Lifeless

Just because I'm telling this story, does not mean I'm alive. I need to tell you though, what has become of living. Oh sure, there are people. Everyone is alive except for the people that are long dead. If that's what you can call the people here though, alive. Technically you can count breathing and a heartbeat living. Although I have learned in a few short years that there is a difference between living and being alive. Living is taking in breath, eating, and just having a space in the world. Being alive though is emotions coursing through people's faces, treating air like wine, smiling, laughing, and pain actually showing on people.  I count everyone here dead. I say this because the emotions have been sucked clean out of everyone. No one was showed any mercy.   
Originally there were 10 people that somehow avoided the torture of the emotions being drained slowly out of you. Wait, that's a lie the "elders" or so called "magnificent" leaders have their precious emotions.
They were the ones 5 years ago that said,
"Too many decisions, too many fights, too much pain". I wonder now if they thought we were thinking too much. For 2 decades the elders have been winning all the supposedly fair campaigns to lead the nations across the world. They are tyrants; awful, greedy, power hungry people. They made empty promises of a utopian world, where everyone belonged and mattered. Well they found a solution of sorts, something that would end the pain in the worst way imaginable.   
  When that god awful day came, it was quiet. All the elders ordered everyone to go to a mandatory visit to the doctor's clinic in the middle of all the cities. They led everyone to a room, completely white, completely sterile, and completely blank.  They stole everything that matters from you, lust, love, happiness, joy, fear, common sense, and the things that make you alive.  Skin, bones, a heart and other organs are the only things the lifeless can call their own. Just barely above your average zombie, the lifeless don't have to eat technically; it's more of a force of habit for them.  
The only way I was able to avoid it was I hid in a hole by the house. I hid like a coward, like the little girl I was. I didn't charge out and bash Elders' heads. No, I hid. I didn't tell people about my suspicion. No, I fled. I didn't try. No, I just faded.I was skeptical on this whole cure-every-problem business. The elders aren't usually what you would call "heartwarming" or "kind". Apparently a few others had the inch of a hunch too, and we were right.
My mother however, wasn't those lucky few, she came home drained and what seemed like a blank page waiting to be written on. It was true, the thing cured everything, just a tiny bit of an example, my mother had stage four lung cancer from smoking her hand-rolled blue smoke cigars, but now the cancer that was eating her from the inside, was gone. I suppose it could be counted as a miracle.
There are things I missed about having more than several other people alive around me. The bell-like hearty noise of laughter from children, the warm aroma of my mom's smoke, having small talk with the neighbors, the list could create a lengthy novel. A vague thought, elusive as the smell of primrose mocked me,
"Even though the world is filled, you're alone and empty."
It was true, so empty so quiet, just plain depressing, and with that, all of my thoughts ran into tears like sunshine into rain. No one noticed this scarce show of emotion. The lifeless are dull creatures too dreary to pay attention to anything around them. The only things that the lifeless do is, eat, sleep, and reproduce. Live, breathe, live.  That "cure" stole the things that made us greater then the average monster in a child's closet. Now life, is sorta just hollow.
The little town that we live in is in ruins. When the elders decided to make everything lifeless, riots were going on, people were fighting over money. Money was like a river of sadness, and only a few had boats to glide. People were saying that the rich should give at least 10% of their earnings every year to the poor. The rich though laughed at that idea and to prove their point they used all their money up to buy weapons to shoot everyone. Children, mothers, fathers, dogs, and even cats  were shot down in an instant. The elders stepped in finally believing after 2 years of murders it had to be ended. The riots were just a backup reason to create the lifeless.
In the five years since that so called miracle made by the elders I have learned that if you don't act like the living dead, you will become the living dead.  Over the few years the ten people that avoided being  living computers narrowed down to good 6 and a half. The first six that continued through; were a doctor, a homeless person that hangs around at what used to be an old 7-11, a librarian,  a nice old couple that seem to know the "inside" news in the elders group, and me.
