Zoe liked to be productive, she was finding. It was hard to do given they had no schedule or constraints on their time in the Nest, but you couldn’t entirely escape chores even in a closed environment underground – or wherever they really were. After a few days in the Nest, they had gone through nearly all of the clothing in the large walk-in closet and she decided it was time to do laundry. Because she was the first one to take on this task, she was also the first one to discover the message scratched into the lid of the washing machine. She stared at it for several seconds before her brain began to process what she was seeing.
“NLI LIES,” read the message. At first she thought it might be slang for something or that she was misinterpreting it. But then she remembered the name of the organization that had created the Nest: New Life Industries. That must be what the letters meant. She glanced up at the camera in the corner of the room and realized that it couldn’t see the underside of the lid from its position.
Trying to act as if nothing had happened, she began picking up the clothes she had gathered from the others and tossing them into the machine, but the letters emblazoned in the lid seemed to be glaring at her so angrily that she found herself squinting. She shouldn’t have been surprised by the idea that they were not the first people to have lived in the Nest. It’s not like it was designed specifically for them or anything. But how many people had used it? And if it was a shelter from the outside world, a refuge from some horrible post-apocalyptic event, why would anyone ever leave? Had they chosen to leave? Or had they been forced out?
The questions flew through her mind like daggers, each blade cutting open a new wound in the fragile calm she had managed to build over the last several days. She knew she would have to tell the others, but she was afraid to stir things up again. Everyone had finally managed to settle into a peaceful balance and she didn’t want to ruin it. Still. They deserved to know. And unless she volunteered to do laundry every time, someone else would discover the message for themselves. Once they had, they wouldn’t be able to trust her anymore unless she came clean.
Closing the lid, she took a deep breath and walked back into the living room. She’d hoped to run into Ethan so she could ask his advice, but Micah was sitting there reading instead. She hesitated at the edge of the room, hovering over the back of a couch in uncertainty until he stopped reading and looked up at her curiously.
“What are you reading?” she asked, aiming for casual but hearing the anxious edge in her voice.
He looked down at the notebook and shrugged. “Nothing important.”
After looking closer, she realized that she’d seen him carrying that notebook around a lot lately. “Do you have a minute?”
“Sure. What’s up?”
“Well, I decided it’s probably time we should do some laundry.” She felt suddenly chilled and rubbed her hands over her arms to warm them up. “But I’m having trouble with the machine. I can’t figure out how the dispenser for the softener works.”
He looked at her blankly, but his eyes seemed to be really studying her, searching for hidden meaning behind her words. “I’m afraid I’m not very good at doing laundry. I’ve ruined so many clothes by putting the machine on the wrong setting or mixing colors together.”
“You’ve done laundry before, right? That’s enough. It won’t take long. I just want a second opinion.”
Frowning as he closed his notebook, he left it on the coffee table and stood up to follow her into the utility room. Waiting until he was standing beside her, she lifted the lid of the machine and looked at him with meaning. “What do you think?” she asked.
Micah regarded the message on the underside of the lid with a neutral expression. Rubbing a finger over his lips, he said, “That is strange. Maybe you should just leave the softener out entirely.”
“If you think that’s a good idea,” she said, still watching him closely.
“You know, I just thought of a book I found that you might like.”
“A book?”
“Yeah, it’s a biography. I don’t know what it is that made me think of it right now. Something the author said about laundry, I guess. Anyway, it seems like something you would like. Come by when you’re done here and I’ll find it for you.”
Nodding without understanding, she watched him leave and then closed the lid, adjusting the settings on the washer to start the load. Her heart was pounding hard in her chest and she couldn’t help feeling like she was missing something. What was he trying to tell her? What was this book he was referring to? Did it have something to do with the message on the washing machine? She couldn’t be sure of anything, but all she could do was play along and hope things started to make sense soon.
