The Proposed Prophecies

“Good Morning, my dear. I thought you would never wake up.” Liv’s eyes opened wide. The sound of Eve’s voice was frightening but Eve was nowhere to be seen. The lights above her head were brighter than the sun. She looked to her left and spotted a nurse checking on the drip that was connected to her vein. The room smelled like a room in a hospital and the beeping noise of the heart monitoring machine reminded her of Ashley’s machines, before she got better. The nurse turned around and placed her head against Liv’s forehead before writing something into the binder she held in her left hand. Her expression was stoic, as if she was a robot that looked like a regular human and dressed like a regular nurse in a white scrub.

Liv tried to sit up but each move hurt. It felt like she was carrying stones inside her body and she had a migraine that was stronger than ever. She looked around and noticed she was in a small white room. There was another bed in it across from hers. The only difference between this room and a standard hospital room was that there were no windows, only one sliding door on the right.

“You need to calm down.” The nurse said and her voice was far from Eve’s polite and calm voice. The nurse’s voice sounded rude, loud and fast. Liv laid back down again and she looked at the sliding door which wasn’t so far from her bed. The way her body felt right now meant that she would be unable to run. She was scared. She didn’t know what had happened or where she was. The nurse walked out and shortly afterwards she heard what sounded like someone walking in high heels in the hallway. She closed her eyes and hoped it was not Eve. She pulled the blanket all the way up to her neck and pretended to be asleep. Suddenly the sliding door opened.

“Liv?”

She opened her eyes. It was Jake. She didn’t even know what to say as she felt an overwhelming happiness at seeing him. He stood right above her bed.

“What happened and where am I?” she asked.

Jake explained that he had come for them that day but when he spotted the crowd of infected people climbing into the house through the window, him and his team started shooting at them and eventually burned the house down with a smaller explosion. Liv smiled. The “small explosion” he was implying had felt to her like a huge atomic bomb. She remembered the strong hot forced air throwing her out of the window and the shootings and Carmen’s voice but nothing else.

“We found you passed out in the back yard. You were in a military hospital for about three weeks due to some mayor injuries and then transferred here, into the bunker hospital about a month ago.” Liv realized she must have been unconscious for almost two months.

“Where are my family and friends?” She tried to sit up again but the pain was still too much to take. She felt as if her lower back and shoulders had screws in them, and her head was about to explode and her arms felt weak, as if they were only bones with no mussels. Jake grabbed her arm gently indicating that she should relax and not sit up.

“The kids are alright. They were placed in the yellow zone and Carmen and Joann were place into the red zone.” Liv had no idea what those colors meant but she noticed he had skipped Tiffany’s name.

“How about Tiffany?” Liv asked but Jake placed his head down for a second and then looked back at her. “She is dead. She was attacked by the infected and killed on the spot.” Her heart started to race and her chest moved heavily in and out.

“Are you sure she is dead?” Liv started to panic. It was hard to believe that Tiffany was gone but as much as she fought against the thought she remembered her voice as she had yelled for help and the way she had laid on the floor, reaching her hand towards Liv, and the way the infected man had bit her leg and she had cried from the pain.

“She is dead. Trust me.” He paused, but somehow she was unable to believe it. She wiped her rolling tears but they kept coming.

“I am sorry about Tiffany. I know she was your friend. Trust me, if I could have saved her life, I would have.” He sat down on the edge of her bed and placed his hand on hers. She felt anger surge inside her. The virus was the fault of the proposal, and Jake was part of the Proposal plans. She didn’t want to be mad at him but the words came out faster than a summer storm.

“What are you doing each time you have to leave?” She always wondered where he was going but she never felt entitled to ask. He wasn’t her husband to question but somehow the anger and sadness about Tiffany’s death made her braver than she usually felt. He let go of her hand and reached out to the nightstand where he grabbed a napkin and handed it to her to wipe her tears. “I was travelling around the world. Each time I traveled to a different place. Mostly, I was making sure the virus was released properly by my team. Last time I left, me and my team worked on securing this bunker so I could bring you here.” He looked at her and paused. It felt strange to her to hear these words coming out of his mouth. But they were at least genuine, she thought. “I know that’s not what you probably wanted to hear. But it is the truth. This was the whole reason for me being on Earth, to work on the process that was proposed to us in order to keep peace.”

“Peace? How is this world maintaining peace? And what about Amy?” the heart monitor started to beep faster as her voice loudened. “Peace between the Alters and humans… and Amy was a good woman. I did care about her. I swear. She chose to end her own life.” It felt so warm inside the small patient room. She started to feel claustrophobic from the lack of windows and natural light. She wondered if the whole bunker was like that. “Why her?” Liv asked as it still didn’t make sense why he had chosen to be with Amy.