The half though is something else; he is half because he was caught mourning over his wife who got shot in the stomach. They found him and took him to the blank, plain, and too bright white room to cure him of everything. He fought, and they only got half of the thick pink stuff in him before he managed to escape and run away. He switches between going to robot mode to being himself. He reports that when he is the living dead he can't remember a thing besides being in a purple fog and never escaping it, never finding the light, never seeing anything. We say that he doesn't count to be sane or barely counts to be rational anyways.
This leads to how my sister came to the world. Number 7. She came like any baby, perfect. No pain was felt for my mother. Of course there was no pain for her. What was I expecting, a yelp, a scream, or even the delight that fills her face when her daughter was born?
No, it was like everything else in this world, it was done mechanically. I convinced my mother to not report her pregnancy or my sister's birth. I even convinced her that the man with the wild smile would deliver the baby and not an elder doctor.  Although when I convinced her of this, it was like putting walls in front of a robot that was trying to smash through. I was the wall, she was the robot. She had a blank look, the expression even almost looked confused. I could tell though, it was like an android that received too many commands at once. I bet if she could she would be shaking all over, acting like she had a seizure. In those few moments I wondered if her head would spin too like a robot.
The baby girl that came out of my mother's womb didn't cry. She seemed to already be smart enough on how things work here. Her hair was golden as tints of sunrise; she had a face pale as wax which contrasted with her eyes which were green and gray like an April day. The name I decided to give her, was Jill. I managed to raise the cheerful, wise Jill for a while. I loved her. She was the most important thing in my life. She was exposed to too much as she saw our mum a few times. Every time she saw the robotic, jerky movements of my mother, she winced. I tried to keep her as pure as the naked heavens; I tried so hard and failed. This new world, matures one so fast you're triple your age by the day.
By the time she was 4 she was tough, but sweet hearted. I still considered her as delicate as the flush on a rose or the sculptured line on a Grecian urn.  Jill especially enjoyed talking to the librarian, she mostly just persuades the sweet lady to give her the rare valuable books to rip through. Jill can easily finish Hamlet in just a day! What am I to do with her? She studies the half- real- half-droid man. She reports that the man switches between real and not real every half hour. I worry about that she'll be a mental adult by the time she is five.
Of course, like everything else in my life though, she too faded out. Everything in my life seems to be like a candle, first flickering, then the wick growing short, and finally the light goes out. On the last day of her being here, we danced, it was her 5th birthday. In the dim light of our home I lifted her up and we spun in circles to a tuneless tune that I hummed. For one moment we were light with no fears. We spun and spun around  and around like the world that we rested in. With every spin though, we knew that this would have to end sometime.
In the faint glow our skin differentiated like so many things about us. She was the light of the world, and I was darkness that lurked behind. My skin was of the bark of birch trees, hers of the moon's. She took after the beauty of mom; I took after the gruffness of our dad. Somehow though, we were one. We danced like flowers in the wind for hours. Our tears entwined with each other and we let our sorrow spill over our cheeks. With our eyelashes glistening we gave each other butterfly kisses, and that just made our cheeks all the more so wet.  It was like we knew it was our last night together. I loved, I lived, I breathed. She loved, she lived, she breathed. Together.
It happened one day when my sister was reading an awfully funny book, she laughed her sweet laugh, her voice carrying in the wind like church bells, that would of made anyone stop and stare for its musical sound. Unfortunately a guard was right outside our unkempt dwelling and ran right in. A look of surprise was across his face when he saw my five-year-old sister there chuckling.
She didn't realize what happened till it was too late.  I acted like a ragdoll, I just ate my soup all blanked eyed and quiet. Again, I was too much of a weakling to save the one I loved. The guard snatched her up like she was an animal and dragged her away. I almost screamed, but that was just like inviting the fog to my future. I even almost wept, but no tears came. I forgot how to weep that day. I still tried though but it was like forcing your head through steel, it was just about impossible. Jill came home, of course healthy, but just as everyone else she had this distant look that saw something different than what was really in front of her. Her face was passionless like those by sculptor graved for niches in a temple. I shook her, shaking her like she over slept for her morning studies that I taught her. I grieved for what felt like forever. My eyes clenched trying to force out the nonexitant tears. My pain was a relief compared to my reality.
