So it Begins | Kathleen Bauer
Bloodied Smoke
by: Jennifer Martin
I turned my head as far as I could with my back against a tall, concrete building to get a better look at Cole Street, the main road that cuts through the slums. The thick white smoke that blanketed the street made it impossible to see more than a few feet away, and it never lifted. My little sister, Annaleigh, squirmed around in my lap. I returned to my previous position, where I was staring at another concrete wall while I smoothed her hair.
There were books filled with pictures of what our world might have looked like years ago, the smoke rolling in over the mountains. Some stories believe that a vengeful god cursed our city or that the clouds came down to Earth of their own volition. But they were exactly that: stories.
Annaleigh sat up from my lap, a cough racking through her frail body. She was wrapped in a thin blanket to try to combat the cold. She shivered under the blanket and I knew she was about to start coughing again. There was nothing I could do except tell her that everything was going to be okay. A lie.
My older sister, Julie, was out to get our weekly food supply, and I couldn’t help but worry as the minutes went by. Normally, we would split the food between the three of us, but recently we had been cutting down our shares to give to Annaleigh.
Cole Street was busier than it normally was in preparation for the day ahead. I watched every shadow pass by in hope that it was Julie. Occasionally, an Official would walk by the side street, their white, puffy suits almost blending into the smoke if it wasn’t for the large CRAVEN INDUSTRIES written on the back. The masks they wore to combat the smoke were also a sign that they were near; you could hear every breath they took in.
Judging by the frequency with which the Officials were passing by, we needed to be ready in just over an hour, and we needed something in our stomachs. The healthier we looked, the better.
A small noise sounded from my little sister, something not quite like a cough, but more of a squeak. “Candace.”
She twisted around so I could see her face, which was supposed to have a cloth over the bottom half of it to keep the smoke from her lungs, but the fabric lay in her hands. “What’s going on, little one?” I asked her, my voice slightly muffled from the pink cloth tightly secured around my mouth.
Annaleigh was only eight years old, so it hadn’t surprised me or Julie when she got sick. The children never wanted to wear their face coverings, so they constantly succumbed to the smoke’s effects. She held the cloth higher up so I could see it through the haze. Along the blue and purple design, there was a spattering of dark dots. Blood. I looked at my sister’s face where some of it had stuck to her lips, her eyes wide with fear.
I grabbed a corner of her blanket and wiped the blood from her lips, whispering that everything was going to be okay. She was not old enough to die yet. I fastened the cloth back over her face, folding it so the blood didn’t come back in contact with her mouth.
I looked behind my sister, to Cole Street, and still no Julie. It had officially been too long for her to be out for the food.
“Come on, Anne.” I started unraveling Annaleigh from her blanketed cocoon, careful not to jostle her too much.
“Where are we going?” she asked weakly.
“We’re going to go find Julie,” I explained. “Now keep your head down, okay?”
Annaleigh nodded and I picked her up from the ground, her arms wrapping around my neck and her legs around my waist. She wasn’t as heavy as she had once been. Her bleeding lung had taken a lot from her.
I kept the blanket wrapped around Annaleigh’s body, and she pressed her face into the crook of my neck. The smoke blanketing Cole Street wouldn’t help her condition, but it was unsafe to let her stay on the side street alone while I searched for Julie.
I made my way onto Cole Street, looking both ways before turning left to where the weekly food supply was distributed.
I stuck alongside the concrete buildings, being careful not to walk too close to the road. You could never see when a car was coming through, and they were always driving too fast. Occasionally they would splash you with the brown puddles alongside the road. Julie taught us to brave the trash by the buildings rather than the water. It would soak you, and it wasn’t easy to get dry again.
After a few minutes of dodging hurried shadows and skirting around outstretched hands from dark side streets, I rounded the corner that I knew would take us to where they distributed the food. I tripped as I turned, feet shuffling unsteadily against the road as I fought to keep myself and Annaleigh from falling. I managed to stay upright, but Annaleigh started coughing again. I patted her back, trying to soothe the fit.
Desperate people would try to trip you in the side streets and would mug you while you were down. I looked at the person across from me, ready to fight with whatever strength I had stored in my bones.
Julie lay on the ground, hand outstretched from where she grabbed me. Nothing covered her blood-splattered mouth.
“Oh my god,” I whispered. I reached for Julie’s hand, easing her into a sitting position. Her eyes were unfocused, and her breath rattled around in her lungs. Before she could explain anything, I ripped some fabric from Annaleigh’s blanket and tied it around her nose and mouth.
