Total pages in book: 25
Estimated words: 22898 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 114(@200wpm)___ 92(@250wpm)___ 76(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 22898 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 114(@200wpm)___ 92(@250wpm)___ 76(@300wpm)
If my brothers have, though, maybe I shouldn’t give up hope just yet.
2
MERIT
“We do this for your own good, Merit!” my father shouts at me. “You know what’s out there? Degeneracy! The fall of civilization! You best stay here and think about it before you speak such nonsense at our dinner table again!”
He slams my door in my face.
And locks it from the outside.
I let out a deep sigh, slumping against the door, tears in my eyes.
I wanted to try to appeal to him one last time. Explain that we don't have to live here. That there’s a world out there. We used to live in it. We used to take family vacations, we used to go to movies, watch TV, and see other people besides the same four families over and over again.
For the past twelve years, I haven’t seen the outside of the barbed wire fences surrounding us. None of the women are allowed to leave, only some men going out to hunt and get supplies. Despite them teaching us all of that survivalist stuff, I’m constantly told that I’m too delicate to do it, and I should only use the skills they’ve trained me in under the most extreme and desperate of situations.
This is an extreme and desperate situation. Not one that my father would describe as such, but it is for me.
I can’t take it anymore. The loneliness, the isolation, the stagnation of ideas and thought. I’m twenty-two years old and I’d never really even lived.
My aunt passed away, and we buried her without even a ceremony. Then my dad starts trying to push me to marry one of the other families’ sons. Gregory. I can’t stand Gregory. Everything our little group believes, he’s soaked up and recited, never questioning it, his head completely empty of any independent thought. His attempts to flirt with me make my skin crawl, telling me how pearly white my teeth are and how I have the most beautiful toes.
That’s one way to stop me from ever wearing sandals again.
I’m afraid they’re going to force the issue. There’s a hierarchy here, even among such a small group, and my father looks at me as a bargaining chip to get in good with the men in control.
For the past few weeks, I’ve been making my disdain known, all the while subtly planning. While if I walk off with a bundle of rope all of a sudden it’d be suspicious as hell, a little bit of supplies here and there is harder to catch on to. “Oh, my father needs these sleeping bags. I’m just getting my mother some lighters to keep the stove burning. You know how my father just loves trail mix.”
All getting stowed under my bed. A plastic bag is hardly the most durable thing to travel with, but it’s not like I have options. I find my boots and put them on, filling the bag with my supplies. Not even a change of clothes fits in, so I’m leaving with just an old pair of jeans and a ratty t-shirt from some band from the eighties I’ve never even heard.
My window is also locked from the outside. My father has always told me it’s like that so I don’t do something foolish and hurt myself, because he cares so much. Even twelve-year-old me knew he was completely full of shit.
This one’s been rusting away. And I’ve been picking at it with an old butterknife I smuggled into my room. No one does any maintenance around here until something breaks.
It’s a little after eleven at night now. I’d been studying everyone’s habits, and where the opportunities lie. Hal is always on watch duty on Monday nights, but Hal can’t be without his pro wrestling, and has to watch all of it. Then? He takes a nap. Up in his tower, in front of the glow of his little TV, he dozes off, usually before the show is even over.
This is when I make my move. I push open my window, the lock broken from weeks of fiddling. I drop the pieces of rope I knotted together out the window, and use it to slide down, darkness covering my moves. I yank the rope down when I get to the ground, and run to the fence. I pull myself up, thanking God that they didn’t think I was too delicate for strength training. I throw my sleeping bag over the barbed wire, and rush over to the other side before anyone notices me. Finally, I grab my sleeping bag and leap off the fence in desperation.
I hit the grass, knocking the wind out of me, but thankfully not making too much noise. A few breaths later, I scramble to my feet, and head out into the dark forest that has surrounded me for the past decade of my existence.