December
December took a long drag on her cigarette, then tipped her head back and blew a series of smoke rings, watching them rise and dissipate. A crow flew overhead silently, its ebony feathers in stark contrast to the sky’s indifferent gray.
How she envied it its wings.
She was on break, standing in the vacant lot outside of the hospital. It was a shitty little place- bleak, empty, covered in sharp, gritty gravel- but December loved it simply because it was outside, freeing her from the world of doctors and nurses and immaculate whiteness, the world of endless testing. It gave her glimpse of the raw, fresh-air reality that she so yearned for.
December was a test subject, a Guineau Pig for everything from cancer treatments to cosmetics. At the moment she was being prepared as a test subject for a potential lung cancer cure- that was why she was smoking.
It was because of her useless left leg, a birth defect, that she was forced to live this God forsaken life. All the test subjects were “flawed” in some way- deformed, retarded, blind, deaf, even simply homosexual, which the government had deemed an abnormality and therefore a defect. December hated the monotony of her life, the objectification, the blind submission to an authority she disdained.
The only thing she loved were her fellow test subjects. They tended to be tough and feisty and were sometimes unpleasant to be around, but beneath their rough exteriors they were genuinely good people. Hardship had given them a kind of integrity.
Surveying her drab surroundings, December thought wistfully of the life she had once led. She’d been a musician, a gifted and passionate violinist. Until the Regime began its campaign to ban music completely.
She sighed. It all seemed so far away, the days of grand concert halls and silken gowns. Onstage, lost in music’s beautiful haze, her leg didn’t seem to matter. Once upon a time, people had thought she was beautiful, brilliant, remarkable- not just a girl with a gimp forced to take pills and injections.
Shiloh
I gazed longingly at December from a tiny hospital window, observing how delicately she held her cigarette between two slender fingers.
I’m a dyke, that’s why I’m here. I’ve loved December from the moment I met her- I know it sounds sentimental but it’s true. I couldn’t resist her shy smile, her solemn grey eyes.
And she’s kind, kinder than anyone’s ever been to me, really. You’d think that in a place like this, where we’re all used to being treated as the dregs of society, people would have some empathy for a lesbian. But no, I’m still told that I’m sick, wrong, a sinner. December, though, she doesn’t pass judgement.
I sighed and turned from the window, back to my work. I’d been put on a new class of antidepressants with potentially dangerous side effects. My job was to keep a journal of the results, updating it every hour- how I felt, how I thought, what they did to my body.
If they don’t kill me, I can only hope they’ll do me some good. God knows I’m depressed.
Asher
From the moment I got here, my only thought has been breaking free from this place.
My parents ignited the spark of revolution in me when I was young, with tales of Che Guevara and other nearly forgotten revolutionaries of long ago. Then the Regime came to power and began its attempt to smother any irregularity, any individuality. I have Bipolar Disorder, and was dubbed a freak and sent to this oppressive, twisted hellhole. I’m not about to take that lying down.
I was in my workshop, amidst wires and switches and endlessly complicated parts. Bombs were a last resort- I’m not a violent man, simply bitter and desperate. I’ve tried negotiating honestly with the administrators, asking for better conditions and more initiative- they’d laughed me down without a moment of serious consideration. I’ve tried sabotaging the medical equipment- they simply enforced more secure protection. Finally, enraged and exhausted, I found some instructions on the internet for making bombs from scratch and did what I could to scrounge up the necessary parts from lab equipment. If only I were smart enough to construct a bomb…
More difficult than the bomb, however, were my attempts to organize the other test subjects. A sole revolutionary is powerless, but there is power in numbers. Rebellion calls for unity. I thought that would be easy to find- we should all be angry, indignant, determined to overcome. But my proposals were met by scorn and disinterest. I’m the only one here who hasn’t been beaten into submission.
That’s not what I want. I want to inspire and ignite these people and lead them to triumph. Even if we fail, I want to be able to say we tried. The apathy here makes me sick.
I intimidate the others- they see me as angry, unpredictable, maybe crazy. They don’t see that all of my fury is out of compassion for them. The best kind of revolution is rooted in love.
December
December’s vacant gaze fell on the patients within the window, with their deformed faces and limbs, their blind, milky eyes, their anemic pallor. Some had defects that were not visible, but were betrayed by the agony in their faces. She was one of them, one of these tired, tortured souls.
This place, December thought, is a cage full of broken birds.
A cruel cage, and she would likely die here.
Countless times, she’d thought about taking it into here own hands. Death, that is. They all had, but no one ever had the guts to go through with suicide.
Why should she keep toiling away? If she was to die here anyway, why give them the sick satisfaction of killing her themselves?
December returned to the laboratory. Filling a large syringe dangerously full with one of the most potent treatments, she slipped it discreetly into her sleeve and headed back to the vacant lot.
She lay down, felt the pebbles press indentations into her back. She stared directly up at the patch of smoggy sky. Realizing suddenly that this would be the last thing she ever saw, December began to sob, her entire body shuddering with grief.
