DANIEL SCHOBER, CHARLIE PORTERFIELD, LIZ LAINEY

OUR STORY

Broken Will

In the year 2015, the world became a place of mass urbanization and over population. A dark and dreary place full of thieves, murderers, and scandals is what we now live in. Natural resources are being depleted at a rapid rate while water and food are becoming more and more scarce. I remember it like it was yesterday when the fighting started. It was a normal day in the Hell that I like to call Atlanta. As my family and I were rationing out the last of our food, I heard shooting.
People were beginning to fight in the streets over anything that they could get their hands on. It was to the point that it wasn’t unusual to see a dead body lying in the streets at any time. People were stealing and hanging out in the streets waiting for any opportunity to gain something to ensure their family’s survival. I myself have done this many times. It is the only way to survive.
My family and I have spent many months trying to survive in the streets on what little we can find. Lately, we have noticed that people from the rich side of town have been wondering into our neighborhood and taking what little we have. This had been occurring for a few weeks until someone in the neighborhood decided to fight back. Yesterday, there was a scene in the street involving someone’s butler from the wealthy estates and a man who had six children over a half eaten hamburger. This is when I realized that our lives had fallen into the hands of the rich.
I noticed about a week after this incident that people that I used to see almost everyday in the streets were not there anymore. Sure it was unusual for someone to disappear every few days due to starvation, but people were disappearing more often and in larger quantities now. I couldn’t figure out where these people were going because there was no word of them dying. It just didn’t make any sense and I wanted to know where they had gone. Surely if they had found a better place to live someone would have told me. Some of these people, I thought, were my good friends. I guess it’s every man for himself when it comes down to surviving.
Since I never saw these people leaving during the day, I decided to stay up one night and keep watch over the streets to see just where they were going. I saw people leaving that night, but it definitely wasn’t what I expected. People weren’t leaving on their own free will, they were being taken away. Men in loafers, khaki pants, and polo shirts with sweaters tied around their necks seemed to be supervising as various thug looking people were grabbing people in the streets and forcing them to walk to a truck waiting at the end of the street. They were coming toward my end of the street now and I ducked inside of our now shack of a house and woke up my family.
I violently shook my wife in a state of panic to wake her up. The instant look of terror on her face as she opened her eyes caused me to ease up a bit, but I explained to her in a raspy whisper that we must get into the closet. It was only her and me in the house. Our daughter had died two weeks before. We had left her lying in her crib in order to go scavenge for food. We figured that she would be ok for a while by herself and with the two of us searching for found there was a better chance of finding it. When we came back, a fleet of rats scurried away from her crib as we entered the room.
Even the rats were starved. They had chewed away her face in an eating frenzy. When we had calmed down out of our hysterical states, we realized that neither one of us had found any food that day, but then again, we didn’t exactly feel like eating. A few days passed with no food, and our daughter was still lying there, untouched, where we had found her. We made a decision that I regret to this very day. We ate her. We had no other choice at the time, but now that I think about it, we should have died respectfully and just starved.
My wife, still not fully comprehending what I was trying to tell her to do, was trying to ask me questions to figure it out. I forcefully put my hand over her mouth so the people outside would not hear us. I dragged her to the closet and quickly closed the door. After waiting for about an hour and not hearing anything, I slowly opened the door and peered around to look at what used to be our front door. When I did, my nose was met with the barrel of a gun. One of those people had gotten in without me hearing them and was waiting for us to come out of the closet. I thought we would be killed right there, but we were hauled off down the street with everyone else that they had collected. As I was dragged down the street by the collar of my shirt I overhead the man who was dragging my lifeless body down the street talking to another man, they said something about camp and torture; this made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. We finally came to a big paddy-wagon like truck, and my wife and I were thrown inside. The inside of the truck was dark, wet and cold, my wife and I were shaking, and I was praying for a miracle.
As we drove on and on through the night I peered out of the small hole and all I saw was countryside and woods, I wondered where we were going. We were coming to a stop, so I looked out the hole again, we came to a gate, as we drove though the gate all I saw were big elaborate houses, golf courses, and nice cars. We drove for a bit more, then we cam to another gate, but when I saw what we were entering into, my heart dropped. I saw where they were taking us, it was some sort of a camp; barbed wire, armed guards, and all the people from our town that had “disappeared”. As we drove in I feared for the worst.
Over the next month, the treatment we got was inhumane, we were starved, beaten, sleep deprived, and just plain treated like scum. Everyday that went on I just wish I could die along with my wife so this horrible cruelty would stop, but it didn’t. The days went on and my weigh started dropping significantly, my legs became as thin as my arms, and my ribs were all showing. Temporary insanity from the treatment started to come into effect, I would look at the other slaves and think how delicious they looked, and how just one person would satisfy my craving for flesh. But I had to pull myself together, I started thinking other people had the same idea as me to become cannibalistic, so I had to watch how people looked at me, and was watching my back at all times. As they had us working on the rich peoples golf courses in the dead of winter in just a thin jacket, and some torn up old clothes, I watched the rich people, studying their moves, what they did, where their guards went, at what time a new one would watch post. “Mumm, flesh starting to seem so tempting, need food” God, what was I saying I think I’m getting to the point where I feel I am becoming inhuman. My wife has become very ill, she’s loosing all color in her face, her skin is starting to rot, and chunks of flesh start to deteriorate from her limp body. Then, god delivered a miracle, the rich people started to see how deprived of food we were, and how much like animals we had become; killing each other the smallest sliver of food. They threw boxes of food over then fences, and we ate, and ate, and ate. How glorious it was, I could feel parts of my body that I had not felt in weeks start to regenerate. The moral of the slaves started to lift; this was just the boost we needed to carry out my plan of overthrowing the rich people I had been demising for weeks now I just hoped it would work. First I must get all the people in the camp who were strong enough to agree with me in my idea. God, please let us have the strength to pull thorough, and let my wife live another week.