` Days went by and I had too much time to think. I realized now that I forgot my own name. It started with a B but that's all I know. I now comprehend how much on the border I am between being sane and mental. I also realized that I could care less about my sanity.
While I thought about this, 3 questions started to bite at my mind. The first one was would it be possible for me to expose myself without alarming the others? The second one was, is this just a nightmare, was this my fog, have I actually received the nothing shot? My final question was, if this was real, should I leave, if so where should I go? I decided to work out these questions one by one the first one was obviously a no. If they found me they would assume that there were more, that there might be enough to overthrow them. The second question had parts, the answers to these parts was a maybe. I decided, if this was my fog I should let the nightmare continue and let it distract my mind from the thick purple cloud that binds you forever. The 3rd question was the hardest. Evidently it was a yes to the second part, that I know, because if I stayed, I would be like a puppet on strings. Where to, I decided was unknown, I would just go where my heart was fierce and my child self died with my sanity.
With that in mind I packed $100, a flashlight, some books, food, some things to trade, no, some is an understatement. I took all of my family's possessions including our old horse Nessie and a cart, and a sleeping roll. When that was done I walked, I had no idea where I was, what I was doing, or if I was going to live. When night fell I looked up at the stars looking for one to make a wish on. A cluster of stars hanged like fruit in a tree creating Hercules. I decided that would be my guide. With nothing else to do I slept. What else was there to look forward to anyways, my life was taken away long ago, so nothing else could be robbed away from me. In the morning I kindled a fire, the flame unfurled and waved like a flag. I scrimmaged some breakfast of cottage cheese and fruit out of my sack. I gave the scraps to my old horse; she whinnied in disapproval of the meek breakfast. I mounted on Nessie and her bones creaked and sighed. Without looking back I rode off. Days went by, and then weeks, and then sooner or later a month even passed by. The first normal city I saw was… shocking.
There was no smoke; no smell of the dead like there was in my old town. This town had survived. All the scouts that where sent out were wrong. A small city, it was so very small, the fighting had definitely taken its toll here. All in all though, the city was normal, normal houses, normal buildings, and normal people. It was like they didn't have any elders here at all. When I walked in I disturbed a town meeting, everyone was there.  This was the perfect time to find out information. When the meeting was over, and the crowd dispersed I cornered the mayor and began questioning him.
"How have you avoided becoming lifeless?"
The mayor looked scared at first but then comprehension spread across his face, and then he responded with a thick, strange accent, "We are all survivors that came together 4 and half years ago, the elders do not know about us." He led me to his office, trying to make himself composed to his citizens. Once safe in his office he told me how they have been planning to hold a rebellion in my city, where apparently most of the elders are housed. I told him my story, and he did a curt nod then said sternly,
"You will lead us." He didn't ask me, he told me. Without any hesitation I agreed. For months we ransacked deserted towns getting guns, created nukes, and recruited troops.
Our first raid went bad, correction, it went really bad. I was the leader of the raid and we went to loot a armory factory. It took 3 days of brutal traveling in tempetures of 108 degrees.  Half my troops had heatstroke when the plant came into view. It was large with smokestacks hazily burping out fumes. I left the ill troops to rest in the tents and took 11 fit and semi healthy troops to the industry. We barely made it past the gates before a crimson alarm shrieked our arrival. Jimmy, my co-captain shouted,
"Aww what a nice welcome party."
"I know they even decorated for us and left us presents!" Straight ahead was a pit about 30 feet long and 20 feet wide. What a nice gift. I dashed forward hoping to not fall to my perilous death and set a bad example for my comrads. My hand scarcely was able to latch on to the ledge and I yanked myself up. I bellowed to the other side,
"Now just do that and make sure you don't die." At once my team tried to charge over the pit. 4 didn't even make it a quarter way across, 2 made it halfway before their screeches dragged them down to the darkness. I made a morose face and lead the remaning  group to get the supplies. We went 15 feet before we were getting shot at. Fantastic.
I directed my companions down a hall way  and snapped at Jimmy to give me the map.
"Yes, ma'am." We were 2/3 of the way to the supply room. I thought to myself that we have about 2 minutes before they find us again.
