A Run For Dear Life (A Story Of Love, Choice And Loyalty)

I - The Announcement

klem dashed into the room, his hands curved into a fist, his heart pounding, his eyes searching out the corners in the almost empty room. He wondered why the door was opened. He wonder why she wasn’t in the room. He grated his teeth and looked around him - nothing. He wished he had brought a gun.

“Klem!”

He turned back at once to see a figure standing in the ray of the light. Soft golden hair fell covered a part of the face, small sparkling eyes peered at him from inside her head.

“Precio! What is wrong?”

“Nothing. I only wanted to see you.” Precio chuckled as she slowly approached him. She lifted her overflowing gown as she walked, consciously of her stately figure, her amused eyes fixed on Klem’s face.

“You wanted what? You made me run all the way from the barracks!”

Her boyish laughter rent the air.

“What’s funny. I thought something had happened. I thought…”

The rest of Klem’s words were lost in Precio’s mouth as she put her lips on his and pushed him to the wall. Klem tried to resist but his resistance was only a second strong. He let his hands go wild and felt the blood in veins warm up.

Thirty minutes later, they laid on the bed. Precio on her chest, tracing invisible lines on his shoulder.

“You son would be as magnificent as you are. With those ripe muscles that you use to tease the girls.”

“That is if I ever get to know he’s my son.”

“But wouldn’t you want that?”

“Precio, let’s not entertain our minds with things that cannot be. You know that…”

“Yes, I know no one owns children anymore. The state takes care of that. But just imagine you having to give my birth to your own child. I don’t mind keeping him in my womb, you know.”

“Precio…”

“I wonder how that would be feel. To have life growing inside of me, knowing he’ll have your gorgeous body and my incredible brain.”

Klem laughed so hard Precio lifted her head off his chest for a bit. “So my brain isn’t incredible?”

“No, it isn’t. Your lower member is though. That little thing that sets fire to my soul.”

Klem laughed hard again.

“I wonder if our son would be like that. Using his little thing to set girls his age on fire.” She thought aloud as her fingers roamed the scattered hair on his chest.

“Our son? Well, it depends on who the government gives to us. You know no one gets to choose. You are…”

“Always the dull brain. I am talking about our own child. Your seed growing in my body. The exact likeness of who we are.”

Klem reflected on her words for a moment. “You are talking blasphemy. You shouldn’t talk like this. You don’t know who could be listening.”

Precio smiled knowingly. She shifted to lift her face above his. She looked into his eyes and read his innocence. He was just a solider. He had been assigned to that fate from the moment he was convinced. In fact, the sperm and ova were carefully selected to breed the soldier they wanted. She looked at him and smiled.

Klem noticed the little inquisitive eyes looking into his own and shifted uncomfortably for a bit. He wished he could read her thoughts. Those thoughts hidden underneath her soft golden hair. She was a rare one, not many people had golden hair. People like her were often very intelligent. And wild too. But for all his knowledge, he wasn’t prepared for what she was going to tell him.

Precio lowered her head and brush her lips against his. She looked up, used her left hand to push her the loose strands of hair to the back of her ear and lowered her mouth to his ear.

“I am pregnant.” she announced, before biting his ear

II - The Panic

Klem wished he could have reported sick that morning. In fact, he hadn’t been well since the night before. He was angry and ashamed at the same time. He was angry that she would use him that way, that she would put this on him. He was ashamed that he simply walked away without saying a word, at a time when she needed him. The double emotions tore at his soul. He didn’t have a good night rest. He didn’t even have any rest. As he walked into the hanger, he told himself to focus. He was conceived, born and bred to be a soldier. You are a soldier, Klem!

He almost crashed his fighter plane during his first launch. When it was time for coffee break, he knew he couldn’t rush away. Any slightest sign of discomfort would be noticed by his attentive soldiers. All that was needed was one slip and he would be taken in for examination. There, they would discover Precio was pregnant. They would discover they had a son coming. They would discover the traitor they were.

Only last week, he had lead a raid on a group of traitors trying to escape through the basin river. No survivors, his commanders had announced. He was lead pilot. Some called him lead executioner. He didn’t know the story and didn’t care. All he knew what that no one was allowed to have children on their own. Every month, the ovum of every fertile female was harvested. They were also given drugs to prevent conception. He knew all of these through Precio. Damn! She was supposed to know better.

He tried to keep a straight face. Instead, he kept seeing the face of a little boy. He shook his head and walked out of the hanger. He ached for a cigarette. He asked his colleagues but none of them had any. It was still early in the morning, what was he thinking. He then decided to take a cup of office. The walk would also clear his head. Soon, he passed by a fertility centre. He looked at the cute pink baby in the signpost and wondered if it was a boy or girl. It was when he noticed passers-by looking at him that he remembered the coffee shop was inside the barrack and he was a long way from the barrack. He swore.

He had to do something, he kept telling himself as he walked back. With each passing second, he cursed the sun for wanting to make a barbecue out of him. He didn’t realised he had walked so far. What was he doing at the fertility centre? He walked by a shoe shop and looked at the fine display. His eyes caught a glimpse of his own reflection. His reflection that slowly melted into that of a little baby boy. He swore again.

