Book Keep: Chapter One -
Open landscapes, scrapped of all their potential. Barren wastelands that require a radiation-suit to walk on. Rivers that once counted as some of the Earth’s marvels, now dry and cold, the skeletal remains of fish are all that show life once existed in them. Some people call it hell, some even call it a job, but to most, it’s a mark of how prejudice divides people.
Towns that used to have schools, parks, and even hospitals, now have nothing but a series of supports and debris. Towns like that were beautiful once, and so were the landscapes. But now, it’s just the scenery far below the cargo plane me and eighteen others fly in. After all, we are one of the lucky ones that somehow lived past the initial bombing.
Most of us shouldn’t have, but our dice happened to roll high enough that only those around us suffered.
Then again, it’s talk like that that made my therapist recommend this job anyway, so learn as you experience.
“Hey dog-fucker! Stop looking at me before I shove that ugly as snout of yours in the toilet drain!” Great, another fight.
Looking to my right, two people I am sadly familiar with size each other up. One, the victim and my best friend, stares daggers at the man who insulted him. Zeek, or Ezekiel if you fancy pissing him off, is a beast-kin, granted, there’s a scientific name they go by that not even most of their population knows. He happens to be of canine origin, so the insult ‘dog-fucker’ probably cut just a little deeper than the others, though he doesn’t let it show much.
“You drunk again, Tony?” Zeek points a dark– near black– furred finger at the stumbling Tony. Tony is very, very drunk, as he always is, and even has a few stains on his shirt of what is probably alcohol. The blond drunkard used to be the fittest person I knew, now he has a beer belly, and can’t even throw a straight punch. I think I’ve seen him watching some old Jackie Chan movies trying to learn how to fight drunk, but if you ask him that, he’ll just deny it vigorously.
“Say that shit again, and I’ll make sure everyone here goes with you.” Look, he even has a bottle in his hand. Granted, he’s too far away for me to read it, but it’s probably obscenely strong whiskey, a brand I probably introduced him to. I knew him before the bombs dropped, and he wasn’t always as sour as he is now. Despite looking at a world destroyed by prejudice, he blames the Beast-Kin for its destruction. There are many like it, and it’s scary how many of them signed up to be part of the settling program.
“We all know you’re the worst fighter here. Oli’ could beat your ass blindfolded,, and he has the worst footwork I’ve seen in my entire life.” The rude canine shoves a finger in my direction, and despite the temptation to throw back a “your mom didn’t think so”, I don’t think involving myself in these two’s quarrel would be the best choice.
“That’s horseshit and you know it. Why don’t you and your dog-fuckers go back where you came from?” Tony points at everyone still in their seats, even shoving his fingers in a few of their faces. Then he gets to me. “And you’re the worst one of them all! You’re supposed to be human, and you go around like some lapdog, talking to them like they didn’t kill your entire family.” The drunkard looms over me, and my hands start to form into fists.
My relationship with the beast-kin has always been rocky. Their government killed our family, and my government killed theirs, so there is some resentment I’m not proud of. But at this point, I just want to come home to a nice bed and sleep in a home, not a tent or underground bunker.
But the part that irritates me the most is that he refuses to acknowledge how fucking awfully our government handled the situation. I’ve never been one for politics, but to say that our politicians just ignored the beliefs of the vast majority to follow their own is really irritating. Our governments knew what they were doing when they fired the nukes, they were condemning us.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“Tony, we fired first. Sit down, and call Jess.” I manage out through gritted teeth.
“Or what, are you gonna do something about it? Dog-fucker.” The urge to kick his teeth in is strong, but fighting is not my strong point, as Zeek so crudely pointed out earlier.
‘Don’t stoop to his level, you can do this with words.’
A deep sigh comes out of my mouth, as my planned “speech” starts coming from it.
“I’m not going to fight you, Tony. You should decide what side of history you’re going to land on before it chooses for you. Either go back with the plane when we land, or put the bottle down for five fucking seconds, and think clearly for once.” Looking at him, straight into his eyes, anger flashes across his face. His already clenched fist nearly turns completely white, and his bottle is rattling under the pressure.
“Leave it be man, just wait before you defund the entire project.” A friend of Tony’s I don’t know the name of puts a very firm hand on his shoulder. His friend has to drag him away as the drunk tries to stare into my soul, with a rage I’ve seen on his face time and time again.
‘A nuclear bomb and lost loved ones will do that to people.’ All of us were people who survived both the bombs and the Domino. But I don’t think the same can be said about our souls.
Zeek sits back down in his seat, just a few feet away from me, where he shoots me a quick apologetic smile, a weird habit a few of the crew have been picking up. It’s actually getting to the point where it isn’t uncanny. The best way I could describe it is ‘human’ Well, as close a smile as a snout can make anyway.
It’s going to be a long day, a long week, and an even longer year. I sigh and lean my head back against the metal frame of the cargo plane. Our entire purpose seems really stupid once you break it down. Eighteen of us will land, dig a big fuck off hole, wait for more people, make smaller holes in the big fuck off hole to live in, and repeat. Throw in some farming, cooking, infrastructure if we’re lucky, and a bunch of binge-watching of old T.V. shows, BAM you got the settling program.
It’s stupid, but it’s the only hope if we want to survive as a people. Babies are made in tubes now, so population isn’t really an issue, but rather the lack of anywhere for the population to go. We can make as many people as we want, but we still need houses for those people to go, schools and parents to raise those people, and infrastructure to take care of those people when they are good and old. I think we are trying to avoid doing anything that could possible lead to a revolution or another war, so no super-productive clone slaves anytime soon.
Drawing me out of my thoughts, a loud female voice comes from the intercom system installed on the plane.
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We are approaching the landing site, so make sure you’re buckled up and seated, as flying through the tiny circular windows is not advised for health reasons. If you look to your left, those of you who are unfortunate enough to have windows, you can see the barren snow-covered wasteland that is your future home. I hope you are all looking forward to living there, residents of uh-” The sounds of paper flipping can be heard over the intercom. “New Bark city? That’s a fucking lame name. Anyway, buckle up chuckle-fucks, we’re landing in less than ten minutes.”
Two sounds of seatbelts clicking come from down the hall. Looking out my window, the captain’s description of our future home really set expectations high. It’s white, and brown in some spots where snow didn’t land. Being told New Bark was going to be in the middle of what used to be rural America, I expected more. Though, I guess you take away all the farmland and cows, all you get is a really flat grassland. Take away the grass and add snow, you have what looks to be babies first unity landscape.
Even less surprising, is the fresh snow still falling. It’s been falling for the past four years, and no one really knows when it’s going to stop. It’s a sorry sight, one all of us are familiar with by now, but at least it’s a constant. The snow covered wasteland gets closer and closer as we slowly descend onto the barren ground. A different, male voice comes over the speakers.
“Three minutes till you will land people! Y’all better be ready, the faster you get the camp set up, the faster you get to sleep off the jet lag!” ‘Damn, at least the other person was kind of funny’
A collective groan comes from nearly each and every single individual in the plane, along with enough eye rolls to make medusa feel bad. Slowly but surely, we land and then the eighteen of us have to set up a radiation free camp, after which we get to sleep. Eh, it’s what we signed up for, the only things we really get to complain about is the lack of funding, shitty food, and all the ‘governments' fuckups. Though, I don’t think it’s going to stop anyone from complaining about having to move a bunch of boxes and build a couple of tents.