Correction less than that. Seven elders began to charge at us. They were completely in black like one of those ninjas from the movies. I sprung up on top of one of them and piggyback rode him to knock down another ninja-elder person, then backflipped off both of them and  hit their neck pressure points. I made a snap decision and left the other 5 of my troops to fend for themselves so I could find the gear.
The elders apparently didn't notice my escape because I made it to the storage room. Inside were the most amazing uniforms ever. Thousands upon thousands of militia garb in neat little boxes. I jetfired the teleporter and scanned the entire room. A monotone voice spoke cheerfully out of the teleporter,
"Five minutes to boot please wait a moment." I groaned out of annoyance and impatiently tapped my foot. A fierce knock on the door and a gruff voice that said,
"Open up you can't win!" Told me bluntly that I will not get my 5 minutes peacefully and quietly. I muttered to myself,
"Why can't it be easy." I screamed like a banshee and lunged at them. Their eyes widened at my sudden attack and I could just imagine their lives flashing before them. I knocked their heads together and hear a hollow echo.
"Hmm, there really is nothing in their." The monotone voice of the transporter chirped to me that the porter was ready to go. I grabbed the nearest box and felt my particles whoosh away. 11 teamates gone, 30 others stranded I thought sadly. I still continued and led the raids though.
Finally the day came.

If you are in the age group of 14-55, congratulations, you are now in the rebellion army, no questions asked. The chance of you coming home is one in a million, and I believe our handmade second handed weapons will be nothing compared to the sleek, new, precise weapons that the elders have. Live with it and fight. Oh and did I mention that you'll get zero to no training on how to fight and use dangerous weapons?  We were ill equipped, bloodthirsty, ragged soldiers who had no plan of winning this war. We were certainly going to try though. Our stubbornness drove us across the hundreds of miles that I subconsciously crossed. We marched to my town, home of the most elders. The pack that lay on my back made my muscles scream in agony. We marched on for stretches of time without any food, nor was Mother Nature too keen on being generous to us. Finally, we made it. They were waiting. They knew we were coming. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, we weren't exactly quiet or discreet when stealing the weapons and testing the nukes.
I let out a scream that sounded more like a howl and rushed forward with the 5,000 troops that were recruited by us. The elders, who followed our example, charged with confidence and ease at a thousand at max. I despised the way they came towards us, they thought they were going to win this pitiful battle. No, they knew they were going to win. I yanked my revolver out of my makeshift holder and shot blindly. A smooth round-kick to the head to the elder I shot and he was down. Silent forever. I spat at his head and called that a proper funeral. All around me flames and fumes were rising from what seemed the earth itself. I saw people no older than I thud in a constant rhythm on the bloodstained field. The elders were like cockroaches, hard to kill, sly, and just gross. Their armor was made out of some skin of a mutant animal very tough to break through. I was bringing them down by the dozens, being so barbaric it enraged me even more so that they transformed me into this irrational creature. The beat of bodies crashing to the floor became a constant song that I absentmindedly hummed to while doing a running jump and slammed my hands against some unlucky man's ears. A small pop told me that his ear drums ruptured and another wail filled the air. I saw my comrades die beside me, seeing their hands reach out to me asking feebly for help.
The first few times I felt a twinge of remorse, and I would kiss their foreheads before returning to combat. That rapidly became a tiresome task and I soon gave up. The tug at my heart faded leaving no trace too. I was numb. With that I fought fiercely, crouching down occasionally to take bullets found on dead bodies. I screamed orders to everyone who was in range till my voice was hoarse. Even then I snapped croaky commands.
We were doing fine, higher expected than anyone could dream. All hell broke loose though after a fortnight of fighting. The elders were losing their numbers and they preferred to have the upper hand in all things and cases. They brought the lifeless, hundreds of them, thousands of them, probably close to a million of them. They marched, their eyes reflecting our tiresome and fearful faces. Without missing a beat, my adrenaline returning, I yet again charged forward with our lesser numbers following.
We quickly learned that lifeless have no tact, they just have a gun. I even saw some shooting each other. I let out a burst of laughter at that, sick pleasure rushing through me. I bit savagely, I kicked, and I punched, wincing as I saw friends in the group. I repeatedly reminded myself they are lost in the fog. They are not here. I was soothed enough to hit them, numb enough to shoot, hateful enough to feel guilt. I continued through the clusters of people, looking subconsciously for someone.
