2040s
It was dark orange and yellow and red. There were people running. Running from their homes without any idea of where they were going and tripping and screaming. I saw a man fall into the lake to the west and I dont think he got back out again. The big lake that you cant see past even if you were on top the biggest hill. Like the Atlantic I think I was told. I heard the crackling behind me and I was running too. I ran with my pa til we couldnt run anymore. We ran through the trees near the lake through the wheat on the other side. It was a long run. We were both tired and sat down at the forests edge. I could see the houses burning down between the limbs. Burning bright and long. I hope there werent any people in there. I didnt hear them scream anymore so I think they left but some might have burnt alive. I didnt see them either, just the fire and the trees and the big lake. No more people. I didnt want to look anymore but we did anyway. We didnt want to stay because the fire would keep coming so we kept going away, walking along the lake. I never liked it but we had to follow it or the fire might burn us.
We walked for a long time til we found an old barn to stay in. We couldnt see in the fire anymore so it was probably okay. I dont think anyone lived out here anymore. It looked really old and like no one took care of it. The paint was coming off and it smelled like animals, but not like theyd been there any time the past few years. I didnt like the smell but pa said we should stay here and other than the smell it seemed okay. I didnt like the ruined old house near it that looked like itd been burnt down too, but that was okay because we were out here in the barn and I could just close my eyes and not look at it. He went to sleep before me. I fell asleep after a while looking at the burned house. When I fell asleep I had a dream. It was scary. The man that fell into the lake came out and he looked all raggedy and thin. Im thin but he was more thin and looked sick. Like hed got some sickness from the water. He looked like he couldnt think right in his eyes. He tried to take me down with him with his gross white or grey hands. He couldnt catch me even if I was just walking but it still scared me. I dont want to go back anywhere near the lake again but I think ill have to anyway.
I woke up to black. Pa had gone. I couldnt see anything for a little because it was too dark and you had to push the big wood door open. There mightve been the stars if I could have seen them but they were hiding behind the dull dark wood. My pants were dirty because Id sat down on my ass without anything to cover them. It was hurting. I yawned and got some of the mud out of my hair. There mustve been some rain that came through the roof. I couldn't see any light through it but the rain got in. I wiped some stuff off my face and got up. My feet were wet and cold. I didnt have anything covering them, they were just bare and cold. My shirt was about soaked through too. My head hurt pretty bad and I couldnt help wanting to sit right back down, I was so dizzy. I could even see colors I think. It was too dark to see anything but I could still see the colors. They moved like flies and I heard a buzzing or something like it like bugs too. I got up against the barn wall and waited til the buzzing and colors stopped before I got back up and tried to pull the wood door open. Itd been open before but pa mustve shut it when he went off I guess. I could barely make out the edge of the door but I kept pulling at the door. I kept pulling and pulling and it nearly didnt move a bit. Some little wood thing got stuck in my finger and I could feel it bleed. I breathed in deep and stopped for a second. My eyes were more used to the darkness now and the blood was trickling down my finger and onto the damp dirt. I was going as hard as I could to get the door pulled back and it hurt a lot but I had to keep going anyway.
After I was working on it for quite a while I had the door pulled back enough to be able to get through. I saw the stars again but they hurt my eye and the buzz came back a little. There was a nasty white light shining over the lake. I had to sit down finally because I nearly couldnt see with the light and the buzzing like bugs buzzing in my ears buzzing behind my eyes was making it too hard to stand and I had to look away too so the buzzing would go away. I crawled to the other side of the barn I think the left. I had to go near the house because there was a big ditch over to the right and I knew I couldnt go down there, I didnt want to. There was dark brown water that reflected the bright white lakelight. I already had enough dirt and all that on me, I didnt need the mud and cold water. So I crawled to the house without really meaning to. When I got there the buzzing kept up and I wanted to bury my head down in the wet dirt so I could stop hearing it kinda like one of them big birds that cant fly I was told about, they were black and white with a kinda pink neck. The ostrich Im pretty sure. I ended up passing out and my face got covered in the shit anyway and I woke up on a bed over here.
The boy woke up after some time. He was awfully pale and looked shook up. There was a decent while where he could not speak and breathed strangely, rather shallow breaths coming in at a somewhat slow rate. He looked towards me, but not at me; in that moment his eyesockets may as well have been hollowed out, he saw nothing. They moved randomly, not seeming to follow a set pattern. The boy was catatonic, unable to do much other than stare at the wall once he sat up. He had been sleeping for approximately half a day and would not lay back down. He was frightfully thin - I could not see his ribs - and his skin was cold to the touch. It was rather concerning, but I could not do too much about it for the moment. I gave him one more looking over before I left the room and told my assistant to keep an eye on the boy while I considered what should be done.
