The Apocolypse

My Name is Orion Casselli. I am fourteen years old and I broke down the Walls. I killed people and I will never forgive myself. This is my story, the story of the future, the story of how it all happened.

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“Look, a shooting star!” Orion pointed up at the sky. His sister next to him sighed.

“Make a wish,” she said, rubbing her eyes, trying to stay awake a little longer. Orion closed his eyes, held his breath, and made a wish.

“What’d ya wish?”

“That all my dreams would come true,” he answered, pulling her into a sideways hug.

“That’s a good wish,” she paused. “But nightmares are dreams too.”

Almost as if what she had said had triggered something, a blinding white light shines down from the sky. Orion felt himself being yanked off the ground, pulled away from his sister who had been hanging onto him for dear life. The world disappeared in a wall of freezing white. Orion was suddenly floating downwards, yanked back up, and pushed back down. It felt like he was drowning. He couldn’t breathe. Darkness hit him, leaving his eyes seeing spots and his ears ringing. Silence. Perfect silence.

“What?” his mind was a befuddled mess. He tried to move but his legs and arms were restrained. So was his midsection, around his stomach. He tried to yell out but it seemed that his voice just bounced back to him, no one else hearing.

“Code 378, patient awakening. I repeat, Code 378, patient awakening!” The words blasted across Zora’s headset. A gentle rain fell on the streets outside as she hurriedly paid for her coffee and ran back to HQ.

“Zora! This one’s yours!” another voice came over the headset. Officer Deman.

“Yes, sir,” she responded.

She ran as fast as she could, trying to keep her coffee from splashing out of its cup and onto her. She finally made it to the sliding front doors. Drying her boots, she stepped inside and out of the rain. She set her coffee on her desk in her cubicle and hurried to the elevator.

“Come on, come on,” she nervously waited for the elevator to reach the basement.

She had a sneaking suspicion she knew who was waking up from STATIS. He had been in there longer than anyone else due to some brain damage as a baby. STATIS took a little longer because it had to make repairs to the brain. She smiled. She hoped that’s who it would be.

The elevator jolted to a halt and she was out the doors before they were completely open. She half ran, half jogged down the hallway until she got to room B26. She stopped outside and took a deep breath before she pushed it open. The lights were on dim, and in the middle of the room, there was a capsule. In big bold letters up the side was the word STATIS. She reached forward and gripped the handle. A scanner read her thumbprint and unlocked it. She gave the handle a yank and the door came open. A steam escaped from inside, running along the floor like a snake. Once it cleared Zora was able to see inside the capsule.

“Hello,” she said, peering forward. A boy, maybe around fourteen, opened his eyes and looked at her.

“Help me,” he croaked, his voice almost gone.

“Oh, that’s what I’m doing,” she started undoing the straps around his arms, legs, and midsection. “Don’t move and don’t say anything.”

“Where am I?” he went to say but Zora cut him off with a glare.

“I said don’t say anything.”

He nodded.

She continued to undo the straps until he was completely free. She reached out and took his hand, helping him out of the capsule.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Zora.” She left him standing there for a second as she grabbed a Data Pad. She rolled up the sleeve of his right arm and then typed something into the keypad.

“What’s that?” he pointed at a tattoo on his right forearm. 100|264.

“That’s your identification number,” she said as she scrolled downwards. “Your the 264th person to wake up from STATIS this year.”

“And the 100?” he ran a finger over it, confusing masking his face.

“This is the one-hundredth year that we’ve been doing it. In fact, today is the one-hundredth anniversary,” she said. Her eyes glazed over but only for a second.

“The anniversary of what?”

“The Apocolypse,” she answered, looking him dead in the eyes.

“The what?!?” he gawked. The world for him started to spin. Where was he? Who was he? What happened to his sister?

“A hundred years ago, these..... things showed up. They seemed to be peaceful for about twenty-four hours as they scoped out the land. After that period, it became a bloodbath. Thousands died in the first day. After about a week the government finally drew something up to save the human race from going extinct because of these things.” a tear dripped down her dark-colored cheek. “I wasn’t alive then, obviously, but I’ve heard the stories and I’ve read the accounts of survivors. It was terrible. Compounds were made and people were distributed among them, all over the world. We’ve just grown accustomed to living in them and nobody goes outside of the compounds anymore except to go to the Capitol.”

He stood there in silence, processing everything he just heard.

“Where’s my sister? Is she okay? What’d you do with her?” he asked her, an urgent edge in his voice.

“Your sister?” Zora asked, looking down at the Data Pad again. “You don’t have a sister.”

“Yes, I do!” he insisted. “Her name was Emily, twelve years old, brown hair, about this high.” He held his hand about five feet from the ground.

“She was a part of the dream that STATIS created for you,” Zora started to explain.“Anything that happened in your past life has not happened. It’s a fragment of your imagination.”

The boy took a step closer to her. “So you’re telling me the past fourteen years of my life have been fake, a little charade to help you!” He was about an inch away from her and Zora was not backing down.

“Yes.”

He went to move forward but Zora put a hand on his chest. “I wouldn’t. I will leave you paralyzed for the rest of your life if you do not stop right now and listen to what I have to say!”

She said it with such authority that he stepped back and sat down on a chair.

“Thank you,” she said sweetly. “STATIS prepares you for this, for what you’re about to participate in. By helping your brain to develop properly, it institutes an induced coma and provides a life that you “live” in. You learn to talk, think, eat, etc, in that so when you wake up, we don’t have to teach you that stuff. Normally, a person wakes up around the ages of 5-7 but you had brain damage as a baby so STATIS repaired it, which means it took longer for you to get ready.”

