It all started with a TV that wasn’t supposed to be on in the first place. But the government is good about informing the public of propaganda, good citizenship and emergency broadcasts- like the one that interrupted orchestra rehearsal, automatically causing our old flat screen to turn on. All I saw was a satellite image of a foreign mass- a large palace- on top of the globe. But the palace was so strange and looked like a lump of melted, glowing wax, and all I could process was the bright red lettering across that ancient screen: VIRAL KINGDOM SPREADING. IMMEDIATE EVACUATION.
Hannah, Stephan, Christian and John came my way. Since I had the best view of the TV, they swarmed around me. It felt good to feel surrounded by my friends from all sides. But I didn’t hear the urgent broadcast telling us to get into the bus waiting for us at each county line, or feel Hannah reach for my hand.
Before I knew it, the entire orchestra was evacuated from school campus, then was loaded from bus to shining bus to a strange train station equipped with the latest technology- and there was a train waiting for us. All we had were our instruments as we were herded by high government officials. All the people of our county present were herded like cattle into train carts according to age. By some miracle, we all fit. Then something dawned on me. All the people on our train- in the entire station- were kids.
Usually I accepted the government’s decisions without question. Those who did challenge authority disappeared. Like my aunt- who was found with her library of books. She said that books were like her kids- each with their own distinct beauty. She said that to me before she was taken away to who knew where. Before they made her watch them burn her beloved book children. Books were forbidden. And she learned the hard way.
Our world was separated into 7 states after our human race almost died out from WW4. We citizens were constantly monitored, bossed around- our exercise and education controlled. Any knowledge of history- books- were destroyed, supposedly so the human race would not go along the same destructive path as our ancestors
As the train moved along at lightning speed and stopped and unloaded people at certain terminals, most of the kids were silent. The Viral Kingdom spread through the land as a virus that mutated all it touched- human and land alike. Apparently it made the people it didn’t kill into monsters. And now, as the emergency broadcast explained, we were going to a safe, sealed off place. We all knew of the Viral Kingdom through a leak in the news. Just the government told us not to worry, go on with our lives, and that they had solved the problem already (meaning they had both killed the reporter who had leaked the secret to everyone, and that they had eliminated the Viral Kingdom, keeping us all safe). But, despite this, I couldn’t stop thinking of my mom. The last thing I had said to her was, “no. I’m too busy. We’ll go out and eat later. Not now, Mom!”
Suddenly Christian stood up. “Rubble,” he said.
“What?” Stephan asked.
“Rubble. Next stop. My uncle lives there. We can stay with him.”
Like we always did, we listened to whatever authority was available (but was usually the government). We got off and entered into the terminal. While Hannah was interrogating Christian about his uncle, an instrument maker and scientist, John and Stephan stood by and listened. How could they not feel shocked by this new transition? Suddenly I heard a clicking.
I turned behind me, only to face empty darkness. I knew this sound wasn’t in my head when I saw Stephan turn around too. I tentatively took a step. Then another. Then Hannah’s voice faded away as I walked further into the abyss. And when I stopped walking, everything became irrelevant, for I found the source of the clicking.
It was a commi. I had often seen our county’s illustrious but feared high government official strutting around town, with a commi earpiece. This earpiece was glowing a dark blue. I reached over, almost afraid to touch it. Eventually my cold fingers opened up enough to take it. Then, before I knew it, I turned the small, warm, pulsating commi in my hands, and put it to my ear.
“The Viral Kingdom is spreading. Humans show signs of change in Maine. Their skin is flaking off and turning to white scales. Their hair is blanched in pigment. Beware such individuals, officials. Labs in DC are commanded to stop experiments. Without thinking, I took the commi. It was perilous to know government activity. What secrets, besides books, was the government keeping from us?
Footsteps interrupted my focus. I jumped, clenching the commi and inserting it in my ear. It might provide news of my father- my mother, for whom I had never had time for. I needed to know when their trains might reach Rubble. It was a sketchy plan, but what choice did I have? “Please…” I whispered to the commi.
Seeing an indentation in the wall, I ran to it, and held my dark violin case in front of me to blend in with the darkness. I saw the silhouette stop. It got closer. My breath became such visible wispy puffs that I resolved to hold my breath. The momentous importance of being undetected around a commi- even an abandoned commi.
The approaching person breathed loudly. I stifled a scream.
I felt blood coursing through my veins. Oh god.
Suddenly my violin case was wrenched from my grasp and I was grabbed.
“Please! I swear! I didn’t listen to it!” They knew! I heard a breathy laugh.
“Relax, Kym. It’s just me.”
“John! You scared the crap out of me!”