“Eve ordered me to be with Amy,” he said and looked away.

“Do you think she did it because…” she didn’t even finish the sentence and Jake nodded his head. “I think so. I could never figure out why she needed me to stay around you but once you told me about you being a hybrid, I realized that must have something to do with it. Plus, she had some type of an agreement with your grandfather.”

Suddenly it felt like Amy’s blood was on her hands all over again. She wiped her tears and Jake handed her more napkins. “It wasn’t your fault,” he added but it didn’t feel that way, even if he sounded genuine.. He leaned over and hugged her strongly. Suddenly her tears became heavier. There was something about his body warmth that made her let them out faster. She thought of her grandfather and wondered what the agreement was that he could have made with the devil.

“Please, don’t touch the patient,” the nurse said as she came through the sliding door, holding a tray with packaged food which looked like crackers and chicken salad.

“I will come and see you once you have been transferred into the red zone and we will talk more there,” Jake whispered and slowly let her go.

The nurse raised her black eyebrow as she watched Jake leaving. She seemed mean and cold. Liv assumed she must have been an Alter too but it was hard to say as there was no physical difference as far as she could tell, other than the small mark at the back of their head that each Alter was supposed to have, according to her grandfather’s diary. But it was hard to see it as everyone had hair covering it and so did the nurse.

“Here, eat it. You will be released in two days and trust me, there will be no such good food down there.” Liv wondered what she meant by down there. She thought they were already down in the bunker since there were no windows. She didn’t even know what day was it or what time. But somehow it didn’t even matter. All she wanted was to see the kids and her friends. She still couldn’t believe Tiffany was gone. She felt similar to the way she had when Amy had died, as if she was stuck in some kind of unbelievable nightmare.

Two days later a guard came to pick Liv up. She had been given a red scrub from the nurse earlier that day and was told she needed to wear a red uniform at all times. She walked behind the tall guard. Her hands were in cuffs like she was some sort of criminal or a serial killer. She noticed his head was shaved and he had the mark of the circle crossed in half on the back of his head.

She walked behind him through the long bright hall all the way to the elevators. The building inside reminded her of a hospital even beyond the room she had been in for the past three days. The bright long lights above her head reminded her of a movie in which the injured person was taken into the surgery room and as he was transferred on the bed through the hallway he saw one light after another. But her eyes started to water as she kept looking at the lights above her head

There were many doors on the left and right but they were all closed. The hallway was empty and quiet, only the noise from the air-conditioning was louder than she was used to and it was cold too, despite her long sleeves and long red uniform.

There were about ten elevator doors at the end of the hall, five on the right and another five on the left. She felt the man grab her arm and pull her into the last one on the right. He opened the door by looking into the small screen which looked like a sensor next to the elevator and pushed the button for the third floor. She realized the elevator could only be opened with the sensor. She wondered if she would have access but the cuffs on her hands suggested she definitely wouldn’t. There were fifty buttons in total and it appeared that they were on the fortieth floor. He was quiet on the way down and all she could focus on was his mark on the back of his head as she stood behind him. It got colder as they reached the bottom. There even seemed to be less oxygen and it was somehow harder to breath.

Once the door had opened she spotted a huge dark and cold hall in the shape of a circle with about five doors around. The elevators were exactly in the middle.

“What is this place?” she asked as she walked behind him.

“Why do humans have always so many questions? Just keep going and you will see.” He opened one of the doors and took Liv’s handcuffs off. Her hands felt a little sore as the handcuffs had been put on very tightly. She had light red marks across her wrist as she looked at them. Suddenly she realized the guard was looking at the mark on her hand, the same exact one he had on his neck. She wondered if he knew why she had it. “Axel was a good leader to Alters,” he said suddenly and looked at her. He didn’t seem angry or annoyed anymore. She remembered her grandfather’s diary in which he had written about how he worked with Axel and how he was a sort of father figure in his life.

“I will give you some advice. Don’t trust anyone here and keep your eyes and mind open. You will need it down here.” He gave her a slight push, urging her to step through the door. She wondered what he meant by keeping her eyes and mind open but he closed the door behind him before she could ask. She suddenly realized she must be in the red zone. Everyone was wearing red scrubs and red sneakers just like she was. It appeared that there were only women in the red section, mostly between the age of twenty until somewhere around fifty. There were rooms left and right on the long hallway. There was a way to the left and way to the right. She wasn’t sure what was she supposed to do and started to walk towards the right side. The hall was tighter than upstairs and people walked around. It was crowded in there and suddenly it felt overwhelming. She didn’t know anyone and they all kept talking to each other, no one even looked at her and were pushing her as they walked by. She didn’t enjoy spending time in crowded places and it felt claustrophobic as she could not walk without being touched by others.