III - The Visit

Precio was finding it hard to cry. She wanted to cry as she had seen Linda, the nurse do. She knew crying had a therapeutic effect. It wouldn’t take the pain away, but it would lift some of the burden off her. But she couldn't cry. She never could. Those bastards at the lab had engineered her that way. No! She wasn’t going to give her son over to them to make another experiment out of him. She would rather kill herself than let them take him.

She turned to her side and noticed the figure pass by her window. There was no mistaking that uniform; they had found out about her. At this time, the invisible tears turned to an ache. She couldn’t believe he would sell her out. But what was she thinking? He was only a soldier. He was born to follow orders all his life. She jumped out of bed and ran to the kitchen. She would choose death over slavery.

Klem kept pacing out outside of Precio’s house. He wondered for how long he would live this way. Wait, what was he thinking? He was meant to live this way all his life. Damn it, she had screwed with his head. Here he was, entertaining blasphemous thoughts. He hit once at the door. And then again. And then remembered he had a key in his pocket.

Precio pointed one end of the knife to her self. The lights were off. She hid behind the kitchen door, her heart counting each second with large thumping, her brain calculating her odds of survival if the men decided to begin shooting at once. She heard the door open. She listened to the footsteps. One, two… The coffee table in her one room apartment rattled. It was Klem.

Klem was surprised to see Precio wielding a knife. Had she gone mad. He made to approach her and noticed she had the sharp end pointed at him. He wasn’t one to scare easily. He continued his approach until she had her back against the kitchen sink. He simply collected the knife from her hand and put his lips on her.

That night as they laid in bed, their eyes closed, their minds wide opened, each one struggled with the thoughts that plagued their weary heart. Klem had read a book that afternoon in the restricted section. She had read of how women centuries ago used to carry children in their womb. It was like the others she had been reading. But this one had a different flavour to it.

The book was titled “The Privilege of Motherhood”. The second chapter talked about how special women were. They were the givers of life. They formed and carry life in their own bodies. Precio remembered how she caressed her belly as she read that chapter. And then, there was the chapter on choice. That a woman could choose if she wanted to carry a child or not. Precio read that chapter and thought about something else.

Why didn’t anyone have a choice. She had read about the great war. The last major conflict amongst humans in almost four hundred years. In the absence of such conflict, Earth High Command was concerned with reviving their space exploration, while the Nelanders had migrated to the other side of the basin. Everywhere else was contaminated by nuclear radiation. The civil war had destroyed everything so they were building from scratch. But to what purpose. They were all slaves, each of them engineered at birth to behave in a certain way, to live a certain life, to die a certain death. Except the Nelanders. People say they follow the old ways over there.

Precio opened her eyes to look at Klem and wondered if he understood her perspective. No one had a choice. They were all like robots. Only the top elite had their way of cheating the system. Most people even didn’t know about that; they felt the matrix was in charge of it all. No, she wasn’t going to allow some stupid computer decide her child’s fate. She wasn’t going to allow some stupid law separate her from her child. She needed to make it across the basin. But she couldn’t do it alone; she needed Klem.

Klem closed his eyes and let this thoughts battle themselves to their death. On one hand, he was a soldier. He had a duty to protect and enforce the constitution. The very constitution that prohibited personal upbringing of children. Thinking about it, that was a very good law. That way, every child was provided for. Every child had a purpose; every child knew how to fit in.

But on the other side, who gave them the right to choose another person’s destiny. This was more like slavery. They had everyone in check from the day there conceived. They kill those with divergent genes claiming they are deformed. Even if they were deformed, who were they to choose if they should live or not. This was related to something he learnt in the academy: ethnic cleansing. This was even worse. Unfortunately, he didn’t have a name for it.

IV - The Escape

They set out at first light. Precio leading the way with Klem bearing the bags. He thought he knew the routes, it turned out Precio knew them better. Using an old book she stole from the library, she guided them though the drainage system. They rounded the bend and walked to the underground station. There, Precio jumped unto the track and began the swift silent walk with Klem behind her. Klem felt the weight on the bags and puffed.

“Should I help you with one of them?” Precio had noticed his laboured breathing. Klem shook his head and struggled to keep up.

“Dear Klem, you need to understand. I don’t know how long before we reach the basin. I have done my research but there was only very little I could find out.” Precio continued to droned on while Klem slowly dissolved into his thoughts.

By the time the morning sun flashed his smile, they were at the edge of the wall already. It was then he heard the sirens behind them. Klem grunted. He had not expected to reach this far before the border patrol caught up with them.

He immediately threw the bags at her and brought out his weapon. By the time the patrol van reached them, he had her kneeling on the ground, handcuffed. The soldiers didn’t know what to make of it all. They noticed his rank and decided to follow along. They decided to help him carry her into the van. Just as they turned their backs, he knocked them out with the butt of his gun. A swift shot at the driver prevented him from calling for help.

Just as they almost reached the river, he saw a fighter plane in his side mirror. He told Precio to hang on and drove the van straight into the river. The fighter plane replied with a missile. There was a loud explosion. The plane hovered over the water for a long time to ensure there were no survivors from the water.

That night, Klem and Precio emerged from the bush close to the river. They slowly began the long swim to the other side.

This is my entry for the Tell A Story To Me, And Win 5 SBD! Writing Contest #4 by @calluna

Thanks for reading

Blessings

[Image source: Wikipedia Commons]