they did, I slid off of Wavu, sinking into the snow, and walked up closer. As the gates' crack widened, I caught a glimpse of the hundreds of Thirties ready to attack. Before the door opened entirely, I began to desperately ramble off Sundae, recreating the incident at Sax. And just as I prayed for, they all collapsed to the ground. Falling snow quickly buried their bodies as I paced my breaths and remounted Wavu.