I found her, my mother. I grabbed her head and snapped her neck, a clean and merciful death. I plucked a flower out of my pack, one that I have been saving, and weaved it in her hair; I hastily clawed through her hair with my fingers. I made a braid just the way she liked it, and finally I kissed her cheeks. A quick peck on each. Rest in the love of my gift to you Mom. That changed the numbness to an odd sort of peace. I continued my shower of bullets on elder's heads. We dropped their numbers, they realized how we are not a small problem. I knew we wouldn't win no matter what though. They would just bring more and more to prove how insignificant we are. We don't have nobody but ourselves.  
I saw the girl I feared but knew would be in this field of war.  My sister, my daughter. Jill. In the hundred or so lifeless she was there delicate as the wind. She had grown remarkably but she was still so tiny. It made me retch on the ground that I stood upon. I did the thing that I knew I had to do; I saved her by pulled my revolver out and shot my sister through the head. I whispered,
"No angel like you should live through this; and God knows in truth that nobody should live through this". Her small body dropped, a sound like a pebble hitting the sand when with shaking hands I shot her square in the head. Against my will a wail escaped my mouth as I mourned for my only daughter. I went insane, I screeched in the middle of the battle and stopped dead in my tracks. My body leapt on one of my own soilders and I just lashed out at him. I had no control , I bit and kicked and growled like a fevered creature . That I suppose, is when the bullet was shot at me.
It whooshed to my head in a flash. I thrashed for 5 seconds before I lost conscious. Just before I was lost, I saw a blue uniform pass by me. My own crew killed me. Then I remembered that soilder. I mourned even more.My lungs began to crow and heave like a chant and I gasped for air., I whimpered, and writhed as I saw the blood dripping through my armor.
In my blood I saw all who I lost, faces appearing then rushing by in the river, all of them telling me to follow them, to be sane. I did the only thing I could, I smirked then I flung myself into the red river, I didn't try to swim to shore, I let go, and I fell, deeper and deeper, till the darkness swallowed me, I was sane, I was peaceful, that's all I could ever ask for.  Then I realized something my name is Bell. I only realize now I was named after my city. Death can bring joys. Nothing happened when I died, no heaven or not even the devils home appeared, and I didn't become a wisp of a ghost. I just felt that my eyes were droopy and I needed to sleep. So I did. My eyes shut closed and I drifted in the forever peaceful river of sanity and death. I woke up in darkness. My eyes were panicked and I scanned all over the room to see where I was.  Then a voice murmed so sweetly and softly,
"Sissy, dance with me again."
I hesitated slightly thinking that this is just a tease, a punishment for the lives I took. The friends I brutishly murdered. Because of sanity, I know that murder is murder and I have killed the bodies and hearts of many.  Her voice though… my feet guided me towards her. I barely noticed the action but the deed was already done. Grasping this concept I picked up my pace  and I was soon sprinting toward the honeyed voice.  I knew it was her before I truly saw her.
I cackled jovially and bent down to sweep her up. In this peculiar place that we were in our hearts and eyes glowed with the colors of purple, yellow, and a light pink, as it was dim and the light was faint.
My sister's hands clenched over mine like rumpled roses, dimpled and dear, and we danced. We danced like a wave on the sea, with her little legs wrapped around my waist. We stared into each other's eyes her light ones, mine dark as the desert sky.  We went slow at first, for our hearts were steady. As they raced our hearts changed colors getting lighter and lighter and we danced at an odd tempo at the realization that we were together. Our hair flew as we went faster and faster. My hair that went to my hips and as harsh as tropical grass and gray as ashes engulfed us. I cried out in ecstasy and my tears flew madly around us. The noise of our hearts roared in my ears blocking out everything—screams, crashes, unheard prayers, taunts.  Everything around us was a blur. We danced till all the world was forgotten, all the pain was gone but remembered, and until the day faded away in the hues of purple, crimson, and auburn, the colors of God's curtain closing. We died so we can live.