“Watch out!” A short woman raised her voice as she walked by and they almost bumped into each other. It felt like a prison or the awful halls in high school where she definitely didn’t belong in the popular teenagers club.

“Liv!” She heard Carmen’s voice. It suddenly sounded more pleasant than ever and tried to look around but there were so many people. “Liv!” the sound of her voice appeared closer, louder. Suddenly she spotted Carmen’s curly hair. It had always been the first thing she had noticed about her. They hugged and cried for a while. Liv felt relieved and happy that she had found at least one person she was looking for. “I thought you had died,” Carmen whispered and it felt like she was holding on to her harder than she ever had before.

“Hey! Where do you think you are going? You are not marked yet.” A guard raised his voice and grabbed Liv out of Carmen’s arms, holding her by the back of her uniform and dragging her after him. She wanted to tell him she didn’t know she was supposed to wait for him but he didn’t seem to care. He dragged her back to the exit and chose the hallway on the left instead of right. He pulled her along and the people in the red zone seemed to move out of his way and stick to the walls to give him space. They seemed to be afraid of him. Liv wondered what had been going on there for the past two months. He stopped next to the door number 543 on the left side.

“You have room number 543.” The tall guard assigned her the room and thrust her towards him to mark her neck with an indication of her room number. He used a small pen like marker that carved under her skin like a tattoo machine, but quicker. She closed her eyes from the sudden pain and her neck felt instantly sore. She remembered the small device from her grandfather’s journal. It matched the description of the one they used to mark Alters and Axel used it to mark the humans he was unable to read.

“Don’t you have a job to do?” The guard raised his voice at Carmen, who appeared next to her.

“We will talk later,” Carmen whispered and walked quietly away. Liv knew Carmen well and the fact that she hadn’t tried to defend herself in front of the guard was strange.

“You have your schedule inside,” the guard added and left. The crowd of people passing by her room made her sick to her stomach. She had never liked crowds to begin with and now she had to live underneath the ground with tight hallways where everyone else was also moving from point A to point B.

As Liv entered her new room, she tripped over the full-size bed that was more of a mattress and landed on the concrete floor. She couldn’t feel any pain as something in her marked neck was numbing her whole body. She managed to get up and look around.

The room itself was the size of a bathroom and there was enough space only for the small nightstand and a narrow but tall closet. As she opened it, the stench of mold hit her nostrils. She held her nose for a while to prevent herself from vomiting. She touched one of the seven hanging red uniforms. They looked like a red version of the uniform that she used to see paramedics wearing. Liv thought this must be one outfit for each day of the week, but there was no underwear nor socks. She wasn’t wearing anything under her uniform at that moment and it felt very strange. She wasn’t used to running around without anything under her clothes which smelled just like the ones from the closet.

The room had white walls and floors with an excessively bright light above her head and a vent next to it. It reminded her of a smaller version of a hospital room. In fact, so far the whole building had appeared that way. She spotted the small screen on the door where an image of a woman’s face appeared as she stepped closer to it. She had long brown hair in a ponytail and big brown eyes. Her voice sounded as if it was computer generated as she announced the menu options. Liv was supposed to check her schedule on a daily basis, which she found on the small screen, but the main thing that caught her eyes was the map of the bunker.

The bunker appeared to consist of fifty floors just like she had seen in the elevator. The first thirty floors appeared to be zones named with a color for people and then there was some type of research center, and above that were five floors of dormitories for the guards, before the hospital on the fortieth floor. There was a school above the hospital and the top floor had the commander’s office. Liv thought that must have been Eve’s office and she wondered if every bunker around the world had a commander’s office or if Eve was only in this one.

The red zone appeared to be on the third floor. She was able to click on the red zone and it showed the exact map of it but when she tried clicking on the other zones or parts of the bunker it denied her access.

The red zone appeared to have its own bathrooms and showering places just like in schools and the map showed that Liv’s room was near the showers. There were five exists and the red zone looked like it was shaped in a big circle, which reminded her of the circle hallway when she had got out of the elevator and was surrounded by the five doors around her. The dining area was all the way on the other side of the circle. It looked like it would be a long walk to get there.

She thought about her family and Ashley and Tommy and wondered if they were alright. She remembered Jake telling her that Ashley and Tommy were in the yellow zone. According to the map this was on the sixth floor.

She started to think about how she would be able to enter the yellow zone and wondered if they were even allowed to move out of their designated zone.

The female voice on the screen spoke again. The sound made her jump. She was not allowed to look at the map of the yellow zone.

“Good evening section red. Dinner will be served in approximately one hour. Refer to your schedule as always and don’t forget, your cooperation during these next few years will be crucial.”