She had wanted to settle into this new life without asking questions, but she wasn’t sure if she could. In spite of her efforts to ignore it, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong, starting with why she would have ever agreed to have her memories erased. It was unfathomable. Even if the world had ended and she had experienced horrible things, she couldn’t imagine a scenario that would be so awful that she wouldn’t want to remember it. Experiences, even awful ones, shape who you are, and without those memories, how could she be sure of anything about herself?
When she returned to the living room, Micah was waiting for her with a book, a biography like he had promised. She didn’t recognize the name of the man on the cover, but he insisted that she check it out. Since she didn’t have anything to do until the laundry finished, she decided to take it back to her room and read for a while on her bed. As soon as she opened the book, a folded piece of paper fell out, a note from Micah.
“I’m working on an escape plan,” the note read. “It will take time to put it into action, but we have no idea if NLI will actually honor their promise to let us leave after the mandatory transition period and I don’t want to get stuck here forever. I don’t trust them.”
Folding the note again, she rested her head back on the pillow and sighed. Micah was exactly like the person who had scrawled that message in the washing machine. But what did it mean? What had NLI lied about? Were they really trapped in the Nest for their own protection or to avoid some worse fate? Was the mandatory transition periodo only a ruse?
She had too many questions and not enough answers.
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
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Jade stretched out on her bed to work the kinks out of her back after hours of painting. She’d finished her first abstract representation of the Nest. A dark hole with a swirl of colors intended to reflect the various people and objects in the space as well as the spiraling claustrophobia that the enclosed space induced in her.
Staring up at the blank white ceiling tiles above the blank white walls, she considered turning her painting project into a mural project instead. Her bedroom would be so much more tolerable with a little color on the walls. She could make patterns or even a little trompe l'oeil scene to make the room feel bigger than it was. Anything to break the horrible monotony of snowy white. She wondered if such an act would violate the rule in the video about damaging Nest property and decided that she didn’t care if it did. At least getting expelled would mean leaving. Whatever her reason for deciding to come here in the first place, she clearly hadn’t anticipated how much she would hate it.
She frowned up at the ceiling, glared really, and began to imagine the monstrosities she would paint. She might even paint on the ceiling if it would stick. She rolled her feet on top of the bed and reached up to poke one of the ceiling tiles and determine if the surface was likely to accept paint, but when the tile lifted, she noticed something hanging down from the edge of the tile. A string. An insatiably curious person, she found herself tugging on the string before she could even think to be cautious, and soon a bag was tumbling down on top of her.
It was a nylon bag tied shut with a string, and when she opened it to peer inside, she was shocked to see a gas mask inside. She almost dropped the bag in shock, but her curiosity helped her put all other emotion aside long enough to continue digging. Lifting the mask out with two fingers pinched on the strap, she dropped it on the bed beside her like a dirty diaper before opening the bag wider to see what else was hiding within.
The only other thing inside was an old style manila envelope with a string tie enclosure. Yanking on the string, she ripped it open to find a newspaper clipping and a small brochure photocopied onto cheap paper. The brochure had the same logo on the front as the one plastered all over the Nest, including on all their clothing. Under the logo were the words: Shelter Guidelines. Flipping through the worn, yellowed paper, she discovered that it was a manual of sorts that referred to the Nest as a shelter to be used only in the most dire of circumstances. In other words, a fallout shelter.
She shivered as she continued reading, unwilling to accept that the world outside was destroyed. Could that be why she had agreed to have her memories erased? She turned her attention to the newspaper clipping, horrified to read the headline: The End of Everything, Bombs dropped on three US cities. Her eyes blurred as she continued to read the story, devouring every bit of information while simultaneously trying to pretend she wasn’t seeing the words right in front of her eyes. The article referred to a number of organizations and events that didn’t ring a bell in her mind. It didn’t bother to explain much of anything either, assuming readers already knew the details leading to the disaster, and focused instead on the tragic collapse of civilization.