After a bit of looking I found the man who had drove him in. " He was pretty rough. You could probably see it on him. I think he'd got a splinter or two in his finger, " he told me. They had cleaned him up before I arrived, but I had seen some of the bruises that wouldn't go away. They had also give him a heavy jacket to be in. His shirt had purportedly been soiled and soaked through, they had to give him something to resist the cold. It was winter, what had motivated him to be out in such conditions? There was a barn or something like it right where he had been picked up, according to Mark. There were supposedly marks in the grass where it looked like he had clawed and clawed until he could not anymore. There was dirt deep under his fingernails that they had not been able to get out. He must have been exhausted. My heart ached for the boy.
They hadn't picked up much more. I thanked Mark and returned to the boy. He had moved to the edge of the bed, his bruised knees exposed. His head hung low, his hair covering his eyes. I could see his chest, bare, unmoving; he had adopted something of an upright fetal position, taking up the least space possible his frame could take up. It didn't look like he was breathing, but I could still hear something. It all unnerved me, if I am being honest. I was afraid to touch him. I got closer and the noise increased, there was something I could not see on the inside making it. He limply jolted forward and fell to the ground with a loud clang. His face hit my foot and I accidentally kicked him from reflex. I ran out and shut him in the room, then I called for Mark to come quick. We re-entered the room with caution. His knees and head touched the ground and the rest of his body was in a stiff arch, his legs going back up halfway. His body looked like the line on a chart. We turned him over and we looked at his face; his eyes were dislodged, hanging from their sockets by wires.
When I was little theyd take me out near the lake just to look. It was always a little bright out there. Theyd catch fish and want me to just watch it so I would. Sometimes Id want to go and fish but they wouldnt let me. He would just shake his head. My ma would explain but not anything that ever made sense. I gave up on it. I didnt mind poking around the dirt or doing something with the trees. The bugs werent bad either sometimes Id play with them. I never had no brother or sister to play the ball with even though they got me one so I wouldnt ever bring it and ma and pa wouldnt play it either. They would just sit there quiet and try catching fish. They got it every now and again but we never ate them or nothing. We always had wheat and stuff.
There was a time when we went fishing and it didnt go too good. It was when I was little too. They didnt watch me and I got too close to the water. I sat and looked for a bit but it made by head hurt. I didnt mind though since I liked looking. Ma and pa looked sleeping in their chairs, they weren't reeling in fish and not talking either. Just looking like I was sorta but they werent supposed to just look, they were supposed to fish. I saw a dragonfly and a frog or two. It looked so nice. I wanted to stick my hand in, but I didnt because I wasnt allowed and they might have seen me anyway. So I sat without doing much just watching for a while.
But I had to touch. I really did have to. I was just too wanting to see it. So I did it, I got close and put my hand in. It was really bad, it hurt. The little dragonflys went away and the frogs hopped off but I wanted to put my hand back, I really needed to. I couldnt help it. Im sorry. I had to put my hand back in and it hurt but I needed to. So it happened again and I felt real tired. Then I got it out and it hurt real bad for a long time, ma and pa were still sleeping and they didnt wake up. Even some the birds from the tree got scared off and flyed out the tree, a baby bird fell out and the ma had to pick him up and Im really sorry for that too.
I really really needed to touch it again. I didnt even really want to but I had to. Thats what I was told when they made me feel better after. That I had been doing what I wasnt supposed to acted stupid and fell in. I dont really remember it but the men told me I had stuck my legs in the water when it was too cold out and then Id put my whole stupid self in the water fully and nearly froze. I remember it was so cold but not much else. Ma and pa pulled me out and some nice men got me feeling good again, they were doctors or something like them in nice black coat like things. I liked them, they gave me a candy. I dont remember a whole lot from before then but I do remember some of the fishing. We never did went to the lake again, I was never allowed. It made me sad but I probably shouldnt have never been allowed nothing fun again so I guess just no lake is okay. I wanted to go out to the lake sometimes but I never went because it made my head hurt and I didnt wanna get hurt again.
