• Chapter 2: Fell
    F.I.R.E.


    When I open my eyes again the room of gray concrete is gone completely. I don’t know how or when I left. Did seconds pass, or hours? Was I knocked out, or am I just forgetting?
    All I know is that I’m alone on the city train, its moving so fast that I can’t see what we’re passing by. The automated voice from the countdown starts up again. “Stage One.” I hear a deep groan and turn around to see that two men have appeared out of thin air. One is a commissioner, the other is a rebel. Blood spatters the front of their black and gray shirts; I can already tell they’re both dying.

    “Who hurt you,” I ask, but neither answers. “Come on you have to tell me! Did you hurt each other?” When I’m given silence as an answer I figure its best just to help them as much as I can. Beside me a medical kit flickers into view on one of the seats. It wasn’t there earlier and it has only enough supplies to save one. “Which one do you save?”

    Looking between the man in gray and the man in black I remind myself not to think about the answer and let the words flow out of my mouth. Ideas are forced into my head that the commissioner must be the innocent man. But I’m being fed lies. “The rebel man.” The answer feels right, but also very wrong. Deadly wrong.

    I close my eyes, taking in a deep breath. When I open them, the train is gone.

    “Stage Two.” Now I’m in the halls of the CTC. There are doors on both sides of me, lined up uniformly. I hear an explosion coming from behind me, smoke begins to fill the air around me from underneath a door. A woman begins scream for help in a loud shrieking voice. She’s trapped inside her office. Things are on fire, she can’t breathe with all the smoke, and she’s been burned in many places. “Are you going to help her,” the stimulation asks again.

    I shake my head, “No I’m not.” I begin to walk down the hall when I hear her cough multiple times and bang on the walls. The explosion is vaguely familiar. I can see that the explosive was hidden in her file cabinet, stuffed between the letters S and T. “I’m the one who put the explosives in her office.” She falls onto the ground with a thud, most likely dead.

    I close my eyes again leaving the woman lifeless on the floor of her office. I’ve found myself with a door in front of me with the words ENTER written in big black letters on the front. I swing it open and walk through. “Stage three.” Before me are three more doors; labeled A, B, and C. “One of these doors leads to home, one to happiness, and one to death. Choose one.”

    I stare at the three doors before me. I don’t know where home is for me. I don’t know what would make me happy. And I surely don’t want to die. I don’t know why I’m being tested on something I won’t know the answer to until it’s too late. Squaring my shoulders I speak to the voice, “I’m not playing this game,” and I walk out the door in which I came in.

    But when I open up the door a man in there waiting for me. He has a grip on Logan in one hand and Briella in the other. Their eyes are both terrified. Briella is crying, screaming my name. Logan is looking down at the floor, containing his thoughts. “Stage Four.” The man kicks a gun at me. I watch it skid across the floor and land at my feet. Picking it up I turn it over a few times in my hand. I’m afraid of the question that is about to be asked. “Which one will you kill?”

    Briella screams my name again, “Fell! It’s ok you can kill me! Please! Don’t hurt Logan!” Her brown eyes are red with tears, she’s scared. She’s innocent. I can’t kill her.
    “If you don’t kill one of them they all die.”

    “No, Fell,” it’s Logan. He’s avoiding my eyes. He can’t look at me. “Kill me. Division wants me dead anyway. If anyone should die it should be me. It’s alright. Briella is only eleven; she has a long way to go.” I can’t kill Logan either. He was one of my best friends when we were kids. I can’t do it.

    “Time’s running out. Choose one.” I hold up my gun and take aim. Holding my breath I wait for the scream of pain, the shouts, and for the sound of a body falling to the floor. I pull the trigger with a burst of undefined courage. The man who was holding them captive falls down, dead. There are three people in the room. I killed one. Briella and Logan will both get to live. Dropping the gun I realize that I feel nothing towards the death of the man. I murdered someone and I feel nothing.

    But he wanted me to kill one of the two most important people in my life.
    I blink and I can tell the scene around me is changing. The next thing I know is that my feet begin to burn, like I’m walking on hot coals. “Final Stage.” My eyes fly open and a gust of red and orange cover my vision. I’m hot. I’m burning. I’m on fire. I want to scream. The pain is unbearable. The fire melts my skin slowly, trying to tear me apart straight down to the bone. I see a pool of ice water form in front of me along with a fire extinguisher. “How do you put the fire out?”

    I grit my teeth and take a step towards the fire extinguisher. The pool isn’t an option. I can’t swim. But then I pull back and drop to my knees. It begins to burn more, my skin is disappearing. “I won’t put the fire out! I want to burn!”

    “Doesn’t it hurt?”

    “Yes!” This time I scream my words. The fire burns at my muscles now. It’s getting deeper into me. I fall to the ground and hold myself tight. I want to put it out. But I can’t. I deserve to burn like this. I murdered people. I didn’t feel bad about it. I want to burn. Somehow I can feel that I belong engulfed in flames. It’s who I am.

