[T: 4 Days 21 Hours]
In the morning Frank, Lucas, Jose, La Fonte and Johannes had taken the Construction Worker and the Plumber with them down to the lower levels. Nobody from the non-fighting group had noticed since regular shifts in guard duty meant that people disappeared for several hours before returning. Timotheus had noticed the men heading down to the deeper levels and attempted to follow them, but was stopped at the stairs by the two guards, “Can’t go down there Tim, it’s still too dangerous. How about you let your dad and grandpa check things out more?”
[ T: 4 Days 24 Hours]
The group returned a few hours later, depositing the Construction Worker and the Plumber, picking up two more and leaving once more. Timotheus saw the two sprawled in the sleeping quarters, looking a bit tense and lost in thought. The men looked up with a coldness in their demeanor, and with uninterested eyes, as Timotheus asked, “I saw you guys leaving with my dad and grandpa. What’s down there?” Timotheus had asked with a friendliness and attempted to come off as a bit playful and childish, in order to “make it easier for the men to open up”, so that they’d be more inclined to divulge information that would satisfy Timotheus’s curiosity. But the men just shook their heads. One of them just slightly nodded, jerking his head towards Timotheus, “ Yeah we don’t know a whole lot yet. But right now it’s dangerous down there and all you need to know is that we’re doing all we can to keep this place safe. You’ll know more from your dad and grandpa later. Right now, even we don’t know what’s exactly going on”. The men refused to say any more, and Timotheus sheepishly left, hesitant to leave, but understanding that the men did not want to say anything more.
[T: 5 Days 3 Hours ]
Another few hours later, in the afternoon, the group came back, this time depositing Johannes as well as the other two, and this time picking up Gold and two other new men to journey with them. The group that came back eats a meal before they journey back down to the lower levels with the three new men. Johannes and the two men that just came back, walked around a bit, found the Construction Worker and the Plumber and all five of them wandered off together. Timotheus saw the unease of the five men, stressed looks in their faces as they looked around to check that no one was looking at them going off on their own. Timotheus followed them a bit, careful not to get caught, and as the men went into one of the unoccupied rooms Timotheus tried to listen in, but the men talked in hushed voices and Timotheus couldn’t hear a thing.
Timotheus comes back to the living quarters and notices one of the bedridden vegetarians missing. “Hey one of them’s gone”, he said, addressing the statement to Angelica and The Child. The Child looks up from playing a game of Tic Tac Toe with Angelica, using a pile of dirt and two sticks, using the sticks to draw the game into the dirt. “He just got up and left”, said the Child. “He was clutching his stomach, hunched over and making huffing and puffing noises”.
The Child and Angelica return to their game of Tic Tac Toe and Timotheus leaves looking for the missing vegetarian. He is about to pass the kitchen when he hears sniffling and crying. He peeks into the kitchen and the vegetarian is wolfing down meat, making god awful, self pitying noises. Timotheus watches for a little while and leaves the man alone, uncertain and unable to even fathom what he could do to help.
[T: 5 Days 6 Hours]
The group exploring the lower levels come back again, for the final time of the day. They all look exhausted, Gold and the two other men looking more tense than exhausted. La Fonte just drops to a squat, kneels down and crawls to sleep, while Jose sits with his back against the wall. Lucas goes over to his wife who is together with Angelica and the Child. His wife gives him a look and he looks back tired. He slides in between his wife and Angelica and they both lean their heads against him. The Child just stares.
[T: 5 Days 8 Hours]
There’s a guard shift as it approaches evening. Frank and Johannes enter the living quarters, Frank tapping Lucas with his feet and Johannes kneeling to shake both Jose and La Fonte awake. La Fonte and Jose wake up immediately, La Fonte more jerkingly in a sudden movement. Frank and Johannes both point away towards the doorway of the living quarters and beckon to Lucas, Jose and La Fonte. La Fonte and Jose both jump to their feet and Lucas slowly gets up. Lucas’s wife takes Luca’s spot and lets Angelica’s sleeping head lean on her. The Child has woken up from their nap and is staring.
The men gather up in the hall with the missing long tables, across from the kitchen, going into the deepest part of the hall. They sit and lean against the walls. Timotheus passes by and sees the men engaged in serious dialogue, hands moving about, heads nodding and shaking this way and that, and a variety of facial expressions, one that was not present since the day they simply appeared onto this world. The men are perhaps fifty feet away from the entrance to the hall and even if they are not whispering anymore they are too far away for their voices to carry all the way to Timotheus, leaving him once more in the dark of what exactly it is about the lower levels that has the men so on alert. Behind him, the vegetarian man hurries out of the kitchen with some meat and rushes to the living quarters.