2050s
I had come out to visit the ruins of Washington while I was on a trip, mainly for business, but not without pleasure as an objective. It was certainly a bit of a bleak exercise, I must admit. I have always enjoyed such things; the macabre, the broken, the discarded, the things we've cast away and wish to forget have always been a fascination of mine, much to the disapproval of my uptight mother and rather discerning father. My inclinations were never much to their liking, but that does not matter anymore I suppose.
For years I had avoided the city because it was a place much too dangerous for my tastes. I remember hearing of gangs wandering the streets, picking off people they saw just for the fun of it (and, ocasionally, for some kind of profit), and other people told me that there were always fires burning, people burning things in barrels like movies. I never fully believed it, but I had no need of travel and there were always better places to go anyway; I had my doubts about some of the reports, but, without question, the beach would be much more pleasant than Washington after it had been bombed and shot to the point it was abandoned. The city happened to be along my way and I hadn't much else to do for the night, so I went into town.
As I entered it looked as I expected. It was bombed out, all black and brown; the ground was dry and the road was wearing out, slowly but surely warping. I caught myself wondering when they would repave it for a moment. I don't think they will ever do such a thing, not with how things are now. Maybe if they can expell all the traitors they will restore the capital and it will be a place we all gaze upon in awe once more. But for now it will stay the domain of barbarians and those who make company with them. I came to see the sights, nothing else. Thankfully, the once-bustling streets were largely emptied. They must have gone off pillaging somewhere else.
Eventually, I reached the whitehouse. It was barely anything worth seeing in all honesty, but I felt a pang of nostalgia at the sight. It was white no longer. Most of it was torn down and nothing but rubble. The few parts standing were in different states of returning to nature, green creeping upward. All the items worth taking had been removed long ago. There wasn't as much as a chair left, not even the slightest indication of anything that could have been sold. It was rather disgusting if I were to be honest. Not a shred of class to it. It stank of urine and looked like it was soaked in it as well. If it weren't so disgusting it would have been boring. Oh well. All good things come to an end, don't they?
I left the whitehouse with something of a bad taste on my tongue. There was no use in mourning; any attachment had faded once it became the property of those thugs however many years ago. I continued further to the other end of town and saw essentially nothing, just as I had expected. There was something like society at the far edge of town. A few of the buildings had been repaired, but most of them were just huts and tents in various stages of inviability. At first I saw no people but, upon closer investigation, some fascimilie of civilization emerged. People were moving, seemingly bartering. How quaint. I found my curious to be powerful enough to warrant paying them a visit, in spite of my reservations regarding their potentially sordid character.
I ended up in something akin to a medieval bazaar. There were skinned animals hanging off of some type of plastic-esque twines in stalls made of cobbled together wood, metal and the various other wastes of civilized society; I had noticed a smell most foul but had not made note of its origin, so perhaps they lived off of the trash of individuals such as myself, but were so ashamed of living as roaches that they hid this habit from the outside world. There were other people speaking some cant unknown to myself and trading in various things, with a few dollars being exchanged from time to time, much to my surprise. It mattered not to me, though it was an interesting sight in a sense.
My status as a voyeur was not a secret. The people looked at me and I could see their dirt-stained faces attempting to make sense of me, a man of society, in their midst. Some of them backed away and others cautiously approached, while the rest attempted to continue life as normal, returning to the filth. They were quite unpleasant in a sensory way, though I had to grant that their fascination was amusing to me. A few grubby children stared into my eyes before turning away and hiding, which wasn't hard considering the grime on them and the ambient uncleanliness of their environment. I handed out a dollar to one of them to see their reaction - he watched quietly as if he expected the bill to dematerialize the moment he acknowledged it, and then he grabbed at it quickly and ran off. None of them spoke to me.
After some time I came to a shack with some rather... interesting, I shall say, illustrations on the side. They reminded me of the neolithic cave paintings I was shown as a boy. The subject may have been comprehensible at some point, but they seemed to have faded over time. I could make out a few stiffly-scrawled people and some high, black lines that rose over them all. There was a rough slit down the middle and a man that had hobbled his way just outside the entrance, his finger curling back in a beckoning motion with some evident difficulty. He spoke in a strained voice, as if hoarse from screaming: " Come... come, here... Would you just come now. " He seemed harmless enough as judged by his physicality that I opted to go along with his request, though I expected it to be nothing more than one of many wastes of time that I had encountered today.