“Why was your face covering off?” I asked, both angry and relieved that I found her before an Official did. They didn’t brave the side streets, but they patrolled Cole Street constantly, and if they saw the effects of a bloodied lung on you,then you were taken. We didn’t know where, just that people who lingered on Cole Street for too long with blood on their lips were never seen again.
Julie took a few minutes before she responded. “There was a little boy. He couldn’t have been older than five. His mom couldn’t find anything to cover him with.”
“You can’t sacrifice yourself for people you don’t even know,” I said. “Enough people are going to die today, and you will not be one of them.”
Julie shook her head. “I have the same probability of dying today as I do breathing in the smoke any other day.”
“Are you going to die, Julie?” Annaleigh asked from behind us.
Julie beckoned for Annaleigh to sit on her lap while she whispered small promises that she would not die, but there was no guarantee she could keep that promise. Annaleigh happily listened to our sister’s false promises and curled up in her lap as Julie stroked her hair.
A horn sounded from far down Cole Street and I could see the dread entering Julie’s face. Half an hour. We needed to get Annaleigh fed and put her in the shelter before the day was done.
“Julie,” I said gravely. “Where’s the food?”
Julie’s eyes searched the area around her, as if she had just remembered why she was out on the streets in the first place. “I just had—”
“Someone must have taken them while you were down.” I rose from the ground, turning to look down the street. “Get Anne to the children’s shelter,” I said.
“Where are you going?” asked both of my sisters in unison.
“To get more food.”
“They only hand out so much per household, Candace. You know this,” said Julie. She was right, they would know I was Julie’s sister. They had us all on file. “They will know you stole,” she added.
I looked back to my sisters sitting on the ground, cloth obscuring the bottom halves of their faces. Annaleigh looked up at me, her eyes drooping, her body needing rest. She needed something to eat so her body could work against the sickness.
“I’ll do what I have to do,” I said, then started walking toward the hurried voices at the end of the street.
*
Nobody noticed when I swiped some extra bread from an unattended table at the food distribution. I was always told how much I looked like my older sister. The other people getting food probably didn’t even notice that I was a different person from Julie.
Now, half an hour later, Julie and I stood shoulder to shoulder with hundreds of other people. Annaleigh was safe at the shelter. We were congregated at the widest part on Cole Street, nicknamed Blind Death because it was where the smoke was thickest. Drones flew around with large fans to clear the smoke, revealing dozens of Officials circling the crowd.
You could tell who was an Official and who lived in the slums just based off what they wore. Their masks were a stark white and covered the Official’s whole face, making sure that no smoke or outside elements could get in. A tube jutted out where the person’s mouth would be and connected to a compact oxygen tank they carried on their back.
Once the drones had cleared as much smoke as they could, a man dressed in a white suit started to talk. He must have had a microphone inside his mask, which looked even more polished than the Officials’ masks. We could hear his every word without the loud inhale and exhale the masks usually had.
“Welcome all, the new and the veteran,” said the man.
Every year it was a new man delivering the same speech. He recounted what this day was truly about, and the cause we were supporting. Losing lives so we could save lives. The man delivered statistics from Craven Industries, how much oxygen was used since last year, how much the smoke had grown, how many people had died, and how many people had been born. Craven Industries knew everything.
This year, the man revealed, the death rate was down, and the birth rate was up. We knew what this meant. Every person from the age of fifteen knew what this meant—more oxygen was being used. Every year we would die for a cause that we didn’t believe in.
Then came the line we were all holding our breath for.
“We will be taking ten brave people to serve the cause.”
The crowd erupted. They never took more than five people at most. I looked over at my sister who was standing next to me as the people around us screamed and wailed, for themselves, for their family, for their friends. Julie and I only looked at each other.
It was harder to breathe than usual amongst the frenzied crowd. I tried to breathe deeply, but it only resulted in the fabric of my face covering attempting to suffocate me. Julie grabbed my hand.
The Officials quieted the crowd as the man on the stage yelled instructions over the commotion; “In a contained manner, form two lines on either side of the podium. One for women and one for men.”
Julie guided me to the left where the other women were starting to form a line. I stared at Julie’s back, not able to watch as several women were pried from the arms of their husbands and children.
Officials walked up and down the line, making sure that nobody tried to run. If you ran, you died. It was better to take a chance at the screenings.
They took the weakest of us. The ones that were wasting the limited oxygen. Sick people were going to die eventually, so they might as well die for the cause.
We watched as the line of women went through the screening tent. I had gone through the screening process twice, so I knew what was happening inside. They would take your blood and smear it on some kind of testing strip while another Official checked your mouth and your vitals. The Officials asked questions that I couldn’t hear, and then they decided whether we go left or right. Right was bad.