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[T: 5 Days 8 Hours]
The Black Gang Leader’s group had been steadily following the downstream for two days now. The stream had widened up into a small creek and they decided to camp for the night, with patrols consisting of “useless fodder” circling around the camp. These patrols, the moment they spotted danger would run back to camp, rouse up the defenders made up of both the Black Gang Leader’s gang and the Hispanic Gangsters. A large fire would be built, with the expertise of a “fodder” who was a camping enthusiast, who would have other “fodders” carry with them stones and dirt, stones and dirt to create a burn free zone to surround the fire, in order to prevent fire hazards, and large piles of dirt to throw into the fire in case the fire got out of control. Patrols would be tasked to regularly bring in fuel and feed the fire. Several fodders would be tasked to cook the meat and keep them hot without burning. The “mares” would then be rounded up and forced to service or submit for the pleasure of the gangsters, who called themselves “warriors”, with the leaders of both the black and hispanic gangs calling themselves “kings”. Essentially a “tribe” had been created along with a hierarchy, with two separate factions holding power over the majority of men, women and children.
After enjoying his personal mare the Black Gang leader exits the camp to find the young black boy sitting by himself. He sits next to the boy, “Whatcha doin’ son?”
The boy tenses up at the man's approach, “ Nothin’, I ain’t doin’ nothin’”.
“Ain’t doin’ nothin’? You’re sitting ain’t ya?”
“Yes?”
“Sittin’ is doin’ somethin’, right?”
“Mmm-hmmm”
“Where you from?”
“New York”
“Oh, New York, I’m an LA man myself”.
The boy does not respond. The man prods him some more
“What’s your name, kid?”
“Christopher”
“Christopher, huh. White name”
The boy does not respond once more.
“They call me Chicken Man”
The boy can’t help but make a face and turn to the black gang leader. “Chicken Man?”
“Yep, ‘cuz I was too chicken' “, the man pauses, “Too chicken to properly finish school, too chicken to stop drugs, weed and alcohol. Too chicken to get a job, too chicken to make something of myself. A chicken that kills his own people to make a buck, then so much more of a chicken that he blames Whites and everyone else for his mistakes. A fucken chicken”, there is a sense of regret and a bit of resentment in his voice. “Chicken Man”.
“But now”, the black gang leader continues, “things are different. Not just in a new clean slate, but I’m mentally different. I’m smarter than all the poor mother fuckers. You see”, he points to his head, “I’ve got something none of the other niggas got. I have responsibility. I don’t blame the white man no more. It’s not their fault I’m in this mess. They weren’t racist to me. I was racist to myself. I kept saying that it’s everyone’s fault. Oh yeah, it’s everyone’s fault that I didn’t study, it’s everyone’s fault that I didn’t do my homework. Then it’s everyone’s fault I started smoking, everyone’s fault I started weed. Then coke, then meth. Fuck. It’s all everyone else’s fault when I start robbing my neighbors for their shoes, their clothes. It’s everyone else's fault that I’m homeless. Everyone’s fault that no women wants to be with me, everyone else’s fault that I get caught with rape. The police are racist for picking up my black ass and throwing me in prison”, he pauses.
“I didn’t hold myself responsible, accountable. I did this to myself. I blamed everyone else, so I didn’t make the effort to fix myself. That’s what happens if everything is everyone else’s fault. You don’t see the need to fix yourself. This is what makes me different and smarter than all the mother fucken niggas out there. Everything that happens is my fault. Everything is my responsibility. I need to hold myself accountable. Why? Why do I need to hold myself accountable? To be competent.”
“The Whites are competent”, he rambles on, “they don’t blame themselves. They just do it. They work, they study, they rise, and if they fall they rise again. Even the fucken Asians ended up in a better place. All they do is study. They don’t play. They study and they work. Even if there was racism, it didn’t stop them. They fucken beat the Whites at their own game.”
His eyes glaze over, and he focuses on something no one can see. “ I’m smarter than any black man there is. I’m gonna be competent. I’m gonna win. I’m not gonna blame anyone else. Everyone else can go to hell. I’m gonna win. Money, power, women, I’m gonna beat everyone. I’m gonna be competent and have it all.”
He continues staring at the unknown. Then he blinks and calms down. For a moment the boy and the man share a silence. The man then scoffs, “Heh, Chicken Man”.
[ T: 5 Days 23 Hours ]
In the morning the mares are forced to bathe in the stream and keep themselves as clean and pretty as they can. The warriors gather up in pretense of protecting them and yell at the mares, whistling and catcalling, “Clean that pussy up. You forgot to wash your ass. You missed a spot. I’m gonna fuck your tight hole tonight.” Everyone else is allowed the freedom to bathe as they want after the mares are finished. Some of the fodder are reluctant to bathe as some of the warriors have decided they like men too.
After the group has eaten and packed up, they continue to the north, with the Great Eastern Wall on their right and the Beam of Light behind them. It isn’t long until they have finally exited the forest.