Deliver Us: Ouroboros Archives Book One Read online

  This whole time I thought I was captured for a ransom, and I fantasized about my dad rescuing me. But on the fifth day, I was told that I’d be moved to my permanent quarters—a cell block of fifteen rooms with about thirty people. Everyone in our block shared a common room and we were to live as a unit. I’d be assigned to share a room with another person, a small child, and it was my responsibility to look after her. The idea of taking care of a small child reminded me of Jonah. I screamed, “Where is my brother? Is he here?” My heart raced at the possibility. They didn’t respond.

  A male guard went over basic rules and what I could expect: a meal in the morning and one in the evening, keeping the peace, and never speaking of our old lives. Without going into detail, he said this facility was working on several projects that were part of a larger plan to make the world better. How important and serious my role would be. I’d receive orders to work on a specific project. Shifts would begin a 0600 hours and end at 2000 hours. They didn’t need to bother mentioning the time because in the Underworld time was ruled by bells. The bells sounded more like loud beeping alarms pulsing at different intervals depending on the event. Four long beeps for waking and lights out, two short beeps for breakfast and dinner, three beeps to say it’s time to head to work, and one beep to start a work shift.

  I was moved into section 4 right before dinner. The guard didn’t lead me all the way in, instead, she lifted my right hand and pressed my palm against an electronic screen on the long metal wall and a door slid open to my right. She nudged me into the room, and the door quickly closed behind me. I stood there frozen, looking around at the twenty or so faces that stared back at me. They looked scared and innocent; some of the younger children cried, and the older ones hugged and consoled them. I didn’t move, not sure where I should go next. The back of the space had openings to smaller rooms, I guessed that those were the sleeping quarters the guards had mentioned. Rustling in some indicated that people were occupying them.

  Suddenly a girl who appeared to be about my age jumped up and said, “Welcome to section 4-B, I’m Sarah.”

  A loud beeping noise filled the room, and children started to scramble around like wild animals. “It’s the dinner bell. Here, follow me.” Sarah led me to the back of the common room and directed me to one of the smaller rooms that had the number fifteen on it.

  “This is your room. You’re going to share it with Rachel. She’s six.”

  I peeked in slowly, it was dark and dank.

  “Not all the comforts of home,” Sarah said with a slight smile.

  I stepped close to her and pushed my face an inch from hers. “What the hell is going on here?”

  “Shhh.” She put her index finger over her mouth and slowly shook her head from side to side. Her eyes very clearly told me one thing: not here, not now. She turned and walked back toward the children gathering at the dinner cart that had rolled in through the door. She didn’t seem afraid or angry, none of the emotions that consumed me. Had she been here so long that this was normal? There’s a name for that—Stockholm Syndrome—I’ll be damned if that happens to me.

  The next few days consisted of a rigorous training and testing regimen that I soon realized was done to determine our intelligence and skills. My strength and balance were tested on an obstacle course and hours were spent working on puzzles and math problems. I wasn’t sure if it was better to keep my knowledge and abilities a secret, or if I’d receive better treatment if they thought I was a strong asset. I decided to take a cautious route and be choosy on what I wanted them to know about me. I portrayed myself as average, although my dad and my grandmother would always go on about how highly intelligent, agile, and coordinated I am. They’re obviously biased.

  On the third day of training, I walked back into section 4-B and saw a tall man leaning against the doorway of room 6. He locked eyes with mine and didn’t look away as I walked toward my room. His amber eyes were striking and unusual, almost exotic. Definitely from the South American continent. My family traveled there several times, and it always struck me as odd that people living in other parts of the world could have slightly different skin tones and eye color. His was even more beautiful than I’d remembered seeing as a child.

  He wasn’t really a man, not quite. He was between boy and man, probably a little older than Zeke and me, but not by much. It was his muscular physique, square jaw, above average height, and mature features that first made me think he was an adult. Awkwardly, I walked without taking my eyes off of him until I bumped into the wall where the entrance to my room should have been. A smirk flashed across his face as I fell into my room.

  For several days I’d see him looking at me from across the room. I guess my clumsiness didn’t make him run in the other direction. It became a game of sorts; we’d stare at each other, waiting to see who would be the first to look away. Sometimes it was me, sometimes him. Once the other looked away, we wouldn’t look at each other for the rest of the night. This continued for a week, every evening as the group would gather after dinner to play games and sing songs from back home. The games and songs helped to keep the children happy and give them a sense of security and hope. At some point during the play time, I’d feel him watching me. I’d look up and search the room for his eyes, which were piercing into me. Our stare-offs could last for up to five minutes, and one of us would eventually pull our eyes away voluntarily or be pulled away by a child needing our attention.

  Sarah and I had become friends by now, almost confidants. But we still didn’t talk about the pink elephant in the room. It was a forbidden topic, and any time I’d bring it up, she would shake her head. I grew weary of this and wished we had something to write on, but that would probably be dangerous as well.