I had been almost certain I had been caught. As we made our way back to the group, the others laughed over my scare, since they had all been part of the prank. Taking a ferry, we got to Christian’s uncle’s house. The home was a golden globe of light- of scientific toys whizzing everywhere, soaring above the grand piano, and the hollow shells of instruments. Rahm, Christian’s uncle, was nice enough- but he was a government official. Because of my aunt and her burned books, I didn’t trust his smiling eyes.
There in Rubble, we were enrolled in school (abundant with distractions), and amid the beautiful chaos of it all, in the utopian Rubble, Rahm helped us start a new life. All memory of my old life began to fall away, including those of my mother. The commi began to leave my ear more often until I listened to it no more and lost it amid the mess in my room. The last broadcast I had listened to talked of past biological experimentation on those who opposed the government. The virus experimentation (meant for biological warfare) had gotten out of hand, and had produced the Viral disease, the origin of the Viral Kingdom. This Viral disease mutated people and transformed land into forests that rained venomous pollen. The faraway Viral Kingdom was irrelevant. And here was fun.
After school, I went back to Rahm’s house to get a snack. The warm sun rained on my back and provided a sense of euphoria as the breeze swept up my hair. I twirled. When I came in a full circle, I abruptly felt my hands caught by someone else’s. And he was inches away from me. His light brown eyes were light and sparkling in the sunlight.
“Is this a joke?” I asked John, laughing, “because I don’t want you as a dance partner. You’re so freaking tall.” We ate over Rahm’s dinner table, making a feast of junk food as the small gadgets whizzed around us. John’s statement caught me by surprise.
“I would stay here…”
I abruptly looked up from my cookie, the crumbs still framing my mouth.
“Wait- what? I thought- didn’t we always live here?” I asked, puzzled.
“We didn’t always live here, Kym,” he said. His eyes suddenly were serious.
“But-” I stopped. A kind motherly face looked at me from my mind’s eye- asking me if I wanted to go out and eat later with her, while I turned her down…too busy…
“Where did we come from, Kym? Can you remember?”
“Wait-” I felt a tear roll down my face. Soon I was sobbing. I remembered I was almost sixteen, my name was Kym…but who was Kym? I rocked back and forth.
Before I knew it, John’s arms were around me. I never let anyone hug me, and he knew it. But I allowed it, because using any other energy for any other purpose besides wiping away tears was a waste.
“Kym- I found your commi in your room and listened to it. I realized- this school, music- everything here, Kym. It’s all fake. It’s the government’s way- Rahm’s way- of distracting us from our parents- our old lives- all of it.” In response, I just sobbed into his shirt. I vaguely wondered if he minded having a wet shirt. “I asked the others. They didn’t have a clue, and they didn’t care.”
We stayed like that for a while, huddled together. “I would stay here- if you stayed with me, Kym. But if you didn’t want to, I’d leave with you.”
“John?” I rasp out. “Why are you saying this? Why would you stay with me?”
“Do you even have to ask?” he took my hand and held it. I felt warmth rush through me. Then something tugged at my focus.
“The commi-”
“I have it,” John said. “We could stop this, Kym. I recorded this broadcast for you.” I listened dumbly to the recording. It told of how all the adult citizens of the US were being left for the Viral Kingdom to consume alive. It was to keep the kids safe, but decrease the human population to conserve resources.
Then I began to scream and cry as I remembered my mother and the numerous times I yelled at her to stop bothering me. I don’t know how long I blubbered and shrieked, or how long John held me and rocked me back and forth. I wished he would stop rocking me and make me shut up and stop crying since I didn’t have the willpower to stop myself. We devised a plan, ditched school, and went back to the terminal. Locked.
“I got it,” said a voice. Stephan, Hannah, and Christian were there! Stephan took Hannah’s hairpin and neatly opened the terminal door with a click. We rushed back to where I found the commi. Christian found that the wall I hid against so many weeks before was hollow. John and I would never have progressed so far! We only planned to come here, scout out the area, and somehow broadcast the commi recording to the US public through months of scouting and planning. Christian and Stephan were unexpected help. Christian, since he had watched his uncle come here many times, opened up the wall to reveal a complex circuit board filled with bright lights and switches. Hannah opened her hands and revealed a book with a dog-eared page showing just a circuit board and how to broadcast information from it. I grinned, glad they were here.
“Some old man was taken away since Rahm had found his books. Rahm beat the old man to death,” Stephan explained, and no one cared.”
“And we found this book left behind,” Christian elaborated. We thought it might be useful. Don’t look so shocked! We suspected what you were planning from the start.”
John smiled and deftly took the recording on the commi and neatly attached it to the yellow wire, as the book instructed. Behind us, the TVs all turned on. Our emergency broadcast just needed to be streamed with the press of a button.
The lights turned off.
A deafening ringing echoed throughout the terminal. And I heard screaming and bullet shots. I felt warm liquid spurt on my face. Some got in my mouth. It was blood.
