Rehabilitation: Romantic Dystopian (Unbelief Series Book 1) (2 page)

“Maybe it’s a library,” Jacob muses out loud. His voice is still saddened, but he’s trying to stay lighthearted and act as we always do on our trips into the Old World.

“A library,” I scoff. “What about a hospital? Hospitals always have the best stuff.” My words escape unthinkingly, echoing my thoughts of moments ago.

Jacob just shrugs. “Depends on what you’re looking for I guess.”

I roll my eyes at him again and we fall back into easy silence. Libraries are okay, I admit to myself. I’m not sure I’d ever let on to Jacob though. Books are rare and hard to get your hands on. The only people who can print them anymore is the Elite and most of those are so filled with propaganda (and are flat out boring, if I’m being honest), people just aren’t interested in reading any of them.

But
Old World
books are a different breed altogether. They’re filled with adventure, romance, and most dangerous of all (at least according to the Elite), Old World history. There’s a market for such books, albeit a narrow one. First, only people who
can
and
do
read want them. That narrows down buyers considerably. Then you need to find people willing to take a risk they’ve gotten their hands on a banned book. The list given out by the Elite containing banned books you can’t read is so long no one’s real positive exactly what’s on it. And to top it all off, you have to find someone who
isn’t
going to turn you in if you sell them a book.

I know a few people who fit the profile, but they can’t buy books often and are only on the look out for specific ones, so I don’t much like making book runs.

Jacob’s looking for a specific book, too. That’s why he’s so interested in the libraries. The thing is, the book he’s looking for is
definitely
banned. It’s the only one on the list that
everyone
knows it’s illegal to have.

Worse than illegal in fact. Having it could land you in Rehabilitation. Or worse.

Secretly, I hope he never finds the book he’s looking for. I don’t tell him this, but in my heart I hope for it every time we leave the safety of home.

Please don’t let him find it.

I’ve been in the lead, but Jacob takes over as we head toward the entrance. I can’t help but feel slightly annoyed at him for putting himself ahead of me. It’s not a jealousy thing. I know it’s about protecting me, his going ahead, but it annoys me no end that he thinks I
need
protecting.

Nevertheless, I follow him up concrete steps toward the set of double doors. Jacob pauses right outside them. There’s a couple windows looking into the building, but they’re narrow and dirty, covered in years’ worth of dirt and grime. Inside, it’s impossible to see a thing.

Jacob glances at me and raises his eyebrows in question. “
What do I think?,”
he asks me silently.
 

I hesitate.

Being out in the ruins of the Old World is dangerous for a lot of reasons, but the most pressing one right now is we don’t know what’s inside that building. It could house another wild cat like the one we saw earlier, or could be filled with toxic mold, or be ripe with some other unexpected danger.

When we get inside the building though, it isn’t what either of us thought it would be. It isn’t filled with poisons or dangerous predators—at least, from what we can tell—but it also isn’t quite as exciting as we’d hoped. Instead, it’s a school. For younger kids it looks like. At least that’s what I think, based on the rotted and molding smiley faces plastered on the walls.

“So much for the hospital,” I mutter, my voice echoing through the long hallway, sounding eerie.
 

Jacob shrugs and acts as though it doesn’t matter, but I can tell he’s disappointed, too. He was
really
hoping for a library. Or a church. I mentally sigh, my innate worry for him rising up again.

“There might still be something good,” he says with a smile.

I shake my head at him, amused. “Ever the optimist.”

Together we walk down the hall, our steps cautious. Debris taking the form of everything from bricks to shoes to scraps of old, shredded clothing litters the ground. We’re treading lightly, because although it doesn’t
look
like anything is here, we know better than to assume there isn’t. I glance at the doors along either side of the hallway and cringe back, trying to put more distance between them and myself. There are large
X’s
on some of the them. Both Jacob and I avoid these automatically. There aren’t any history books that talk about the Old World and the Last War much, not in any detail at least, but we have been out here enough times we know
exactly
what’s behind those doors.

And I have no desire to see it.

“Must have been close to one of the bomb sites,” Jacob murmurs, as though afraid to wake the dead. Or maybe he’s just showing respect. “My dad used to say that when the population got exposed to toxins from the bombs, a lot of people suffered. Some decided it was better to just... go out quietly instead.”

Jacob’s dad has been dead about as long as mine’s been missing. I don’t think they’d been friends or anything, but I think that if they’d gotten to know each other, they would have been. At home, neighbors didn’t like mixing, it was too risky. Anyone could be an Elite hiding out, just waiting to make their move. The only people you can trust are your family members.

It was a fluke me and Jacob even became friends. And if I’d been older, like I am now, I don’t think it would have happened.

I glance at him sideways, studying his strong profile as he stares at the
X
on one of the doors. I’m glad we met when we were kids... even if we
can
never agree on much of anything.

Folding my arms across my chest, I mutter, not able to help myself, “Or this
was
a testing site, just like the Elite always say. How people used each other to test out new drugs, new weapons, not caring what happened to them.”

Jacob looks back at me casting me a sharp glare. He has always hated the Elite—I do, too, if I’m being honest—and he’s not afraid to say it either. Contradicting something his
dad
said in favor of something the Elite say... well, if it wasn’t necessarily very nice of me, it was important to do. I lift my chin, my stubborn streak stirring to life as I glare back at him. He forgets sometimes we live in a world with specific rules and breaking them comes with dire consequences.

Besides, the world we’re standing in right now is
ruined
. That’s kinda the point. If they hadn’t been awful, cruel people, why is their world obliterated, nothing more than
X’s
on the doors to mark where their people died?

