Banishment

He cried. He cried and cried and cried until he woke up, not realizing he’d cried himself to sleep. He opened his eyes and was met with confusion followed by understanding and sorrow. She was gone. He didn’t know if he’d ever see her again, but he knew how slim the chances were. She’d been banished. Kicked out of the safety of the walls and thrown into the Forbidden Lands, where she wasn’t likely to last a day. At least it hadn’t rained last night. Eventually, he rose, rubbing crust from his eyes with his forearm, and dragging himself from his bed and out of his small house, which was being held together by scraps of metal, wood, plastic, and whatever else he could get his hands on. He didn’t care that he still wore his worn and torn nightgown or that his blonde hair lay matted wildly on his head. He went to use an outhouse near a huge wall reinforced by layers of wood, bricks, etc. Eventually, he returned home to lay back on his bed, facing the ceiling and staring. He thought about how what was happening was his fault, and how the love of his life and his unborn child were alone and in danger. He started contemplating ways to escape the walls surrounding him, starting to feel more and more trapped by the second, as though the walls were closing around him and he was growing at twice their speed. He sat up, realizing how heavy each breath came. He looked toward his door, longing for fresh air, but dreading moving. He lay on his side and stared into space, when he heard a voice from within his home.

“Ollie?” The voice called. The man grew excited before registering the depth of the voice. It was a man’s voice. Ollie didn’t respond. The visitor entered the room and looked at Ollie, who just lay there facing away from the door. The visitor approached and sat on the bed next to Ollie’s back. He lay a hand on the man’s shoulder.

“It’ll be ok, man. You’ll find someone-“ the man began to talk, but Ollie cut him off.

“Get out.” Was all he said. His visitor froze. He looked at Ollie for a few more seconds then stood, returning the way he’d come. Tears began to well up in Ollies eyes again. He let out loud groan, almost a growl and stood.

“FUUUUUUUCK.” Ollie yelled into the air. He stood, grabbing the thin sheets from his bed and swinging them into the air. He went on a rampage, flipping his small bed frame and knocking over a dresser. He punched holes in the already-decaying walls until blood dripped from both his fists. Without her, he honestly didn’t know what to do. Had she been there still, she’d have woken Ollie up hours ago, greeting him with passionate kisses and motivating him to get up and go help out whoever he could around the town. Now, most of the townsfolk would shun him if they saw him. He lived in a prison. Even before she was banished, the two of them didn’t really fit in. They wouldn’t accept a job and were constantly bouncing roles.

“Settle down,” they’d be told, “this isn’t fun and games. If we want to survive here, we all have to work together.” The couple knew this, but the only thing they could each stay consistent with was one another. Even that had taken years of on-again-and-off-again dating. Now, he was a true outcast with no direction or goals. Part of him wanted to kill himself, but he feared what he’d become. A supernatural war had left the world Ollie once knew in ruins, and redifined death as he knew it. Now, the soul of the dead didn’t pass on, but are trapped inside their corpse while they become a part of a hive mind. The corpse itself will take on a number of deformities that strangely work well with the other changes brought about by the war. The acidic rain, the irradiated air, the infected plants, and even the toxic water all seemed like they were natural to these walking corpses. Ollie shuddered, remembering what it was like when they first started appearing. With the original person still conscious in the corpse, some could talk and cry and beg to be killed. Most of them suffered, but some indulged, trying to assimilate and become ‘better’ and ‘more suited for this world’. It made Ollie sick. His pregnant wife would be one of them soon. Ollie shook his head, trying to purge the thoughts before they made him vomit. He went outside for fresh air. Ollie just sat in front of his door for hours, before a familiar girl approached him. His sister in law. She held a piece of paper.

“Here, this is for you,” she said, extending the paper to Ollie. She’d always hated him, even more so when he married her sister and more still when he impregnated her. He hated himself for the third one, too, “she told me to give it to you if she...” the girl sniffed and wiped her eyes. Ollie took the paper with a nod and the girl began to walk off. Ollie opened the latter and began to read.