A shower of shots suddenly rained down on us as fast approaching footfalls rapidly came towards us. Somehow I had escaped unscathed. My eyes adjusted to see the horror before me. John slumped by my side. The others were covered in pools of blood.
A gun materialized out of the darkness- and pointed at John.
“Press it or I shoot him.”
I looked into those light brown eyes- so full of pain, yet John’s look was lucid enough for me to understand what was required of me.
I looked at the gunman, Rahm, and his group. Now- too late- point of no return.
As I gripped John’s hand, I heard two more bullets, just as Rahm promised.
One for John.
The last for me.
First things first, this needs spacing out. As it is, all the paragraphs are mushed together into one giant mass of text which is very intimidating to your readers, especially with how long this piece is. It's a good idea to put a blank paragraph or some sort of space in between paragraphs when posting text online to make it easier for people to read, otherwise your risk people looking at the size of the scroll bar, looking back at the smooshed-together text, and deciding that it's not worth the effort of reading your piece.
It happens.
It's a particular shame because you start off with a really interesting beginning, and it stayed interesting throughout.
That said, there were a couple of issues:
Everything was very smooth, right up until this section, where things completely fell apart. I don't know if the formatting got messed up when you were posting or what, but the change back to Kym's POV was mushed into the commi chatter, which was quite confusing. There was also the "took" versus "had taken". The latter makes more sense because she'd already taken the commi and was listening to it, while "took" means that she picked it up just then, which is a bit contradictory.
These three come out of nowhere, and it really doesn't make sense for them to be there with how John said that they didn't remember anything. It feels contrived and contradictory, far too convenient, which makes the rest of this sequence feel all the above, especially with the very convenient presence of the book that showed how to transmit from a circuit board.
and
As I gripped John’s hand, I heard two more bullets, just as Rahm promised.
And then there's the mess of an ending. The first quoted sentence doesn't make sense since pressing the button would broadcast the recording, yes? So Rahm is telling Kym to broadcast the message, or he'll shoot? It doesn't make any sense since Rahm's supposed to be suppressing that information.
If the "or" were an "and", however, Rahm's statement would make sense.
The second sentence references a promise that wasn't really made. Rahm said he'd shoot "him", which implies shooting only John. There's nothing in his initial statement that indicates he'd shoot both of them.
There's also no mention of the transmission actually being transmitted, which is what John and Kym's being shot implies happened. You need to mention Kym or John pushing the button, otherwise it just reads like Rahm just shot them after giving them false hope, and all their deaths were for naught.
The last issue was the romance between Kym and John. It felt shoed in, and if it were cut out completely, the story would be stronger for it. We haven't had much time with these characters, so that romance, which was not mentioned at all before that point, is too sudden to be believable.
Otherwise, if you can fix the issues I pointed out, this would be a pretty good story.
The story seems to focus around Kym (the protagonist), John (the possible love interest), and Rahm (evil man representing to the oppressive government). The three friends seem superfluous: Hannah, Stephan, and Christian. All right, I’ll admit that Hannah’s hairpin came in handy and so did Christian’s discovery of the hollow wall, but otherwise their existence was never justified. No remarkable characteristics either physically or personality-wise surfaced throughout the story. Kym could have easily had the hair clip while John could’ve gone snooping on his own earlier–the story wouldn’t have suffered. Make John related to Rahm, and then it isn’t much of a leap to have the boy recover the book.
I say this since those three characters, the friends, only served to confuse me since it meant I had to keep in mind more characters and towards the end I went: “Who are those people again?” Oh, yeah. They exist. By cutting down the character list, it enables you to invest more time to character development.
my father- my mother
Kym brings them up: however, as the reader I don’t feel much sympathy. I don’t know what kind of relationship they had besides that Kym was your average teenager who had no desire to spend time with her mother in particular. This would’ve been a great opportunity to reveal more about Kym’s personality through these forgotten relationships.
For aesthetics, I recommend that you break each paragraph with a line in between. It’s easier on the eyes that way.
There was a lack of description when it comes to the main characters. I have no idea what they look like. I also questioned the use of first person in this piece. An omniscient narrator would have done a better job setting up the scene gradually rather than having to depend on Kym to occasionally throw us tidbits of information so that we may begin to understand what’s going on in this new world.
My advice is to invest more time in the themes you presented: orchestra (music as an escape) from an oppressive government, how this escape can be manipulated into a distraction, the profound impact of being without parents –having part of her identity stripped from her forever, her relationship with John, and the difficult decision that Rahm has to take. This isn’t some old man hoarding books –these are two children that he has dealt with for who knows how long. Torn between his duty –his sense of doing what’s right- and having to kill the very children he intended to save from the Viral Kingdom.
I applaud you though for having created this detailed world and the shocking end. Did she have time to click the button? Are their deaths in vein? A splendid cliffhanger if you ask me.