Then, trembling, she inserted the silver needle into a vein in her wrist- through the translucent, paper thin skin and into pulsing, blue, vulnerable vein.
Her pulse slowed, her thoughts lagged, and gradually her vision began to dim.
Shiloh
I gathered her limp body, kissed her cold, pallid lips.
She’d really been all I had to live for here. I couldn’t imagine returning to a life of monotony and sickening tests knowing I would never again glimpse her luminous eyes, her sweet smile. December had been my only solace, my motivation to endure this life I’d been forced into. She was… I don’t know. A glimmering gem amongst dull stones, a bird of paradise amidst common sparrows.
Setting her corpse back down gently, I noticed a syringe tumble from her limp hand. I picked it up and held it to the light, the dying sunlight illuminating an oddly colored liquid. It was halfway full. Half a syringe of this was all it took to overwhelm the system, to bring swift death.
Asher
I stared pensively at the entangled corpses sprawled across the ground. Shiloh’s lifeless lips were still brushing December’s cheek, her limbs draped protectively over December’s waiflike frame. There was a stark, morbid beauty to the scene- even dead, Shiloh loved December ardently.
At least they were finally together.
“Shiloh?! Jesus, I heard someone else snuffed it… but Shiloh?!”
I turned around- it was Jasper. He and Shiloh had been close. They were the only two homos in this place, so they’d hung together.
“Of course Shiloh,” I snapped. “She was in love with December. I thought you of all people knew that, fairy.”
I met his eyes then, and realized they were brimming with tears. I felt an immediate pang of remorse for calling him fairy. Reaching out, I placed a consoling hand on his shoulder.
“Hey, Jas, I’m sorry, man. I liked Shiloh too, and December.”
He didn’t acknowledge me, just gazed in disbelief toward the corpses at our feet.
“They were martyrs,” I said absently.
And then it was like a hurricane hit me. I looked at Jas with wide eyes. “They were martyrs,” I repeated, this time with urgency. “They liberated themselves, they beat this sick, sick system the only way they could.”
I was met by an uncomprehending stare. “Suicide is hardly heroism, Asher.”
“But it is, don’t you see? They fucked the system. The fascists can control every aspect of our lives, but they can’t control how we die. They need us. They lose us,they lose scientific progress. I think this is the answer, if I can find a way to organize it. I know I’ll give my life for liberation.”
“Ash, slow down. Are you seriously suggesting mass suicide?”
“Yes, as a form of revolt! It’s not as if we have anything to live for anyway.”
“You’re nuts, Asher. There’s been enough dying already, okay?”
I felt a rage coming on, roiling up within me, irrepressible. “You don’t understand! You can either sell yourself like a whore to this corrupt regime and die at their hands, or you can join me and die nobly in the name of liberty! Do it for Shiloh, Jasper, in her honor.”
I took some capsules out of my pocket, a medication for manic depressive behavior that I had been testing. One by one, I forced them down my throat. The world tilted and spun, my heart sped, the blood rushed in my temples. I was exhilarated. I could feel in my bones that this was the beginning of an end, that others would follow our example until the administrators gave up and freed whoever remained. At last I was doing something meaningful, something revolutionary, and if I had to die to do it, so be it.
Jasper
I was paralyzed with horror, fumbling for words.
“Asher, don’t. Please, son, you’re only a boy…”
“I’m not a boy!” he snarled. His eyes were wild.
“You are, Asher, you’re what… 17? Do you really want to throw your life away for some highbrow ideals?!”
“I’m dying for you… for the oppressed… for the abused…the downtrodden… for the people…” Between each phrase, he would force more capsules down his throat, attempting not to gag on them.
Panicking, I reached out and shook him, jostling the pill bottle from his grasp. I was too late; he staggered, crumpled into my arms. My vision blurring with tears, I watched the last life fade from his eyes.
* * * *
Almost a decade later, I am free. Liberated, like Asher promised, from the somber laboratory, the tedious testing day in and day out, the taxing side effects of medications, the condescending doctors, nurses, and lab administrators. We’re all free, like so many captive butterflies released in a swarm.
To my disbelief, it was just as Asher predicted. A string of suicides that lead to the admin’s reluctant liberation of the test subjects when they realized it was futile to keep us there. I’m not sure if the others saw the suicide as a kind of political leverage or simply as a release from suffering. Either way, it worked.
I’m an activist, now, in honor of Asher, in honor of Shiloh and all the others, The regime is far from overthrown, but our movement is gaining ground, chipping away slowly but surely.
I am from the class of the oppressed, the abused, the downtrodden. We might be broken, but we are resilient, irrepressible, and together we’ll rise like a wave.
I thought this was amazingly written, you certainly have talent. At first, I was not that keen on the way the perspectives jumped around but as I read on it made more sense to the story as a whole as its not about focusing on an individual characters life and sticking with it but showing a chain of events- I thought it was cleverly done! 
