Hope.
It's a weird thing, sometimes it can lead to grand things - like a new civilisation growing from the ashes of an old, fallen one, or, terror.
The terror that crawls up your sides and sinks its claws into your skin. As you fall deeper and deeper into the bubble you have created within your mind. Deluding yourself that everything is fine when in all actuality, it's not fine. As you watch the people you love - mother, father, siblings - wither away in front of you.
But you're still fine. After all, you have hope
***
I always remained within the confinements of the underground city, never so much as a breath was taken above ground. The deep, earthly smell of the walls permeated the very air. Without the sunlight from above, we created our own - lanterns littered the walls, man-made grooves slinking back into the shadows supporting the walls and ceilings, preventing everything from caving in on itself. However, due to this, there were many things we could not gain through natural means, like vitamins. We were unable to grow crops nor could we raise livestock. But the merciful Fathers sought out a solution, while also protecting us. In our monthly supplies from The Above, we received vitamin supplements, other crops and livestock we could not source in our underground haven. After meals, we ate the vitamin tablets, before offering our prayers to the Father's longevity.
It had been a while since the country once known as England fell. The Mothers told us that it was a reckoning. That the world had to change. Otherwise, They would get us. Who are They? I asked Mother Elisia once. She told me that I didn't need to know, all that I should focus on was that my one purpose was to keep my head down and pray I never attracted Their attention. For nothing ever went well after that. The dread hung over everyone's head, trepidation permeated the very vessel of the community. The noose was winding tighter and tighter around the throats of those unsuspecting, ignorant fools.
***
The air above ground was much too polluted from the wars, bombs dropping day after day, it wasn't safe anymore so the previous generations had moved underground. With no one maintaining it, the old London had fallen victim to the poison and became a wasteland. A shadow of its former glory, a single flicker of light would be all it took for it to crumble. But still - the Rehabilitators had to go deeper, for even the bombs reached there. The Mothers were our only guardians, a long line of nurturers forged from the finest fibres of the Fathers hard work. They were tasked with helping us Whites.
Survive.
That is what Whites do.
We keep the population going.
Down what must be 50 feet underground, we made our new civilisation. Tunnels were dug, concrete was cast on the walls, and a thick door was installed at every entrance to stop the toxic waste and intruders from The Above entering. We stole electricity from the London Underground to keep the area lit, The Mothers told us that They had taken over The Above, intending to take us Whites and torture us for their pleasure. The Mothers told us the enemy could breathe in the poisoned air, and no harm would come to them, but what the enemy didn't counter was that the Fathers were also men. Mother Elizabeth told me that every day while we were leisurely lying down underground, the Fathers were risking their lives making sure that we were well-kept and safe. The Fathers care for us all. We owe our very existence to the Fathers, our Saviours. So we should do as much as we can to repay this debt we are in for this generosity.
A new city was built underneath the old. We didn't name this London. No. We wanted a different fate than those who died there. We called this Colson. Mother Laura said it means triumphant people or victory of the people, and it stuck. Hope made us believe that we had a future. That we could survive this nightmare. Hope lied to us. She stole our dreams, she stole our future, she stole our land. And then. She stole our faith.
***
The Fathers came to save our nation, This was the usual way Mother Elisia used to start her sermons. Men and Women had become too strayed from their natural path. The Fathers are here to return the world to its equilibrium. Just like two sides of the same coin, just like how war and peace coexisted - for peace to exist, there had to have been a war somewhere else. A perfect dichotomy. For humanity to continue existing, men and women had to stick to their roles. Who would take theirs if too many women tried taking the role of the men? The mere act of altering your own body...To think how influenced they were.
It's been many years since then, and I've heard of how women and men ran together outside in the past. How girls could sit in the sun and talk, they would sit down in front of a TV and watch shows together, or go out and gossip. Fraternising with each other. We do none of those things now. Instead, we sew, learn to cook, dismantle and assemble rifles, we work out and stay fit. We don't play. We certainly don't fraternise.
The Whites are a group of girls from ages 0 to 20. On our twentieth birthday, we are given a choice, we can go above the ground and become Blacks or become a Mother. Blacks are sworn wives of the Greys who have advanced into the Ashen. Blacks can go above ground, every year, there are a limited few gas masks that we are able to manufacture, the amount of gas masks means the amount of spaces for us to become Blacks. Every Whites dream is to become a Black. Can you imagine what the wind would feel like? Or what the thing they call the sea would look like? Or how the sun would feel like, seeping into my skin, a time when we would no longer need to take vitamin tablets daily? The Greys are the same as us Whites, just male. They can either become Ashen, brave soldiers who fight in the way of the truth, so that one day, we females no longer have to live in fear, or there are sometimes males who have been corrupted by them, those men only have the fate of the Rebirth Ceremony. I heard that some Grey left the folds of The Father's embrace to go to Them. Mother Elizabeth told us, those men couldn't withstand the call of the devil. Let us not dwell on this much longer.
We're not supposed to talk about Them.
That's how Adaliah died.
She was a danger to society, said Mother Laura. It's to protect everyone, for the better good.
It's only girls and women down underground. The men and the boys stayed up above ground. The gas only affected us. Adaliah said it was a lie to keep us down here…I'm not sure where she heard that from. Most of the girls down here have never seen a male before. The ones who did never lived to tell the tale. They'd become tainted, we can't allow faulty parts to attend the Rebirth Ceremony. Before this, we had only heard of the concept of a "guy". These mysterious beings, capable of rising empires, of forging the known within the unknown. Stories were told of how the First Father reigned over the then-known Europe with an iron fist. Tales of their greatness were everywhere, we grew up with them. I was one of those who had never seen a male. All we knew about them was what we'd been taught in our Etiquette & Nurture lessons with Mother Sarah.
As I write this years later, in hindsight, maybe it's because they wanted us to forget the old ways, but they didn't allow any of the first generation Rehabilitators to become Blacks, nor Mothers, they were too dangerous for either role, so they became an offering to the earth. Rehabilitators were the first ones that the Fathers tried to save. I've never met a Rehabilitator, they all had died by the time I was created.
And maybe the Fathers would've won. If it wasn't for Them. It's funny how we would all tremble at the stories of the old. How even though Coulson claimed to be a leap into the future, we were always living in the past. The past of freedom, a past of windows, one where the wind blew through the hair of the girls, caressing their imagination. Each child swelling with the bubbling laughter of a million dandelions.
I don't know if this is actually true. I'm just repeating what Adaliah told me. She was the one who told me everything.