What would happen when the mandatory transition period was over? Would they ever be told the truth? Or would they continue to be lied to and have reality hidden from them—a reality that they had each individually decided to escape. Part of her wished that she hadn’t found this hidden parcel at all, and a flash of doubt made her wonder if she should just shove it back up above the ceiling tiles and pretend she’d never seen it. But she could tell that the others were not going to stop searching until they learned the truth. The illusion was ruined for her, so she might as well rip the bandaid off for them as well.
Wiping tears away that she refused to admit she had shed, she took a shaky breath and scooped up the gas mask, dropped it back into the bag and tucked the envelope under her arm as she left the room. Zoe and Ethan were sitting close on the couch in the living room, exchanging sickeningly sweet glances as they worked on a crossword puzzle together. They both looked up in surprise when she stomped into the room and slammed her hand against the wall.
“I found something,” Jade told them in a shaky voice. “Where are the others?”
“Sloane’s working out,” Zoe said uncertainly. I think Olivia and Micah are in the rec room.”
“Go get them,” Jade demanded, walking around the edge of the couch and collapsing into it with shaky movements.
“What?” Ethan asked in amusement, clearly thinking that she was being dramatic—which, to be fair, was her typical default state.
Zoe was less certain. “What did you find?”
“Go get them and I’ll tell you.”
Hopping to her feet, she said, “I’ll get Olivia and Micah. You fetch Sloane.” She nodded at Ethan as she said the last words and then fled the room.
“How is it that you need me to get him? Are your feet broken?” Ethan protested.
Jade glared at him. “Can’t you see I’m shook up? This is serious.”
“Fine.” Sighing rather dramatically himself, he stood up and begrudgingly headed for the fitness room.
When everyone had gathered in the room and began quizzing Jade, she focused instead on calming her racing heart by counting slowly to a hundred while staring at the ceiling. They waited for her at first, but Sloane couldn’t manage to be patient for long, sweating profusely and shifting his weight from foot to foot.
“What are we all doing here, J?”
Still slumped back on the couch, Jade picked up the bag and tossed it onto the coffee table without explanation. Micah immediately crouched down beside it and tugged at the drawstrings. His forehead creased in confusion as he pulled the gas mask out and began to inspect it.
“Oh god,” Zoe gasped, covering her mouth.
“What do you think that’s doing here?” Olivia asked, voice calm and objective.
“For when they gas us, obviously,” Zoe replied, nearly hysterical. “Oh God oh God oh God…”
“That’s not why it’s here,” Jade replied, finally sitting up. Opening the envelope and pulling out the sheets of paper inside, she tossed them on the table one by one. “It’s here in case one of us is stupid enough to try to get outside.” Exhausted by this thought, she slumped back on the couch in despair.
Zoe began to sob in earnest.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Ethan said, leaning closer to look at the papers. “If everything is so awful outside, why are we being monitored by someone outside the shelter?”
“Who’s to say that they’re not still in the shelter too?” Olivia asked in a solemn tone, but she was still being shockingly calm in the face of the horrible news splayed out before her. “This Nest could be one shelter in a complex of other shelters all being monitored by some sort of caretaker at a higher level.”
“That’s a big leap to take,” Sloane noted. “I mean, we don’t have any evidence either way.”
“We could ask,” Ethan said reasonably, pointing to the correspondence slot on the door.
“They’ve been reluctant to answer that kind of question.” Micah finished reading the brochure and put it back on the table. “Where did you find all of this, Jade?”
“Hidden above the ceiling tiles in my room.”
Sloane snorted. “What were you doing looking up there?”
“None of your business.”
“What are we going to do?” Zoe asked breathlessly.
“Nothing, apparently,” Sloane replied, adjusting the sweatband on his head. “Looks like we’re stuck here.”
“If these convenient clues are to be believed,” Micah said under his breath, but Sloane ignored him.
“I’ll be in the fitness room if you have any other depressing discoveries to share with the group, he said as he jogged out of the room, apparently unfazed by Jade’s discovery.