“You said compounds. Are we inside one right now?”

“Yes, it’s too risky to go outside of the walls right now. The government has been working on a solution to these monsters for over a century. You may leave the compound to go to the Capitol but chances are when you leave the compound, you don’t come back. That is if you even make it to the Capital.”

He was silent for a moment, mind wandering in thought.

“My name is Orion Casselli.” He stuck his hand out for her to shake it. She did. “Your Zora.”

“Yup,” she smiled. “You’ll be in my bunker for the time being until you learn the layout of the place. Okay?”

He nodded.

“We have a few rules here in Compound 298. Rule 1: Never go over the Wall or even near the wall at that matter. Rule 2: Never go outside your barrack after curfew. Rule 3: Do your part and try not to get in trouble. Simple rules. If you follow them, you’ll make it easier on yourself,” she smiled at him.

“Gotcha!” he smiled back. Although his mind was still searching for answers.

“Come with me, I want to show you some things,” she said as she motioned for him to follow her.

“Um, clothes?” he asked. He was still in a hospital gown type garb.

“Find something that fits and then follow me,” she pointed at a tall wardrobe.

“Thanks,” he said as she shut the door.

Orion quickly changed into something that fit and was comfortable and then joined Zora outside the room. He heard the gentle pitter-patter of rain on the roof as they headed back through the long corridor.

They stepped outside the building and as rain splashed down on him, he smiled. He loved the rain. Something about this rain was different though, it felt more... real. His heart continued it’s little thumps as they quickly dashed through the rain towards a little house.

Zora pushed the door open and hurried through. “Mina! Come here!”

Orion stood awkwardly by the door, not sure what to do until a girl came bounding down the stairs towards them. She looked to be thirteen at the most with brown hair. She reminded him a lot of his dream sister Emily. He took an instant liking to her before she even said a word. She just had that aura of craziness he loved.

“Yeah?” she asked, skidding to a halt before she crashed into them.

“This is the noobie, Orion,” Zora nodded to the left at him. “He’s gonna hang out with us till he gets the layout of the place.”

“Mkay,” she nodded. She turned to Orion and extended her hand. “I’m Mina but you can call me Min for short.”

“Nice to meet you,” he shook her hand. It was as if he was looking at a doppelganger of his sister. They didn’t look exactly alike but close enough. Same face structure, same high cheekbones, and same excited eyes.

“Get him some food, Mountain Dew, get him settled,” Zora instructed her. She went to continue but was cut off by a message from her headset.

“Copy that!” Zora snapped into action. She was out the door in a second, leaving Mina momentarily shocked.

Mina motioned for Orion to follow her as she headed out the door after Zora. Orion, not knowing what to do, followed her in spite of what his brain was telling him. Zora was so focused on the task at hand she didn’t realize they were following. Mina and Orion made it through the front doors and into the room marked “Restricted” before they finally found out what the big problem was. An array of screens covered the wall around them, all of them with various views outside the wall.

“Why is there a code one?” Zora asked, a tinge of panic in her voice.

“See for yourself,” the person in the control chair next to her answered. They tapped a few buttons and the main screen was switched out for a different one. This one showed a semi-tall creature with a bit of a hunched back. It turned its head towards the camera and it was all Orion could do to not shout in shock.

It had a terrible face. Slopper and blood dripped out of the creature mouth and it didn’t have any eyes, just slits of black where they should have been. Long, elongated fingers extended from their skeleton hands. Sharp, almost dagger-like fingernails tipped the edge of the fingers. It also had no ears, just pin holes.

“What is that?” Orion finally managed to ask Mina in a whisper.

“That’s a Heliosang,” she whispered back.

“A what?!?”

“Heel - - li -os -- ang!” she pronounced it slowly, purposefully.

“It’s disgusting,” he declared.

“Get the drones online, send three to get a closer look at it. Normally the Heliosang don’t get this close to the wall unless they’ve gone rogue or on a scouting mission. Anyways, it’s bad news for us,” Zora commanded.

“Yes, ma’am,” the person obeyed. “Drones online, going in now.”

Once again the main screen switched to the drone’s point of view. Tree branches whizzed by until they arrived at the spot of the creature. It spotted the hovering device and dashed off back into the forest.

“Follow it.”

The camera raced along after it, narrowly missing tree branch after tree branch. The

The Heliosang ran at a steady pace until it came to a shuddering halt in the middle of a clearing. Behind it was more forest but in front of it was a tall building. Roads winded around it. The windows were still in tack. The building showed no signs of being there for a century.

“But..” Orion was confused.

“That’s not a government facility,” Mina whispered in awe. “What is that?”

Zora seemed to stiffen.

“But if no ones been outside of these walls for a century, why does that building look like it’s been in use?” Orion didn’t say it in a whisper. Zora whipped around, panic and surprise written on her face. She pushed him back until he was up against the door.

“What are you doing here?” she was right in his face. He looked into her eyes. She was just as confused as he was about it all. She had no answers.

“I followed,” he gulped. He didn’t want to throw Mina under the bus. “Mina.”

Zora glanced over her shoulder but where Mina had previously been standing was now

empty.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” she growled, face inches from him. “So I suggest you leave and forget you saw anything.”

The door behind him suddenly opened and he went stumbling backward into the main lobby. The door slammed shut, keeping him out.

What was happening in there? What were they not telling him? Who was he? Where was he? Was it even real?