Julie went before me, giving my hand a squeeze before they ushered her under the screening tent. I wrung my hands together, hearing nothing from inside the tent for several minutes. Then it was my turn.
I flinched a little when they stuck the needle into my skin and hissed when they took my face covering off. There wasn’t as much smoke in the tent as there was outside, but I still didn’t feel safe. They stuck gloved fingers into my mouth, checked my pulse, and felt my bones. I had half a mind to bite or kick them, but I refrained, holding on to the hope that my sister was beyond the other wall waiting for me to go to the left with her.
“Candace Mitchelle?” the Official that took my blood asked.
I gave him a nod.
“Your blood is normal. Your gums only show mild gingivitis, nothing serious. Your pulse and your bones are strong.”
They recited my medical history from a large screen, like it was boring for them to be going through this, instead of it being life-threatening.
“You have a criminal record,” he said, eyes flicking to me from behind his mask’s glass.
I didn’t reply, but my heartbeat quickened.
“You stole from the food distribution. You were reported just this morning.”
“My little sister needs to eat.”
A single heartbeat passed. The two Officials glanced at each other until the one that had inspected my mouth nodded.
“Left.”
I breathed out, grabbing my face covering before I exited the tent. There were two groups of women on the other side. The women to the left looked relieved, but still had faces full of worry. The women to the right were dead silent. I scanned the faces of the group on the left as I headed toward them. Julie’s face wasn’t among them.
I stopped halfway to the group, attracting an Official’s unwanted attention as I did. I turned and scanned the faces of the other group. Next to two other women, stood my sister. She stood with her head up high, but when our eyes met, tears started streaming down her face.
I took a step toward her. An Official stopped me in my tracks, asking me to return to the group where I belonged. I started to scream for my sister against the arm of the official. Screamed until I could barely breathe with the cloth covering my mouth.
“Please, she’s my sister! Please, just let me say goodbye!” I screamed.
Another Official came over and whispered to the one holding me back. The one holding me nodded and looked at me. “One minute,” he said, then let me go.
I ran to Julie. Crumpled in her arms.
The Officials stayed away, but close enough that they could interfere if we tried to run. When their backs turned for a second, I pulled Julie behind the other two women who I didn’t recognize.
“What are you doing?” Julie hissed.
Before Julie could understand what was happening, I held my breath and took off my face covering. She swatted me away when I tried to reach for hers.
“Anne needs you, Julie, not me,” I said, still fighting her for her face covering. “They won’t even know that we switched.”
“I will not let you die for me, Candace. I was picked, not you.” Julie kept fighting me until, eventually, she gave up fighting, her sickness overwhelming her.
The Officials surged through the two infected women just as I was able to take Julie’s face covering, placing mine in her hands. People always said we looked like twins, so I could only hope the Officials thought so too.
“Time’s up, you two,” one of the Officials said.
I fastened my sister’s face covering around my nose and mouth. She screamed as they dragged her away, not thinking twice that it could have been the wrong girl.
Two other women joined us, one about my age and the other much older. We never saw the infected meet their demise, but we could assume what they did to them.
The Officials ushered us into two separate cars,both black and barely large enough for the infected souls and Officials, as the man at the stage started talking again. I listened to the first sentence of the Farewell speech before an Official forced my head into the car.
“Ten noble people have been chosen for the cause. Heroes.”
I could hear the screaming commotion of the crowd for miles, until the only sounds left were the coughs and sobs from inside the car.
Thankfully, I sat close to the window and watched as we drove through Cole Street and out of the slums. The smoke started to clear.
At first, I thought I saw mountains, the large forms along the horizon that my grandfather used to talk about. The pictures you could find in old books on the street. The other women started to look out the windows as well, transfixed on what a world could look like not covered in smoke.
The clearness was almost blinding. I looked for the sun, but it was hidden behind dark clouds. It was hard to see what was beyond the car until my eyes adjusted enough to see the mountains.
They didn’t look like the ones in books. The ones in books were jagged and green, sometimes white at the top. These were dull gray and smooth. These had white smoke billowing out of them. The same white smoke I had been told not to breathe in too deeply. The white smoke that was currently killing my sisters—killing me. The white smoke nobody knew the origins of.
The same drones that blew the smoke away on Cole Street flew back and forth, directing the smoke away from the tall, polished buildings to our right, and toward the place all of us called home.
Previously published in a limited-run of Rewilding Our Story, a webzine exploring the importance of environmental storytelling