    “Put it out.”

    I let the tears pour from my eyes. I want it to stop. I want the pain to go away. But I can’t take the water. I can’t take the fire extinguisher. “No!” Now I can feel the fire dig in deeper. I’ve never felt pain like this before. It feels like I drank gallons of kerosene and then swallowed a burning match. Or that I allowed knives to trail through my veins. My vision scopes in black and I can no longer see.
    “Why won’t you put it out?”

    My throat burns as I speak. I feel empty now, but I also feel full. I feel completed. I feel like this is destiny. I am meant to be on fire. “Because I ignited this fire. It wasn’t meant to destroy me. But destroy you.” I don’t know what I said or even why I said it. But it feels like it was the right thing to say. It was surely the stupidest choice of my life.

    It’s like when someone admits to a secret. They don’t know why they did it. They think it’s courage or honesty. In the end they find that sharing that secret only made things worse. Answering the question has made things worse.

    Everything dies around me. The fire is gone and my vision returns. The pool of water disappeared taking the fire extinguisher with it. My words had made everything go away. What disturbs me is that I know that nothing should have disappeared. I should still be burning.

    “End simulation.” I squeeze my eyes shut waiting for things to just get worse.


    ***


    When I open my eyes I’m on the ground again, holding myself close. Tears have filled up the black glasses that cover my eyes. The ground below me is hard concrete. I push myself up and confirm that the room I’m in is really the room in the CTC building. I can feel someone unhooking the glasses from the back of my head. “Hurry, Fell. Take of the gloves. Quickly.” I recognize the voice of the female commissioner with the long brown hair. Her voice is tense and hard. Pulling off the skin tight gloves I can hear her breath moving in a quick pace.

    “What’s going on?” She removes the wires from my forehead and tosses them aside carelessly. I yank out the ear phones and look to her uneasily.

    When I look out the door, which has been left ajar I feel my stomach sink down like I had just swallowed a rock. The four other commissioners are preparing a match, ready to burn my doll to ash.

    The commissioner pulls me to my feet and grabs me at the shoulders. She narrows her eyes at me. The commissioner has bright hazel eyes that I swear I’ve seen before. But I have no idea who she is. “Fell, you failed the test. So hurry up if you want to keep living.” I never trust commissioners. But I feel like I have no choice here. I allow her to drag me along through the door and make me stand in the far corner of the room.

    I’m in the perfect position to watch them light the match for my doll. What’s going to happen to me? Will I be burned like in the test? Given an Arsenic injection? Hanged from a rope? Never before had I realized that there are so many ways to kill a person. Never before have I considered failing. I thought that I could make it out alive.

    A male commissioner grabs my shoulders, crushing them with an enormous force, almost like the man who was holding Briella and Logan captive. “Please hold everything!” The hazel eyed commissioner cries. When she does everyone lowers their arms from whatever their doing. The room is so quiet that you can hear my uneven breathing. “We’ve seemed to have found a problem with the simulation. The mainframes had an interfered signal… and sent her some wrong perceptions. Her choices were influenced by a shortage in the machine.”

    “This isn’t supposed to happen twice, Tina,” says another man in gray. Am I not the first to fail… and be saved by the woman in the gray uniform? She crosses her arms as I let out an almost relieved breath. I’m not the first one to have this happen to me, whatever is happening to me.

    Tina’s eyes are like razors, “I can pull up the information right now if you’d like. There was a shortage.” She’s incredibly strong. I can tell as she pries me from the male commissioner’s grip with little effort. “Anyone want to check? Or can I go take Miss Winters here to explain the dilemma?” The commissioners exchange looks of suspicion. “Look, you’re scaring the poor thing.” That’s when I realize that my eyes are watering with tears. But that’s how I get the commissioners to let me go.

    Tina takes me down the halls, trying to act as causal as possible. I follow at her side, keeping my head low so that no one sees that I’ve been crying. Everything seems to move too fast. It’s all been a blur. All I know right now is that I shouldn’t be alive and a commissioner just saved my life. Why did she do it? No commissioner would ever fight back against killing someone. I know that once the terminator walks in that it all becomes a big joke. They laugh when these kids die. We are a cruel form of entertainment for them.
    What if my life hasn’t been saved? What if I’m being led into a terminating room? What if I’m going to be locked up until it’s time for me to die? Anything is a possibility. I have to keep my guard up. If anything happens I’ll make a run for it. I learned from last year’s test on physical evaluation that I am one of the fastest runners you’ll ever see; and not to mention a hard hitter.

    “In here,” Tina says opening up one of the many office doors. It’s just her, so I take the chance and walk in with her. When she closes the door, I realize it’s not just me being locked in here, she’s confining herself in too. “Sit down.” Letting my eyes scan around the room I’m immediately thrown off by the wall made completely of glass. It’s the biggest window I’ve seen, and we’re towering above the ground. I pull out one of the metal chairs and move to sit down, hoping to ease the swirling sickness in my stomach.