I bent down to enter his tent and found it a bit surprising in its size. The floor was dirt but there was some sort of rough weaved thing that covered it near the center. There were small candles lit on a low table that appeared to have its legs jammed down into the ground, perhaps to compensate for the height of the tent. It did smell pleasantly floral, though it was very faint all things considered. I sat on a dirtied pillow on the other side of the man, my back to the entrance of the temporary structure and my hands resting on a solid, smoothed wooden mass that sat between us directly on the floor. There was enough light that I could see his face and parts of his hands but not much more. Before I could comment on my surroundings he coughed and produced another candle that was set upon the wood and let with an old-styled lighter. He put his hands near the flame, looking into it for a moment.
After a time he cleared his throat and spoke. " I would like to tell you something. You're one a the only people from out of these parts I've seen for quite a long time. Most no one else will stop by where I go, " he said. He looked tired, but a certain excitement was evident in his eyes. " I wander round tryin to sell a few things. Things I'll show you in a while. Maybe you would like a thing or two from here. But that don't matter much at present. I got a story to sell you first if you'd listen for a while. It could take some time and I'm sure you're a real busy, busy man. But I think I'd be worth your time. I go all about and do lots of things. I used to live different and that's the story I'd like to tell you. "
" A long, long time ago I used to work with the government. Some military things. I think out near Quantico. I was doing all kinds of runt work because I needed a job. I'd gotten a degree working on the computers an all that kind of thing, but for a while I was just doing janitor work and that sort of thing. Anyway, after a while they moved me up and I was doing the real work I'd been trying for. They set me up on a weird thing. Now I want you to promise me you'll take what I'm going to tell you real serious and tell people what I'm tellin you, " he said. I nodded without speaking. " I mean it. It's some things they ought to know. Put your hand on mine and swear to it. " I considered it for a moment, but ultimately extended my hand. " Good man. You're a man of good reputation I'm sure. I just need you to tell whoever can hear it and will trust you. Yell it til your vocal cords die. "
" Now anyway I'll tell you what I need to. They're running some experiments out somewhere. I don't know where but somewhere further out west, with robots. They're tryin to raise them like normal people, like you an me. I was there when they were designing it. " His hands were moving with him as he spoke, casting strange shadows on the wall. " They made em able to bleed. And they feed on real food. I helped them plan a boy from scratch and he could move and even faked breathing. He could speak like a dumb boy, but he could speak alright. I heard it. It's hard to remember the specifics of it sometimes but I know what I done and it makes me wish I'd have just died sometimes. They took me out to see it living, or I guess not, I don't know what to call it. But they took me out to watch it in the wild. It just sat and picked at the dirt like it hardly had no brain. Made me think it was lobotomized, but it was the same thing I'd helped them make. There's more of em now probably, but I only helped them with the first one. "
I wasn't sure if any of this could be true, it seemed more than a bit ridiculous. I didn't say anything, in large part because I found the whole thing entertaining. " You wouldn't believe what it was. They'd make fish that ran off internet for the fake people to catch and even a few fake birds. None of it real. Running off solar and shit. It's no joke. They even let the robot things out there into the world. They went into the city and did things, nothing dangerous or bad, just things like me and you would do. They had em out with the farmers in the area too and none of them noticed. The robots would farm and not a single person ever noticed far as we could tell. I don't know if anyone ever picked it up but there was never an indication of it. "
" You don't got to believe me, but it'd make me awful happy if you'd tell people. I can show you some of the old plans for it if you'd like. I don't know if it'd change your mind, but I could show it anyway. I just want people to hear and you could go into town and tell them. You gotta come from the city, " he asserted. I agreed with a quick nod. " Prolly out near the bay. They moved a lot of the shit from out here over there. I hope it's good over there. I never been able to go, I've just been around what's left this way, " he said, seeming a bit saddened. " Let me show you the plans and let you see them for yourself. "
He did just that. I could not make anything of them, but they seemed legitimate. " You'll tell them all I hope. Let people know, won't you? I'll let you take a few trinkets along if you promise. It ain't much but I think it needs done, " he said. I looked at the plans some more, trying to figure the schematics out from what little knowledge of mechanics I had. It was much too complicated for my comprehension. I ultimately agreed. He nodded and dug around, giving me a broken prototype of one of the strange animatronic-esque things. It was a bit battered but it looked like the fish. Its eyes had been removed and the internal components looked as if they were starting to rust, but most of the pieces were there. He put it in my palm carefully and he squeezed my hand. " Take care of it, as much as you can. Show it to people that know what to do with it. Just please make it known. It'd be doin me a real favor. "