A:28.B. Clear.

‘Death by Chocolate’ was not a phrase she had anticipated mulling over as she lay in her confined trench. She had been there for about an hour waiting for the tell-tale signs of movement from the tree line opposite. The earth around her was dry and dusty, causing any exposed skin to be irritated. Her feet and trousers had almost dried from wading through the polluted water to settle here for her watch. She dreaded to think about what the chemicals from the water were doing to her already damaged shoes and thin trousers; she refused point blank to entertain what was happening to her feet and legs underneath.

Chocolate should have been the furthest thing from her mind.

Yet, she found herself pondering the phrase, she had learned a long time ago not to ignore random thoughts forcing their way into her head. It was often her intuition nudging her to take note as it was pertinent to her survival. She bit her top lip in concentration and wondered why her mind had chosen death by chocolate today. Her eyes remained fixed on her task of observing the tree line for movement, whilst her mind took her to a different place.

Dessert. An after-dinner treat, the kind of cake that made you gain 3 inches of fat just for looking at it. A multi-layered chocolate cake with buttercream between layers and covered in sticky sugary chocolate ganache then drowned in cream. Her mouth watered at the memory of the contrasting taste of the dessert, the bitterness of the dark chocolate against the sugar laden ganache and the light firm sponge against the cream. She ran her tongue over her furry teeth at the memories of dining out, and especially chocolate. Drool ran over her cracked dry lips.

‘Well, you’re gonna die of sommat, may as well be sommat ya love.’ Came a long-forgotten voice inside her head. Her stomach growled as if enquiring as to whether her throat had been slit. She wiped away the drool and ran her hand around her throat ‘not yet,’ she replied to her stomach, ‘not yet.’

Her eyes remained fixed on her designated area of the treeline, there were no changes in her section. With practiced hand she deftly keyed in her brief report ‘all still, A:28.B’ onto the notepad by her side.

The sun was lower now casting a dark orange glow across the dome and accentuating the shimmering wall which separated the inside from the outside. Nobody really knew what lay outside the shimmer, yet nearly everyone below guard class attempted to go through it at least once in their existence. Sometimes she saw blurry colours and shapes at the other side, but nothing was truly visible. The ruling families inside the dome used to say that they were the enemies trying to gain access to Oasis. In the first years of the great separation orange and blue fireballs could be seen raining down on the dome which had added credence to the ruling families claims. These days there were no such claims. The days of plentiful food, surplus cash, and meaningful work had been replaced by meagre rations and labour camps a generation ago. Now you do what you can to survive. Oasis was now a place where the old money hoarders kept control, in a world where their god has no value, through the assertion of inherited power, rations, and fear.

Her keen green eyes kept their focus on the treeline whilst she again mused about chocolate. This time a nightmare she had as a young child, the night her mother had read a story to her at bedtime. She could still feel the panic grip her insides as she fell into the vat of melted chocolate. The sensation of her nostrils and lungs becoming clogged with solidifying chocolate as she slowly suffocated. She recalled the restriction of her entire body in the thick sticky liquid, wrapping her up and removing her natural buoyancy as it dragged her down. When her parents woke her, she found her face was buried in the soft pillow and her legs tangled in the bed clothes. Her mother never did finish the story, just another broken promise in a long line of them. The distasteful tang of disappointment nudged her back to the here and now.

Her eyes caught movement in the treeline. It was almost dark now, but she could still track movement in the gloom. A figure emerged from the low gorse bushes between the trees and the wall. The figure seemed to move cautiously looking for a suitable spot in the final line of cover before the wall. She surmised the figure was not a guard or patrol handler by their watchful actions and the outline of their garb did not suggest any military style weapons or communication equipment. She quickly scanned the remainder of her section and saw no other movement or tell-tale signs of the hunting packs she knew were stationed here. A search light passed over; no alarms were raised, and she held off reporting in. The figure emerged from their latest hiding place and charged for the base of the wall with whatever homemade cutting device they had stretched out in front of them. The whir of the device was audible as it connected to the wall, arcs of light engulfed the figure as sparks flew around them. Her body tensed ready for action, prepared to capitalise on another’s desperation. The taste of such a betrayal was a bitter one though one she had grown used to. That was life lived by the rules of these times.

Is that why she hadn’t reported in yet?

A scream broke her thoughts, as her eyes focused she saw the hunting pack closing in from out of the shadows. The sparks of light from the cutting device hinting at how many were present tonight.

She heard the mechanical voice on the patrol speaker bellow ‘kill the treacherous coward Choccy, kill them all.’

She closed her eyes.

How apt, she contemplated as the screams faded into the night, death by chocolate.