The Apocalypse Blog
by Melanie Edmonds

The infirmary was full again today. Blood, bone and bruising, and hands holding onto concussed heads. Worse, there was the scream of acid’s burn among the injuries.

A short time after dawn, the roof of one of the machine shops partially collapsed. Those working below had no warning – just the shriek of protesting wood and metal as the weight above shifted, and then the rumble as it gave way and tumbled down. There must have been a puddle of rain on the roof, because that came hissing down too.

Two died. A dozen more were injured, a couple of them badly. They came in all in a clatter, limping, carried, wavering, and I lost count. Somehow, Simon managed to keep track of them all and told me what I needed to do. For once, I did as he said without complaint; it wasn’t a day for personal feelings.

They can’t be shut away entirely, though. I searched every face that came in, looking for some familiarity. My stomach tightened up into knots when I heard about the deaths. I wanted to know who. I wanted to know where my dad was, and Thorpe, and the rest of the Seekers. I kept my hands working, bandaging and applying pressure, and I soothed with what comfort I could offer.

Matt helped out too. He gave up his bed to a guy with a shattered shoulder and hobbled around on his crutch, trying not to get in the way. He looked after the laptop for me while I rushed around. He lent a hand when an extra pair was needed, to hold a man down while a bone was set or when a splinter longer than my hand had to be removed. He patted shoulders and chatted lightly, and tried not to look too ill when he had to apply pressure on a bleeding wound.

Simon had to dose the guy who caught the brunt of the acid. He’d lost most of his left arm; what was left was raw, the skin gone and the meat cut through in rivulets. He wouldn’t stop screaming, and when I saw the damage, I didn’t blame him. I could see the bone through the blood that we couldn’t stop flowing. I don’t ever want to be able to see someone’s bones like that again – I could feel the horror crawling all over me, as if my muscles were trying to escape one by one.

It got worse, though. Simon put the guy out, much to the relief of everyone’s ears, and then he asked Peter to get him a certain kit. He was pale around the mouth with tension as he tried to get a tourniquet to work. There was just so much skin missing.

I went cold all over when I saw what was on the tray Peter brought back. I have no idea where they kept those blades and I don’t think I ever want to. As soon as I saw them, I knew what he was going to do: saw the rest of that ruined arm off. A tiny part of me was nodding and agreeing that it was probably the fella’s best chance, while the rest of me wanted desperately to vomit on the floor.

I tried to excuse myself, but Simon needed the extra pair of hands. I had to make do with trying not to watch, not to hear the sound of a saw against bone or the wet slap of human tissue piling up in a bowl. I shuddered and tried to focus on little things, but I found myself seeing red covering everything. I noticed that the fella was about my age and he reminded me painfully of Terry. He had a piece of twine tied around his right wrist; a token from another time. I wondered what he might have had tied around his other wrist and then instantly regretted it. Don’t look, don’t look.

It took a long time to stop the bleeding and tidy up the shoulder. Once the bulk of the work was done, I managed to slip away to check on the other patients. I wasn’t sorry to leave that room behind me.

Matt saw me and called me over. I must have looked as shaken-up as I felt, because he hugged me – careful not to get any blood on him – and told me he was glad he didn’t have my job. It was good to have the chance to lean on him for a moment and catch my breath, before a pained moan tore me away again.

Most of the day was a blur. I flitted from patient to patient, checked the same thing four times without realising. I didn’t know what I was looking for until Dad appeared in the doorway. He was bewildered when he saw me and kept asking if I was all right; I was so relieved to see him it took me a moment to realise how awful I looked, rusty with dried blood.

He was fine, that’s what was important; it wasn’t his roof that had come down. Thorpe worked with him and the others were all in other divisions. The Seekers were safe; my dad was safe. I could relax. We had a weirdly quiet dinner in the back storeroom, listening to the treacherous rain.

Been a hell of a day. My cutout guard – his name’s Jonah and he looks about twelve – insisted that I go back to the dorm tonight, as the General had decreed. I’d rather stay with Matt, but if I’m honest, it’s a relief to be out of there. A hard bunk and a change of clothes is a good thing right now.

It’s hard not to watch the ceiling as I sit here. The acid is worming its way into Haven, nibbling away at its supports. And once again, I’m cleaning up the mess it left behind.

Some things don’t change.