‘Ollie, I hope my sister never needs to bring you this letter. If she does, then it means I was banished. I knew it was only a matter of time, though. We didn’t follow their rules and they think it’s deadly. Honestly, it might be, but if death is the only way to freedom, then I don’t want to be alive. I want us to be free. I know you’re angry about what they did to me. You should be. And you should express that. Ignore them and be free with me. I know we’ll meet again someday’

Tears soaked the paper and Ollie wanted to crumble it into a ball and throw it over the wall, but he folded it into a neat square and walked inside. He changed into some decent clothes and fluffed out his hair. He stepped out of his house and into the village. He walked through the streets to see fields of people tending crops and plots of land where things from the previous society are being taken down part by part, so their pieces can be used as scraps. He passed people packing mud into bricks and people with buckets who he knew were responsible for keeping the outhouses clean. Everyone had a job. A role that they fit. The only role Ollie fit was with Her. He saw a woman walking, holding the hand of her daughter. Ollie froze and could only stare. He hated that the child existed when his wasn’t allowed to. In the town, they were only a pregnancy once a year. They couldn’t feed more than that. Each woman was assigned a year that she was allowed to have a kid, but Ollie and his wife had jumped the gun, having a baby 2 years earlier than they were allowed. That’s why his wife was kicked from the walls, she’d consume too many resources. Ollie had begged and pleaded, saying that he’d work extra and give some of his rations to her. They said that this would only make him extra tired and hungry, being ultimately counterproductive, as they would now have 3 useless mouths to feed. Before he knew it, Ollie was attacking the woman and her daughter and they were surrounded by people trying to pull him off and attack him in return. Ollie’s visitor from earlier arrived on the scene, pulling people off of Ollie and yelling at them.

“Chill, chill, the man is grieving!” He proclaimed before turning to the woman and her child, “are the two of you alright?” He asked. They nodded, “good. Get out of here,” he turned back toward Ollie, “yo what the hell man? You can’t go around attacking innocent people.” He said. Ollie looked at him.

“Don’t get on some high horse. She was innocent. Our baby was innocent. But you didn’t attack them, right? You just threw them out to the wolves. So the wolves can do it. You’re not monsters, you just feed them, right?” He argued, getting so close to the man their skin almost touched.

“Ollie it was them or us and you know it!” The man argued. Ollie pushed him.

“THERE IS NO US! I WAS ONE OF THEM, AND YOU DIDNT EVEN LET ME DIE WITH THEM!” Ollie yelled at his friend.

“Ollie, we can’t just go throwing everyone away. You can pull your own weight and then some. That’s what we need. Anything less is dangerous. Her dad built this place man, do you think we wanted to do that? I feel the same way you do.” The man told Ollie, whose face scrunched up. He lunged at the man, landing a punch on his head, but was pulled off by a group of men who’d been amongst the dozen or so spectators.

“I’ll kill all of you! You’re monsters! The things outside these walls are nothing compared to you!” Ollie began to scream.

“Take him to The Holding. I’ll be there in a few.” The man said, touching where he’d been punched to see that he was bleeding. He walked away and Ollie was dragged in the other direction, flailing like a toddler. The Holding was just a regular room inside a regular building, although it was one of the more prestine buildings. This is where people were taken to be interrogated and things like that. The room was empty except for a large table in the middle. Ollie remembered being told that his wife had lived here before the world went to hell. She was raised and abused in the house in which Ollie stood. He was alone, and he looked all around the large room that seemed to have been a bedroom, but metal lined the floors and the walls, keeping them strong and reinforced. The closet was boarded closed and the door had multiple locks on the outside. Ollie knew his captors had locked the door behind them. There was no escape. Ollie started to look around, finding barred windows. He reached his hands through the bars, feeling for a loose bar or anything he could use to help him escape. He touched a brick in the wall and it shifted. Ollie began to pull it. He now had a weapon. Behind the grating of the bricks, though, Ollie could hear metal scraping them, too. He dropped the brick and felt the whole it’d come from. He felt something metal and cold. He pulled a locket into the window. It was small and gold and in the shape of a heart. The front read ‘freedom’. He put it in his pocket when he heard the lock in the door turn. The door opened and the man who’d only hours earlier visited Ollie to comfort him, visited him once again. This time, it was for questioning.

“Ollie. I’m sorry. Are you ok?” He asked.

“Kill yourself.” Was all Ollie said to reply.

“Ollie you’re not a monster for attacking those people. I know you didn’t want to hurt anyone.” The man said.

“Then why would I attack them? I know I’m not a monster. It’s all of you that are the monsters.” Ollie said.

