The Complex

It started off with small things. First, there was a security hype. Police surrounded every corner, terrorist threats were in the red. Just little things, the ones that nobody pays attention to. Then came the bigger ones. Men who seemed to be on steroids with an obvious military haircut paraded around towns and cities, They would stand on campuses handing out papers that shouted the words “DRAFT-BE PREPARED TO SERVE YOUR COUNTRY”. That was when people started to get angry. The protests were always small; people were to afraid to make any big fuss with those guns were always pointed at our backs. But it was when the voices started to be heard in the dead of night that people really started to get scared. Most of the time, the voices were static filled and inaudible, but when the campus shootings started and when every one of the shooters claimed that it was the voices that told them to do it, people began to think irrationally. And then–chaos– cell phones stopped working, the Internet was shut down, rolling blackouts struck countries around the world.

The governments of the world reached an agreement; some underground terrorist organization called The Internationalists were trying to take over the world with their voices and their small EM pulses that knocked out communications and electronics.

The EM pulse of 2012 was what ended it all. All electronics were out around the world, radio waves could no longer be used, and the fear of the people could be smelt with every step. Governments then decided that they could no longer work as collaborative governments but rather needed to work as one single, universal government .

That was 2018, the year fascism took over the world.

-

In a morning’s terror I awoke, my breath hard and raspy. I can smell the dankness of my sweat that is currently running down my forehead. I raise my hand gently wipe away my perspiration before plopping back down into the comfort of my bed. I turn my head to the right and see white. A white wall, a white pillow, a white blanket and sheet– I can see my nose, which to me is inevitably white. I turn my head to the left and see white again. A white wall, a white door, a white ceiling, the window frame is white, the view extending beyond the window is the predictable white, even the plastic that surrounds the screen of the television is white. I pull back the white sheets and examine myself and realize that I have not broken the trend of this tired and bleak whiteness in the room. My clothes are simple. A white cotton shirt and white cotton pants. I lift the hem of my pants to reveal the white of my underwear. Why must everything always be so white?

I scratch my mop of dull brown hair, the only thing in this room to contrast the invading brightness. Gently I remove myself from the confines of my bed and place my feet upon the white plush carpet of the floor and reach underneath my mattress, pulling out a bright red and orange scrapbook. It is the only thing I have remaining of the world I once knew.

I know that they can see me through their cameras that watch all of us every waking moment of our lives, but I have gone far beyond the point of caring of what they will do to me. Right now, death would be a blessing. I take that back, death would be a blessing, just not the one that they have in store for me.

Opening to the first page, I read it like every day to remind myself that I should have fought, should have spoken, because now, I am stuck with no hope of ever seeing the smiling face of my fiancé again, with out hope of seeing the bright blue of the sky, with out hope of ever breathing the fresh air, with out hope of a life with out the controlling hands of The Complex. I stare at the picture of my fiancé, Vanessa, at those beautiful blonde locks that my fingers grazed through every night, that thin body that I could not believe actually wanted mine. Vanessa, I should have listened when you told me to run

The lock to the door suddenly click. I shove the scrapbook underneath the covers just as the door opens to reveal a man carrying keys a large set of jingling keys, all colored white. He too is wearing white.

“Good morning Mr. Anderson,” He says to me with false happiness, grinning with those whitened teeth. “Is everything alright? Our monitors showed that there had been a heightened brain wave frequency and a quickened heart beat. The monitor also showed an increased amount of perspiration and labored breathing. Might I ask what is troubling you? Was it a night terror? Do you need to see the Doctor?”

“I’m fine thank you. I just had a dream that I was running on a track in the fresh air. You know how those things can excite some one these days with no fresh air available and all.” I replied with equal false happiness.

The Internationalists had “poisoned” our air with a biological agent. It gave people large and painful boils, their teeth would rot, their hair would fall out strand by strand, and their eyes would sink, slowly turning a deep yellow before they died. That is what took my Vanessa.

The man smiled and bowed, it was common courtesy to bow in The Complex. “Then good feelings all around." I merely nodded. God I was sick of hearing that. “Now come along Mr. Anderson. You have very special appointment with the doctor today. You have to get your shots so you can go to a different, bigger, better complex. You always complain about this one and we’ve finally decided since your behavior is so excellent that we’re going to send you away.”

I instantly detected his lie. Yes, there were other Complexes around the world, there had to be, but no one was ever transferred You could see it in the staffs’ eyes, they wanted to kill you.