It’s easy to forget the other parts of Haven when you can’t see them. I’ve spent so long in the infirmary, only leaving to fetch food and supplies from the kitchens, that I had forgotten what it was like in the dorms.

It’s still weird. It’s full of people I don’t know and faces I can’t attach a name to. But a lot of them seem to know my name and I got more than one hello when I made my way to my bunk. It’s disorienting.

My bunk. It doesn’t feel like mine. It’s a place I slept for a few nights weeks ago. All my gear is in the infirmary, along with everything else I care about. Except for the laptop – with the infirmary so full, I can’t get enough privacy to post, but a tiny storeroom off the dorms after lights-out works well enough.

There are a couple of familiar faces here. I managed to catch up with Jersey – she’s doing much better, and she’s found herself a place in this gaggle of girls and women. By standing up to a man trying to force himself on one of the girls, she has secured the approval and affection of everyone here. The guys might not be too impressed with her, but no-one here cares about that. She’s still healing from the fight, but she’s so much more relaxed than I’ve ever seen her. She’s pretty when she smiles now.

Tia is doing all right, too. She a gaggle of friends now – they erupt into giggles frequently. She goes quiet and rabbit-eyed whenever anyone mentions the deal with the guys, though – no-one talked about it before, but it comes up in conversations now, after Jersey’s fight. It was enough to make me draw her aside to see if she was all right. For a stomach-churning moment, I was afraid of what had happened to her when I wasn’t here.

At first, she tried to assure me that everything was fine. She caved all on her own, though, and told me that she wasn’t sure that she wanted to do it. The others say that she should do her part to keep the peace here; most of the women agree that the giving the men sex in their own way is better than having it forced upon them. Jersey tells everyone that they should refuse and disapproves loudly of the whole thing. Tia doesn’t know which way to go.

I didn’t know what to tell her. I hate the deal; I hate what it makes us girls. Every single part of me rebels against it. But I feel bad that another girl has to go in my place to keep this fragile truce in place, and my safety is ensured by someone else lying on their back. So what advice should I give Tia?

Go with your gut, I told her. Do what you feel, and don’t let anyone pressure you. Don’t, for goodness sake, let anyone pressure you into something you don’t want to do.

I think Terry would be upset with me if he knew that I didn’t tell her to just say no. He wouldn’t want his sister even considering it. I don’t blame him; I don’t want to think of anyone I know or care about taking part in it. Neither the girls here, nor any of the boys on the other side. Not that Dale or Thorpe would be interested.

Now I’m wondering if my dad has ever taken part in it. It wouldn’t be like him – he never sought out women after my mother left him. But the end of the world has changed us a lot, made us do many things we wouldn’t have before.

And Matt–

I really don’t want to think about these things. All it does is make me feel ill.

The strangest thing is I feel welcome here; there’s an acceptance that was missing before. I still feel out of place and lost, but the girls all act like I’m part of the furniture. Like we might be friends. Like we might become friends.

That part about being here sounds good. It might be the only part that does.

The infirmary is still full. Many of the injured have been sent back to the dorms to rest and heal – mostly those with minor injuries or broken bones. Those with open wounds are kept close because of the risk of infection.

We’re getting low on supplies. We used a lot of clean bandages yesterday, enough that I was shocked when I went to the storeroom today. There are stacks of soiled ones but no way to get them clean enough to reuse. There’s little chance of getting any more.

I told Simon that we needed to get enough water to start boiling some clean and he grumbled at me; it’s a battle he’s had before. I would offer to help, but I think I’ve used up any credits I might have had here. All I can do is hope that Simon manages to win the argument this time.

The fella who lost his arm – Clancy – has been doped up since he got into the infirmary. He moans about the pain even through the haze of drugs and we had to tie his remaining hand down so that he wouldn’t reach over and mess with his dressings. He doesn’t understand what he’s lost yet. A part of me wonders if it would be better to bring him off the painkillers so that he has a chance to realise what’s happened and come to terms with it. I can’t tell which would be worse torture for him.

The acid didn’t touch Clancy anywhere except his arm and Simon took off all the flesh and bone that was affected by it. Now I wonder if removing the arm might have been the best thing to save Clancy’s life in the long run. If the burn is gone, will that stop the poison from seeping into his system, and stop him from getting the Sickness? Is that one way to get away from it? It’s not something I’m eager to test. It takes months for the Sickness to develop, so we won’t know for some time, and he has to make it through this first.