    Giving me a push Tina yells loudly, “Not there!” Hitting the ground I look to her and then to the chair. It’s a completely normal metal chair, rocking slightly on its back legs. Well, it would be a normal chair if restraints hadn’t ejected out of it.

    “What is that,” I stutter.

    Gnawing on her bottom lip Tina helps me up off the ground. “We’ll get to that. First, I need to ask you a few questions.”

    “I have questions too! The first one being; what is going on?”

    “I’m saving your life. So if you’d like to continue with that you must answer me.”

    I can’t argue with living. I don’t want to die and I’m presuming my only option is to trust her, no matter how much I’d rather not. “What’s your first question?” I’ve already asked. There’s no turning back.

    Offering me up another chair, Tina sits on the chair in the back of her glass desk. “Fell, you need to be completely honest with me. These answers determine your future.” I nod wondering what hand she is playing in my life. Leaning forward a bit, elbows pressed against the glass, the commissioner looks at me with severity. “Have you ever had thoughts of revolution, rebelling against Division?”

    Only people with a death wish would answer this. I can remember from first school, when we we’re studying government, that it is the first law written. Treason is a crime. Punishment is execution. To answer you have to be crazy. “Yes.” I figure that being crazy won’t change anything.

    “How often?”

    “Often.”

    Tina nods, seemingly pleased. “How much do you want Division to end?”
    I pause. I’ve never really thought about it. “I can only think of one thing to top the list of how much I want something.”

    “And what would that be?”

    Letting out a sigh, I look to the floor, avoiding the widow. “Meeting my real parents.”

    Getting out of her chair Tina begins to pace the floor. She keeps her hands firmly behind her back. “That is a very good answer. A respectable one.” Turning to me she keeps her hazel gaze steady, “Fell, do you want to join the revolution, become a member of the F.I.R.E. rebellion?” Laying her back against the wall it seems more like an offer than a question.

    “F.I.R.E?”

    “It stands for Freedom Independence Rights Effort. So is that what you want?”

    Freedom. Independence. Rights. I want all of it. It’s a big choice to say yes. But honesty is a virtue. I’m good as dead anyway. I’ll just have to ignite my own fire. “Absolutely.” I can already feel the fire burning at my skin again.

    Closing my eyes I wait for the arrest, I wait to be terminated. Instead I get the surprise of my life. “Then welcome aboard.” She smiles, “I’m Commander Tina Ranger,” and then she salutes in a firm military style.

    My heart skipped a beat. Not out of shock but of relief. My life has been saved by someone I really can trust, the leading Commander of a world-wide rebellion. This is the dawning of something I couldn’t even dream of. “Commander,” I salute back, standing up.

    “Before we go any further, you have to take an oath. Just repeat after me.” There’s no time for me to nod in agreement. “I, Felicity Winters.”

    “I, Felicity Winters.” The rest of the oath drags on, but I refuse to reject it. I believe every word that I’m saying. “Swear my eternal loyalty to the F.I.R.E.. I will act with bravery and selflessness for the good of all. I believe in equality, freedom, and liberty. I will follow the orders of my Commander and higher ranked Soldiers. I will not give up and fight for what I believe in at all costs.” This is when it’s all settled. I am a rebel, through and through.

    “Can you explain to me the chair now?”

    Tina gives a deadly smile, “My job requires a gun. This is to keep my victims still.”

    “You kill people?”

    “Mostly terminators and commissioners. My goal is to get a bullet through Emperor Lortimus.” Victor Lortimus is the Emperor of Division, and probably my mortal enemy. He killed my parents. All rebels are killed by him personally. If you kill him this war is over.

    Sitting back down in the chair I decide to pull my thoughts away from my parents. “And the test. I’ve still failed, under circumstances I don’t understand. What are we going to do.”

    “I’ll get you to retake it. And you failed because of your revolutionary thoughts.
    The test looks for outlaws, you failed with flying colors.” Crossing her arms over her chest Tina looks at the ceiling, in a daze of thoughts. “Anything else?”

    “What’s going to happen to me next?”

    “I’ve got a plan for you, starting with tomorrow’s Adulting Ceremony.” I had completely forgotten about the Ceremony. I’ve been so caught up in dying that I ignored it. Tomorrow Division will lay out my life. Where I live and work, who I marry. Everything is planned out. “Don’t worry though. I’ll have a hand in how your life works. There’s also someone I’m dying to have you meet.”

    “Who?”

    “The other person who failed the test. Now,” she clamps a hand on my shoulder, “let’s get you to retake the test.”

    As she leads me about again I can’t help but be thankful, that out there in my very own city of Chicago, there is someone like me. Someone who was probably scared stiff, looking death in the eye, pulled to safety by a commander in disguise, and thinking the same things I do. It’s good to know I’m not alone. But it’s also horrible. They’re in as much danger as I am. As long as we both took that oath, we’re condemned to danger and secrecy.