As I began to spread the word about a possible rebellion throughout the camp it came with very mixed emotions, all though all of us wanted freedom many of us had given up the capacity to fight for it. The thought of a rebellion at this point was almost suicide; the last time that anyone had tried anything would have to be the Jones incident. It was early on, almost the time that we had got to the camp, one young man who had just been broken form the constant starvation and pain attempted to raid a guard tower unsuccessfully. Even though he managed to kill a guard and cause mass amounts of commotion within the camp without being killed, his attempts would not go with out its consequences. One morning just as the sun was rising I awoke to gun fire; this was not your typical everyday target practice this was fired with a purpose. Before I could realize what was going on the door to our cabin busted open and in poured almost eight guards screaming “Where is he! Where the fuck is Jones!” Jones had no choice but to go with them after the butt of a gun was rammed into the side of his face. The guards ordered us to get out of the cabin and into the court; as we all pilled out of the cabins and into the large open court I could see men and women lined up in front of the guards. As shots rang out the men and women fell to ground with a lifeless thud. A rich man came riding up in a golf cart, he ordered Jones to admit to his crimes or the killings would continue. As lines and lines of men and women were dropped like rats I could see the sickness in Jones face. “Enough! That’s it…I did it, it was me”. A horrible smile came upon the rich mans face. “Thank you very much, see now was that so hard, all of this could have been avoid if you had just not tried to act like a hero” The man pulled the cart up to Jones who at the time had broken into tears. “Look at him now, he nothing but a waste of space, he’s garbage…and you know what you do with garbage” Jones raised his head slightly before the cold steel of a hollow point bullet entered his mind. For some reason I envied Jones, I guess it was that he was free now. “This will continue to happen as long as you continue to fight against us” said the rich man as his speed off on his golf cart.
As I lay on the hard cold slab of metal that we call a bed all I can think about is how I am going to get my wife and I out of here. I am going crazy, the hunger is so unbearable that I would stoop so low as to eat one of my own fingers. The only thing I can think of is how hungry I am, and how much I just want to be back in my house with my wife and baby, “All right it is time for me to get us out of this”. The weather had turn from frigid to hell. The heat that beat down from the sun was unlike anything that I have ever experienced before. Many of the captives had no change in the heat; the theory of “only the strong survive” was never more prevalent than at this time. The heat plus the lack of adequate nourishment and hydration led to the deaths of many of the captives. It was not unusually for a person to drop dead right next to your feet while you were out working, even though this was sometimes welcomed because it meant a extra meal or two if you could sneak away from the guards long enough. That night after a decent meal of an older man I decided that tonight would be the night that I would get my wife and me out of this shit hole forever. Over the time that I have been here I found that I had about a half an hour that I could move in the court yard while the guards were on break. As I snuck out of my cabin I was extra careful to make sure that I woke no one, because if you were caught out at night by the other than you were most likely going to be killed and eaten. So not only did you have to deal with the guards but also the stomachs of hundreds of people. Walking through the court I feel almost at peace for once in the past months, the quite in the night shy was over whelming to me and I realized that I could not be imprisoned one more day. My wife’s cabin smelt of death as the door opened. I know she is going to die, but I just want to get her out of here so that she can die in peace. It took so much for her to wake up; I thought that I had already lost her. She could barely walk on her own. As we were walking toward the massive barbwire fence my wife looked up at me with her frail face and said “ I love you” this really hit me hard because this is the first time alone together that we have had and I would have giving my life to be with her. We were almost at the fence when I got this strange feeling that something was wrong, as I turned to look all I could see was white. The beam of a spotlight was like the stare of death itself. I picked my wife up and began to run toward the gate, I felt the hot defeat enter my upper leg. The bone was shattered and blown through out my leg, I feel to the earth in a pile of pain and failure. All that was in my mind was my wife whom I had dropped after the shot hit. As I lay there on the ground watching a guard walks towards me I see my wife being picked up and taken toward the center of the court. I knew what was coming and I attempt to get up and go to her but when I stepped on my leg the bone splintered and shredded the muscles in my leg. I crawled for all that I was worth towards my wife but a guard step on my leg to stop me, “Just watch this” said the guard. As the kart rolled up next to my wife nothing but fear ran through my body. The same rich man who had killed Jones climbed out of the cart. “Now didn’t you all learn your lesson’s with ol’ Jones”. He looked down at my wife “That is just pathetic; I am not even going to waste a bullet on you”. Two guards picked up my wife and put her into the cart with the rich man as they drove past me all I could wonder was what they were going to go with her, but that quickly changed as the guard dug his heal into the bullet wound in my leg. During the immense pain that was being inflicted upon me I suddenly felt relief, all of my worries and pains just went away. As I heard the shot that singled the end of my life, I already knew what had happened. I looked up and there was my wife’s body falling out of the kart onto the ground. A siren sounded and then it hit me, as the captives ran out of the cabin and proceeded to devour my wife. I couldn’t take it anymore “Do it…just fucking do it, I don’t want to be here anymore. I just want to be with her” the guard just let out a snicker as he placed the barrel of a pistol to the side of my head. The feeling of freedom ran over me, it was like being reborn as a new child. I saw my life flash in front of my eyes and I saw my wife in all of her beauty before we were taken to the camp…then all was silent.

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