  Sarah and I began staying up late, huddling together on one of our beds. Her room was next to mine, room 14, and she shared it with a five-year-old girl named Ruth. When Rachel and Ruth would fall asleep, one of us would tiptoe next door and we’d talk for hours. Mostly we told stories about our lives before the invasion. In those first weeks, we never spoke about our experiences when the invasions occurred, when we were taken from our homes and brought to the Underworld. I wanted so badly to share my experience, to analyze what was happening and why, but I had to keep those thoughts to myself for now. Sarah was clearly terrified of speaking of it and breaking the rules.

  After another week of staring contests, I finally asked Sarah, “Who’s the guy in room 6?”

  She blushed. “I see you two staring at each other.” She nodded as she said it. “His name is Jeremiah. I don’t know anything about him. He rarely speaks.” She paused for a few minutes, and we sat in silence. “Don’t talk to him, Liv. Don’t bother trying to get to know him, it’s too dangerous. Promise me you won’t try to be his friend.”

  “I promise.”

  She gave me a look like she doubted I was being honest. She was already getting to know that I have a mind of my own, and I don’t appreciate rules that don’t make sense.

  Four weeks passed with the same nightly ritual. My life became mundane and days began to roll into one another. If I hadn’t been meticulously counting the days, I could have easily lost track of time. I couldn’t tell you what day of the week it was, but I knew it had been thirty-six days since my arrival.

  We worked straight through the weeks, no weekend breaks or holidays to rest. Most nights, Sarah and I stayed up after the lights had been turned off, but we started running out of things to talk about, so it became less frequent.

  On this particular night I laid in bed, staring off into the darkness. I imagined Jonah crawling into bed with me like he used to when he was frightened by the howling wind and imagined that a giant sea monster was making its way up the beach and into our home. I imagined the warmth of his small, seven-year-old body snuggling close to mine.

  A light tapping near the entrance to my room pulled me out of my daydream. My eyes had adjusted to the darkness; I had become quite used to seeing in the dark since my
arrival. Jeremiah stood in the doorway with the same hard stare he always had. His expression was neutral, no sign of anger or sadness, but definitely not happiness either. It’s possible he was content, but I rarely saw him smile—of course, there wasn’t much to smile about these days.

  It’s one thing to play a staring game in the evenings but totally creepy coming to my door in the middle of the night. What did he want?

  Maybe he was a psychopath whose only goal was to hurt me. I pushed the thought out of my mind. My instincts told me that he wasn’t a crazy person. I waited to see if he would make some sort of eye movement or change his expression to indicate that he wanted to say something but couldn’t. My father says body language speaks louder than words. You can communicate with a person without speaking a word and completely understand each other. Maybe that is how it would be with Jeremiah and me, no need for words. I raised my eyebrows and glanced out to the common room and then back to him. He looked back to see what I was “pointing” to, and then slightly shook his head from side to side. It worked, we communicated. I suggested we go out to the common room and he declined. We both knew it would wake the others anyway.

  He moved forward into my room but quickly hesitated and leaned back, centering himself in the middle of the threshold. I moved my head up in a half nod, but I don’t think he caught what I meant, so I lifted my hand and summoned him in with my fingers. He walked the four feet to my bed. I sat up quickly against the wall, bringing my knees up to my chest making room for him to sit, the same place Sarah always sat when we stayed up late. He looked over at Rachel sleeping peacefully.

  “It’s okay, she won’t wake up.”

  He seemed startled that I spoke and whipped his head to look at me. Again, with the staring, we couldn’t keep this up. Was he shy? I knew he wasn’t mute, I’d heard him talking to the other boys in our section.

  “Where are you from?” I thought that was a good first question.

  “10–66.”

  His whisper was so low I almost couldn’t make it out, but just as I suspected, he was from the South American continent. “Beautiful area, I’ve been there a couple times.”

  He looked up at me. “What about you?”

  “32–117.”

  He shook his head knowingly and cracked the first real smile I’d seen on his face. “Our beaches are prettier.”

  I laughed; what he said wasn’t funny, but the idea that it still mattered was. We were imprisoned in a dungeon without windows and hadn’t seen daylight in weeks, but we could still debate the beauty of our beaches.

  We were silent for a bit longer, maybe we were both thinking of home and our previous lives. My mind wandered and remembered visiting the eastern coastal areas of North and South America. That’s as far as we can go. The Atlantic Ocean can’t be crossed, the Forbidden Zone lies beyond it and stretches far to the east. It’s an expanse of the earth that has not been stepped on by life for almost two hundred years. It was declared uninhabitable after the Final Revolution and anyone attempting to visit would surely die.

  We learned about it in school. And my grandmother showed me the region in her old books. Maps that were over three hundred years old detailed large cities and rural areas where people had lived for centuries. We no longer use books to document events, everything is recorded electronically, but nothing significant has occurred in over a hundred years that has warranted a written record, so the practice is really a dying art. She constantly lamented how important it is to document history: “History shows us where we have been and will help us navigate where we will go.” I would pour over her ancient texts when I visited her at her mountain home. She was one of the few people who didn’t live near the water. She said the mountains were peaceful and safe. I felt safe on the coast; I didn’t know why she thought the mountains were any safer.

