The End

I didn't want to wake up. Every night I went to sleep overwhelmed with fear and anxiety, wondering if this would ever be over. I didn't want to wake up in a world where I can't be free, where I can't spread my wings and let my soul fly. This...my life? It was no life. I was an object, something expendable and disposable, as were the rest of us. The funny thing is, deep down I knew we weren't expendable, for the world needed us to create the future...to create life! The "expendable" tag we had was given to us by our Lords. Yes, that's what we had to call them. "You are nothing! Your sole purpose is to serve Gillead, the best world that has ever existed!". This is the only dialogue our Lords had with us. And I have to say, it was more than enough...

We all had to stick together to deal with the pain, both physical and mental, the handmaids, I mean. Some of us were stronger than others. I can say I was one of the stronger ones, because I wouldn't let myself get brainwashed by all the murmurs and screaming and physical abuse we had to endure. Ofbrad, though, had broken a while ago, and wouldn't leave her room except for her abominable duties. Ofjohn was always frantic, almost galloping around the house. It must have been her way to keep her mind busy.

As for myself...I'd try to cling on every memory I had of my previous life. I cherished and felt every single thing I could. My favorite place in the house was the back yard...the chirping of birds, the soft breeze blowing gently through my skin, the comforting smell of fresh grass. These feelings were so familiar to me, they reminded me of happiness.

And family...Oh, I miss them so much! I had a husband and a son and I was theirs, no one else's. But after this new regime started, I was forced to forget about them and focus on my new task...no, my new obligation: breeding. In a logical way I have lots of children, I shouldn't miss just one of them. But he's the one I love, the one who was born from love. He was mine, and I was his.

This intense longing to be with them was killing me from the inside, but it was keeping me alive and sane at the same time. I had to get out of that house as fast as I could! I just couldn't take it anymore...so one foggy day I decided to get to work. The Lord and his family were having dinner; I found a way to distract the guards for a while, using a radio to create a small explosion in the west end of the house. I ran for it, got to the barbed wire fence and tried to climb it. It was tearing my skin, the pain was excrutiating. The guards had heard me! They came back, running desperately like wolves chasing a prey. And that's exactly what I was. The four armed men pulled me back and threw me on the floor. Then I knew it was the end; they beat me to death. I had offered myself to Death, just like that...but, in reality, I didn't want to live in a world where I couldn't live.

Abduction (based on The Day of the Triffids)

Marie sighed, getting ready to face another complicated, bothersome day. The mother of two had begun to detest her life after the explosion of flashes. To think she was going to embark on a glamorous cruise, finally going to get some time alone with her husband. But no, she now had to attend to her blind daughter, as her husband rested in the hospital, having suffered a car accident. The middle-aged woman, noticeable by her graying hair found her routine tiring and boring, but today she would regret those thoughts, as someone rung the bell at Marie’s doorstep, surprising the woman – she seldom had any visitors.

“Yes?” she asked, as she opened her front door to see three men standing in the barren wasteland that was her front yard. It wasn’t surprising; the city council had ordered the extermination of all sorts of flora, after outbreaks of a weird behavior in plants in the centre of the country. However, those men weren’t ordinary at all. They were clothed in black suits, and wearing thick, dark sunglasses, preventing anyone from recognizing them. “Mrs. Marie Roberts?” the man who had rung asked with a deep baritone, noticeable among his colleagues by being the only bald one, sporting a thick scar on his head.

“That would be me, yes” the green-eyed woman felt really uneasy, gulping. Nothing good ever came when she felt that way, that lump in her throat. “We are the SS (Special Services). Do you mind if we come in?” Marie’s eyes widened when confronted by that request. The SS had been created recently by the President, and citizens were asked to listen to all their requests. “It’s about the blindness outbreak” Marie’s eyes almost bulged out of their sockets – the woman almost couldn’t hold the shock that filled her. That term was what the news used to refer to the event of November 2018 that had blinded 99% of the world’s population.

“Come in” she opened the door and reluctantly led her guests to her living room, inviting them to sit on her couch, even though one refused, the one who was taller and more muscular than the others, who stood stiffly next to the couch. “The truth is we need your collaboration, Mrs. Roberts. We have information that you are one of the 150 people in this country who hasn’t been blinded by the flashes” the bald man spoke without any restrains, bombarding Marie with the harsh truth. “W-W-Wai-Wha… What?!” the woman stuttered, finding it complicated at first to form words, but the man had no time to let her be consumed by her thoughts. “It’s the truth. We need to take you to our laboratories instantly…” he spoke in a cold, pragmatic way.

Marie, however quickly gained her composure. “Even if it is the truth then... Why would you need my cooperation? I am just an average housewife! And I will definitely not abandon my daug-” she exclaimed, standing up, enraged, but quickly passed out, falling to the floor, something impaled on her arm. “We’re sorry but…” the bald man took off his sunglasses, revealing blank eyes. “You never had a choice in the matter”. Marie’s disappearance was never reported, nor Natasha and Julian Roberts’s disappearance that same afternoon...