“Come on, Ollie, we’re you’re friends. We just want-“

“Save it,” Ollie cut him off, “I don’t care what you want. It’s not the same thing as what I want. I just wanna be free.” He said, caressing the locket in his pocket with his thumb.

“Come on, now, Ollie, you are free. Far more free than you could ever be out there.” He said. Ollie shook his head and pulled the locket from his pocket. Read it, then opened it, revealing a baby picture of his wife wife and a razor blade. Tears welled up in his eyes. He looked up at the man.

“I’m not. Not quite yet, at least.” He said. He looked at the ground and started to think. He just wanted to be free and to be with his family. Who were outside the walls. And likely dead. He knew he couldn’t leave, since traveling in and out was against the rules. They didn’t even have a gate, just someone to throw you over the wall via pulleys. It’s impossible to leave on your own.

“Yet?” The man asked. He slowly started to approach Ollie, trying to see what the man was doing with his hands. Ollie removed the blade from the locket. The man got close, and Ollie looked at him, showing him the locket.

“Look. It’s Her. Our baby would probably have looked like that, but I’ll never know now.” He said.

“Ollie… I know there’s nothing I can say or do to make you feel better. But I know working a field would probably keep you distracted. Come on.” He held his hand out to Ollie.

“Fields, and crops, and work, and pain. That’s all this place is. A prison. That’s all this life is, is a prison. This world doesn’t even belong to us anymore. We’re just trapped in this little camp thriving day by day like bugs.” He said with tears pouring down his face like waterfalls. His eyes grew afraid and he stepped away from the man in front of him.

“Come on, Ollie. This life is whatever we make of it. We’re humans. We adapt and we change and we make the world work in our favor.” He said. Ollie nodded. He still looked afraid, though.

“Yeah, we change to fit in with the changing world,” he began. As he spoke, the fear in his eyes turned into clarity, “this world is ours because we can always adapt to it. That’s why you’re all monsters. You’re trapped in this old way of life. This prison. We need to move on, now.” Ollie said, become estatic. Now, the other man looked afraid.

“No, Ollie. We change the world to suit us-“ he started, but he found he could no longer form words. His neck became warm and wet and he looked down to see red tendrils creeping down his neck. Ollie had slit his throat. Ollie watch the man reach for his neck and drop to his knees, before hitting the ground lifeless. Ollie knew he only had minutes before the man came back as something else and attacked him. His skin already started to bubble and boil. Ollie pulled out the note and the locket, rereading the note over and over again, looking at the baby picture all along. He realized that she hadn’t been banished, she had been freed, and now she was part of a hive mind that didn’t need to suffer in this world anymore. Ollie took the blade to his wrist, the idea of freedom filling his head like the effects of a drug. He didn’t even feel the blade penetrate his skin or slide up his forearm. He did see the man that he’d just killed begin to twitch and his body began to move strangely. He was coming back.

“Ollie…. you… asshole.” The creature strained to say, but as it climbed onto its hands and feet, it faced Ollie and then the door. A new set of arms extended from his back as he walked on his hands and feet to the door. Ollie’s vision started to blur and he could hear something in his ear.

‘Shhhhh calm now,’ it said. It had no voice, but Ollie could understand the sounds in his head, ‘you’re with us, now. It’ll be alright.’ It said, and Ollie smiled, feeling his body become light. The monster he created turned at stared at him, a mixture of hate, sympathy, and many other things in its face. Ollie stared back with a grin as his eyes tried to force themselves closed. He felt something that felt like company and it reminded him of Her. He let the feeling take him over and soon, he could feel nothing. He opened his eyes, but his eyes, his body, wasn’t his own. The other creature who’d been watching him finally turned back toward the door as Ollie started to rise. He was confused, since the movement was not his doing and it felt weird, as though his joints and muscles had been rearranged. He approached the other creature as it opened the door to the room that they were in.

“Ollie, what have you done to us?” The monster asked him as it walked out of the room. It’s speech was detached from its body as though its mouth was controlled by a different person. Ollie couldn’t even talk. He could only look around and cry. He thought about Her.

‘Don’t worry, she’s with us, too. Both of them are. You will be united.’ Ollie heard. He remembered why he’d done what he’d done. To be free of the suffering of the world and to be reunited with his love. He took a backseat, allowing his body to do as it pleased as he patiently waited to see her again. He waited, and waited, and waited, and waited.