  Jeremiah’s leg touching mine brought me back to the cell block. He was right, his beaches are prettier than mine. People traveled all over the world to visit the beaches with the softest sands and clearest waters. The sand on my beach was coarse and the water dark and cold, but it was mine. It was home.

  I whispered, “How long have you been here?”

  “Five weeks, give or take a day.”

  “Do you think they have taken over the entire world? Do you think they’re human? What do they want with us?”

  Jeremiah shifted and looked away, maybe he didn’t expect my sudden outburst. Then he shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  Was that it? Was that all he had to say? Nobody wanted to talk, or was it that they just couldn’t talk about it? Was this nightmare so unreal, so unfathomable, that one could not begin to describe or explain it, even to oneself? I couldn’t take my eyes off of him as he stared down at the concrete floor. As if I were dependent on his answers, I, too, could not move.

  Finally, he lifted his head and looked straight out at the nothingness ahead of him and said, “I don’t know, but it’s wrong, they’re evil,” and in a whisper that was barely audible, “we have to do something about it.”

  He got up to leave. Then almost as an afterthought, he turned back and said, “It was nice to meet you, Liv.”

  Chapter 7

  LOURDES’S GRAY EYES stared back at her in the mirror. Her skin was weathered and wrinkled, but it was the puffy bags under her eyes that had her attention. I’m too old for this, she thought as she gently pushed the swollen skin. Sleepless nights and uncontrollable visions were to blame.

  Six months had passed since the tragic death of her daughter-in-law. Leaving her distraught son with a newborn baby and an active nine-year-old daughter. While the slightest touch from Liv sent her flying into the future, a peace like no other washed over her when Jonah was in her arms. Zeb had named him after his father, who had died long ago when he was just a boy. Growing up with one parent was hard, and now he’d have to navigate it like his mother had and help his children live with the loss. Lourdes’s heart ached for her son and she thought about her own father who raised her on the same beach all alone.

  She grabbed the leather-bound notebook from her nightstand and headed to a rocker on the patio for a morning read before the commotion of a waking household would pull her away. Loose pages filled with curved blue writing threatened to fall away as she opened the book. She sat back in the chair, the lull of the waves racing up the beach was a soothing backdrop as she dove into the past.

  A History of the World – Entry 7.21.2099

  Solar satellites were deployed into space today. More than eighty-five years in development, the work of scientists from all over the world has come to fruition. Media outlets throughout Asia, Europe, and the Americas celebrate the momentous occasion—an energy source that will provide power to the entire world for millennia. Following the movement of the sun, the enormous solar reflective plates will capture the sun’s energy and transmit it down to billions of locations on Earth.

  Despite many challenges, space-based solar power is a simple concept with enormous advantages. The amount of energy that can be harvested will be thousands of times greater than any previous energy source. Gone will be the days of electrical outlets, fossil fuels, and coal mining. As long as it’s adopted by everyone.

  Lourdes flipped to the next entry, catching a page as it fell toward the bamboo deck.

  A History of the World – Entry 10.21.2100

  If you find this notebook, do not mistake it for a diary. It is merely a handwritten account of historic events witnessed by me—an anonymous recorder of significant events. Should I type this out so it can be preserved in a server in the sky? I’ll let others save history as they see fit. This is not for the masses and shall not be hidden among billions of electronic files.

  Manufacturing industries have succeeded in redesigning every product imaginable. Homes, vehicles, appliances, and electronics now absorb solar energy. But will everyone adopt them? Whole nations are dependent on providing energy to others. It’s the basis of their economies—a means for economic wealth a
nd societal stability. Coal, oil, and wind farms are maintained and monopolized by governments, they provide jobs for everyday citizens.

  A History of the World – Entry 01.01.2200

  The world is in turmoil. Continents have divided into four factions and are being dubbed West, East, North, and South. Small wars between specific cultures over the last fifty years have escalated into global wars involving almost every country. The smaller countries that didn’t have the means to protect themselves or fight on their own were faced with the need to choose sides.

  But what are the catalysts? Is it Worldwide Solar? The program is providing power to sixty-five percent of the world’s population. While the coal and oil nations are weakening. Or is the discord due to cultural differences? The cultures of the world are vastly different, but are they capable of obliterating full cities of innocent people without thinking twice?

  Principles and views on life are ingrained in people to the point that compromise and acceptance becomes impossible. In a time when the world is completely connected, instead of coming together to create a modern world where people live in harmony and accept one another’s cultural qualities, they spend time pushing beliefs onto each other and despise the other for not conforming to their way of life.

  As with any war in history, the primary objective of each culture is to come out on top and protect their beliefs and ways of life. It may be a simple solution for each side to agree to stay on their own land and go about living in peace without interference. But the world depends on each other’s resources, and trade on a global scale is vital to the economic survival of all nations.

  A united group of global nations have come together to resolve issues and find ways to ensure every person on Earth benefits and prospers in this new world. Peace talks have occurred, but each gathering to discuss an end to the fighting has resulted in higher tensions and a larger resolve to keep fighting and stand firm for what they believe. Is anyone capable of listening to reason?