“Next few years?” Liv exhaled deeply. She could not imagine spending even a week in the overcrowded bunkers, without natural light and fresh air. She remembered how she used to travel, and the view of blue sky and the pleasant sound of the ocean. All she could hear in the bunker was the sound of the air conditioning above her head. She wondered if the lights would be turned off at least at nighttime since her eyes still watered because they could not fully adjust to the brightness and she needed to sleep in complete darkness.

An hour later she followed the crowd led by the guard to the dining area. It took twenty minutes just to get to the dining area. As she waited in line she looked at everyone around her. They all looked vacant, as if the life had been sucked out of them. There were women of all races, different hair types and body shapes slowly following the guard. He was the shepherd and they were the sheep.

Her eyes searched for Carmen but the hall was long and crowded with people. Long tables with benches provided the space to eat. People seemed to sit right next to each other as even the dining room space was limited. Liv wondered what the showers looked like and she imagined herself standing naked in the crowd, fighting over a shower head. Her eyes widened just thinking about it.

“Liv!” Carmen yelled and waved from one of the tables she was sitting at. Liv was still standing in the line for food and it took another half an hour just to get the small portion of green beans, rice and a piece of bread. Surely she would still be hungry after that small portion. The whole dining area had massive walls and it smelled like mold and old water. She wondered if this was an underwater bunker or whether it was only surrounded by earth. What did the bunker look like from outside? There was no picture of it on the monitor in her room.

Carmen had saved her a spot next to her. Liv sat down and placed her tray onto the long metal table. “This is going to be a long time in jail. I hope you are ready,” Carmen said.

“How did you get here?” Liv asked and Carmen described the day the infected people entered the house. She said that Jake and his team had rescued them and taken them into the Miami harbor where they got placed onto a ship that took them to the island. She wasn’t sure where this island was exactly but she described the overgrown jungle and a door built into the rocky hill where the main entrance to the bunker was. She said they were separated from Ashley and Tommy and she was placed into the red zone with Joann. Liv realized that Carmen had not mentioned Tiffany which meant only one thing. “Is Tiffany really dead?” Liv asked but wasn’t sure she truly wanted to know the answer. If Carmen would say yes it would be official.

“I think so. The house was overtaken by the infected people and then it was burned down by the explosion and fire.” She rolled her green beans around the plastic plate on her tray.

“Oh. You are alive! We thought you had died,” Said Joann as she was approaching with her tray. Liv had never really felt close to Joann. It was mostly Carmen that hung out with her even in Amy’s house. She realized she knew very little about Ashley’s caregiver. But Joann had always seemed so fond of Ashley and Tommy which meant she couldn’t be a bad person. She suddenly felt disappointed. She should have been there for the kids and not let them to be separated from the rest of them. As Joann picked at Carmen’s green beans, Liv struggled to push aside certain emotions. Tiffany’s death had been so unfair. It wasn’t that she didn’t like Joann but Tiffany had been her friend. She suddenly missed being called L, even if it was annoying.

“I had a woman asking about you here yesterday,” Carmen whispered. “She said she was your mother,” Carmen suddenly said. “She said she will stop by when she has time. She wore the same uniform as the guards around here.” Well, she would have to face her eventually, Liv thought, but she wasn’t sure how should she react. She felt lied to but at the same time it was her mother. She wanted to yell at her for lying for so many years but also wanted to hug her as she missed her endlessly. Liv put her head in her hands and her hair fell into her face. “She seems nice. So what if she is an Alter?” Carmen said cheerfully and Liv felt Carmen’s hand on her arm to cheer her up. “Your mother is an Alter?” Joann raised her voice and Liv heard Carmen shushing her. “But… that’s impossible.” Joann lowered her voice.

“Apparently it isn’t” Carmen added. Liv struggled to raise her head. Carmen said that her mom had said her sister was there somewhere in the bunker. This gave her the extra push to lift her head. She looked at Carmen and smiled. “Did she say in which zone?”

Carmen shook her head. “No. And I didn’t ask, sorry.” But that didn’t matter as much as the fact she was there. She looked over to Joann who still looked shocked. Liv realized that it was strange that Joann even knew about the Alters. She thought people were not supposed to know. Carmen must have told her.

She exhaled and looked around. There were people everywhere, some of them talking while others were eating in silence; people of all shapes and personalities. There were those who were tall and those who were short, those with short thin hair and those with long, thick hair. Many of them were incredibly skinny. She had never seen so many different types of people in one place before. The realization that the bunker would be her new home for some time really hit home. What had been in Eve’s mind when she had decided to start the process earlier than the planned date listed in Jason’s diary? She exhaled deeply and picked on the green beans and rice. It was tasteless and she felt like she wanted to vomit. But she ate it anyway because she was hungry. Carmen hadn’t really touched her food either. She heard Carmen whisper. “Welcome to the weight loss boot camp.” It sure felt that way.