I nodded and got up from the bed. I walked over to my in wall dresser and removed today’s outfit which was (not surprisingly) white. I quickly dressed myself and followed the man whom only I refer to as a keeper of the sleep. That is all there is really to do in The Complex, eat sleep, exercise on the machines they give you for an hour and then head back to your room.

These men, these guards with their white keys, come in if you have a had a night terror or they “put you to sleep.” People are only “put to sleep” if they are out of control, but this is only done is absolutely necessary. If some one is killed, it’s the loss of a product. There are many keeper of the sleep here in this small Complex. Their job is also to keep those who know too much from talking and keeping those who know nothing to remain in the dark.

The truth of what this Complex is really for came as quite a shock to me when I found out. Of course, I had also believed that The Internationalists existed too, and one can imagine what a slap to the face it was me when I realized that they were just a fabricated lie. The Complex is an organ harvesting organization. This is just one of what has to be many. But why have such a place? That is another common question that is asked when people find out what they’re really here for. People still live on the surface; the people who were rich enough or smart enough stayed up there. The poor unfortunates who had little money or little brain came down here. The demand for organs is high up there. They messed with some gene enhancing vaccination and screwed everything up. In reality, the people living in The Complex are the last pure humans on Earth. The people up there constantly need new organs, and we down here have a constant and fresh supply of them.

Complexes like these make a fortune by cutting us up selling parts of us to them. When some needs a new kidney, they simpler take a DNA sample of the person that needs a kidney and they match with some one who lives in one of the complexes. When the match is found they take that person out of the complex and virtually cut them open while they are still alive and under little sedation and take the kidney. Why have the person still alive and barely sedated? Simple, you do not want to ruin an organ by having it filled with unhealthy drugs that will guarantee it for failure. The organ is much better and more healthy if the person is still alive and awake when it is taken from them.

The keeper of the sleep leads me down a white corridor that I have never seen before. He sits me down in a white chair and hands me a white piece of paper and white pencil. He looks at me square in the eye and places a hand upon my shoulder, almost squeezing the life out of it.

“The doctor wants to know how you feel about this place,” The keeper of the sleep says to me.“That way we can make improvements to make it better.”

“Why is everything here so white?” A put a big sheepish smile on my face trying to make the question seem as naive as possible.

The keeper of the sleep’s smile falters but is retained in an instant. “It’s better for the eyes.”

“Oh,” I say in a child like manner. “I didn’t know that. I thought that this dreary color was just supposed to up the chances of suicide, you can get your organs faster that way can’t you?” I smile at my little joke though it seems it wasn’t funny to him. He frowns largely and grits his teeth. I think I heard him growl but I’m not sure. He soon regains his composure and outs his false smile back trying to hide the veil that lurks within him.

“Whatever would make you think that Mr. Anderson?” He said, that smirk and those large white teeth glaring in my eyes.

“Please call me Drew. Mr. Anderson is too formal for me. And the only reason I thought that is because why would we want to live here if the sole purpose is to have the organs cut out of us while we’re still alive and awake.”

His eyes squint and his lips purse together. I can see the color drain from his face. It seems I might have awakened the beast that lay within the lamb of the keeper.

“Now why would you ever think of such a silly thing?” He says to me with his teeth stuck together in anger, the wind whistling between the large gap of his front two teeth. And with that last whistle, he walks away.

I look at my sheet of paper, tears almost well up I my eyes. I have not held a pencil in five years, writing the English language is almost foreign to me. And then it dawned on me, what I was going to write on the paper were going to the last words I was ever going to have on this Earth and my last hope for people to find out what is really going own. It is a faint hope, a small glimmer, but the glimmer is large enough for me to go for it.

So here I sit, in this white chair, in this white hallway, in this white complex, underground, in the year 2025, on the day of August 11, writing what I know in some strange hope that some one might read this and try to help those of us that are trapped in the complex. The attempt may be futile but at least I tried. Please, if you are reading this, open your eyes, we are trapped down here, we need you.

My name is Drew Anderson, I was born the day May 22 in the year 1989. I watched the world collapse before my eyes and didn’t realize that I needed to escape from the atrocities of the Controllers before it was too late. To who ever reads this, please remember me, remember me as the lost soul who tried to help the rest, and please try, do try to stop the horridness of The Complex. And remember kind person who is reading this, don’t let your ignorance and pride stop you from believing this, for your ignorance and your pride are the biggest keepers of the sleep of all.