“Let’s keep going,” Jacob’s tone is gruff, revealing just a hint of anger, so I keep quiet as I follow him.

When we decide the place is safe enough, we split up after finding a map on a wall. Jacob goes to the left toward the library (of course) and I go to the right, heading down the hall toward the nurses office.

I don’t know if there will be anything there worth scavenging, but I figure it will still be my best bet. I pass at least ten doors with
X’s
on them, and knowing each one of them holds a room full of bodies elicits an involuntary shiver as I walk. I can’t help it, it just feels creepy. I know they’re nothing but bones, mostly, but sometimes, if the room was sealed up tight... that’s why we never check the rooms anymore. We go where we think there will be the best stuff, look around, and leave as quickly as we can.

The nurse’s office is toward the back, near the big gymnasium that students used for physical activities.

Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like to go to a school like this... and then I decide it must have been terrifying. All those other kids, none of whom you could trust, and a teacher at the front telling you what to think.

I imagine it is a lot like Assembly. We have it every other day in the After World, usually, although less often as we get older. All of us, kids eighteen and under, gather in the courtyard in the middle of town and watch the large glass screen light up. Most of us can’t read, so when the scrolling words travel across the glass there’s a voice that accompanies it. It’s always a bland, toneless man’s voice. He lists off the three main rules that govern the After World.

Don’t repeat mistakes of the Old World.

Don’t seek love, don’t engage in war.

And above all else, don’t Believe.

There are other things after that, usually. An update on Rehabilitation camps, success stories and sometimes failed escape attempts. Occasionally we get news of political things, but politics are only for the Elite, so no one cares too much about those.

Most of us are more worried about surviving.

I reach the nurse’s office to find it’s mostly intact, only a few things obviously searched through. Some places look ransacked already when we get there, making me wonder if there are others who search the ruins like we do, or if people of the Old World were scavengers, too.

Pulling my bag off my shoulder, I start throwing things that look promising into it. Most of them, I don’t know what they are or what they do, especially since most of the labels look deteriorated, but it doesn’t really matter. People will trade for it anyway.

I stuff all of it in my bag, as much as I can fit, and I’m about to leave the room when I glance to my right and see something sitting on a desk. It’s covered in a thick layer of dust, but it still catches my eye. I can only make out the words
healing
and
prayer,
but that’s enough. My lips tighten, feeling a rush of gladness Jacob isn’t with me.

I leave as quickly as I can and pretend I never saw the book at all. I meet up with Jacob further down the hall. He’s found some books too—picture books in fact, which are great, because people will be more inclined to buy them since they don’t need a lot of skill as far as reading goes.

“What did you find?” Jacob asks as we head out.

“Nothing,” I answer automatically, mind recalling an image of the book I left behind again and again. I remember the words written on it.
 

Healing and prayer.
 

Eyes grim, I repeat again as we step out of the building to head home, “Nothing.” Thankfully Jacob leaves it at that.
 

******

Home is a line of stones that make a short wall that only comes up to about my waist. This wall acts as a border between the After World and the Old World, separating the ruins from our peaceful little town. I can remember asking my dad about it once.

“Why is it such a short fence?” I was only eight and even then I could see right over top of it.

My dad looked down at me, his eyes crinkling at the corners and his mouth quirking ever so slightly into a smile.
 
I remember he always called me Bean. “Because tall fences don’t keep people out like you’d expect Bean. Tall fences let you know
they
are afraid, which means you have all the power. But a short fence? Well, everyone knows you can get over a short fence easy... so why would you?”

At eight, this was a pretty big concept for me to grasp. It wasn’t until much later I understood what my dad meant, almost a year after he went missing. I was ten. Standing there at the fence, I remembered our conversation.

Everyone knows you can get over a short fence.

And it’s then I realized what he meant. It made me so angry. It made me angry a mere
short
fence could keep me contained within its walls. And why? Because no one even realized they wanted to leave and go beyond it. No one even realized it was a cage. I hoisted myself on top of it, swung my legs over, and hopped onto the other side, just because I could. I didn’t feel any different though, so I took another step. And then another. And another. Soon, the wall was only a small line in the distance and I could see the ruins of the Old World rising high into the clouds.

It scared me some, being only ten, and I thought about turning around to go home, but then I saw the little boy in the distance. He was ahead of me, but not far. Where had he come from? I wondered. And not knowing why, I ran toward him as fast as I could, worried if I didn’t, he might disappear completely.

The boy must have heard me because he turned around as I got closer and I remember he sort of gaped at me a little, a hint of surprise on his face. He looked a couple years older than me, with shaggy blonde hair and piercing blue eyes.
 

I stopped several feet from him and we both stared at each other, wide-eyed. It was the boy who offered his hand to me first.

“My name’s Jacob.”

I shook his hand that day and we’ve been fast friends ever since. I smile inwardly at that part of the memory. My meeting Jacob that day was one of my favorites in a tragically meager supply of good ones.

Our packs slung across our shoulders, we reach the town border and hop over the fence, heading back into the territory of Elite Sector Five. That’s our “official” town name. Not the most original in my view, and I sometimes wonder why no one ever came up with something more creative.

The Elite, when they took over after the war, basically carved up the country, sometimes based on old boundary lines, usually based on new ones. Of the three different Elite groups—the Soldiers, the Politicals, and the Scientists—each group got about five territorial spaces. Scientists got more, but only because they claimed several of the deteriorated Old World sites to use as testing grounds. No one lives there anyway, so the other groups agreed to it.