By pre-lights out, Cortney marched into the abandoned generator room with six others. It was the third evening in a row that they had missed their food and water ration.
When she first discovered the faded maintenance records hidden beneath the rotted floorboards of the generator room a few months earlier, an excitement that she'd never felt before in all her twenty mundane years had almost overwhelmed her.
Her mind spun in different frightening directions and unable to bear the discovery alone, she called her six friends and they looked through the old records together. It was neither a hallucination nor dream. The records identified the enigmatic steel door at the end of the underground corridor called the Last Border as an emergency evacuation route.
As long as anyone could remember, no one alive had ever ventured into the Last Border or gotten close to the steel door. Whether the door led to death, salvation, or another world, no one could tell.
The elders claimed that beyond the door lay poisoned winds and deserted lands while some whispered that there was a thriving city behind the door where children laughed without fear and people no longer fought over food and water rations.
Every attempt of some residents to visit the Last Border led to small uprisings that were quickly quelled by the elders and the culprits sent to isolation for many months.
Pryce gazed at Cortney with a frown and whispered, “The elders lied.” His daughter had died from a sickness that their scanty medical supply could not treat.
She shook her head, looking each of her friends in the eyes. “They believed what they were told, just as we have done all these years. We can't fault them—”
“But we must!” Nia snapped, her brows furrowed in confusion and irritation. “Many people before us tried to reach the steel door and press the button, they were restrained…some of them died…” Her voice caught and faded. Her grandfather was one of those who attempted to uncover the mystery of the Last Border. He was branded a traitor and condemned to isolation where he died.
Silence settled over the room as they looked at the records over again. “If there's really a city outside this place, why has nobody come for us?” Grace, nineteen years old, the youngest among them asked, her fierce gaze on Cortney.
“Look,” Nia pointed to a fading sentence printed in small script at the bottom of all the inspection reports. Squinting, she read aloud, “Open only when the danger has passed.”
“The nuclear explosion happened more than a century ago. Could this mean that danger?” Pryce asked.
Courtney straightened, carefully tucked the records into a weathered satchel and hung it across her chest. “Let's find the button and save ourselves,” she said firmly.
The others nodded in agreement and they walked in a single line through empty, dimly lit corridors leading to the Last Border.
[To be continued]
I hope you enjoyed reading this short piece. It's inspired by the Freewrite #dailyprompt phrase "I'm going to push the button".
Thank you for visiting my blog.
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