It’s not looking good for him. Simon’s got that grim tautness about him whenever he goes to check on Clancy’s dressings, the one he has when he thinks things are really bad. He’s not a trained surgeon – he told me that he had learned all that stuff ‘in the field’. He’s done everything he knows how to do, but he doesn’t think it’ll be enough. There’s too much bleeding and the risk of infection is so high here. His chances aren’t good.

I can’t help but think of Matt when that comes up. How bad it got, and how lucky he was. How lucky I was that I didn’t lose him. It makes my throat clench and I want to find a way to stop it. I just don’t know how.

Matt feels the same. He can’t stand to be around the injured when dressings are being checked or changed, or when Simon or Peter or I talk about the dangers. I managed to catch up with him between rounds, and he looked so torn. He doesn’t want to watch someone else get sick like he did; it scares him, knowing how close he got. But he doesn’t want to leave, either, and go back to the dorms like cutouts want him to. At first I thought it was because of the Sharks, but it wasn’t. He thinks the cutouts will try to keep him away from the infirmary, away from me. He’s probably right.

There wasn’t anything I could say. It’s ridiculous that we can both be here in Haven and never see each other, but it’s true. The Seekers I see the most are the hurt ones. I had just got used to seeing him every day, used to having that one warm spot in this place. Now it was going away and there wasn’t anything I could do about it.

So I kissed him. I don’t know what part of my brain prompted me to do it – it happened in a rush, but it didn’t stop nearly as quickly as it started. It was one of those kisses that gets away from you, all caught up in itself. When it was done, we didn’t know what to do with ourselves, so we just stood there, leaning on each other.

I was called away before either of us figured out what to say. A short while later, he headed back to the dorms on his crutch, escorted by a grumpy cutout. We had time for a short farewell – a word, a wave, that’s all.

Now I remember that morning last year, all those months ago, when I woke up in his bed. I felt this way then, wondering if I’d done something stupid and ruined the good thing we had. Wondering if was a horrible mistake.

This time, I really hope it isn’t.

Jonah, my cutout keeper, wanted to shove me back in the dorms before the rain today. I don’t know if it was orders from on high or just a personal preference, but before he managed to chivvy me out of the infirmary door, Dad turned up with dinner.

Jonah was about to insist when Dad clapped him on the shoulder and said, “It’s all right, son.” And that was the end of that.

Poor Jonah was left nonplussed while Dad led me off to one of the back rooms to eat. I felt a little sorry for the cutout; we don’t make his job easy. I try not to take out my frustration on him because I know he’s been ordered to be here, but I think it slips through anyway. I should try to be kinder to him; he seems like a nice enough guy, even when he has to tell me it’s time to leave.

Dad caught me up on what’s happening with the Seekers in the boys’ dorm. Thorpe is Thorpe, as stoic as ever. He hasn’t been back to have his ribs checked in a while and Dale is getting increasingly worried about him, so I asked Dad to get him to come see me. The big fella would say he was fine if his own hair was on fire; I wish he looked after himself as much as he did his friends. Maybe Dad can give him that extra nudge and ease all of our worries.

Terry is doing all right. Dad frowned when he mentioned the tensions going on right now – things are still awkward between Terry and the Sharks. I don’t know how much Dad knows about what blew up between the Sharks and the Seekers, but he knows enough to scowl and shake his head, wishing that it wasn’t there. I wanted to tell him all about it, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to mention the threat of rape that’s hanging over those boys. It’s just not the sort of thing that wants to fall out of my mouth around my dad.

He said that Matt’s settling back in all right, and shot me a sideways glance. As if he knew that something had happened. Whether he knew or suspected something, my blush gave me away. I’m sure I caught a little smile before he changed the subject and asked how the patients were doing.

We talked about the accident that caused the infirmary to be so full, and I shivered because the rain was beating at the roof over our heads by then. It felt like the rain might hear us.

“Don’t worry,” Dad said, patting my wrist. “The infirmary was one of the first roofs they sealed. Army’s got its priorities.”

“What about where you’re working? Have they made sure it’s safe yet?”

He had one of his little pauses, the ones that aren’t sure if it’s right that I check up on him so much. Like when I used to check that he’d eaten during the day. “They’re checking all the buildings now,” he said. “Making sure that nothing’s loose or being eaten into.”

That was something. He told me that the machine shop that came down was the one responsible for making the parts for the Converter, the machine that’s going to save all of us. Everyone is feeling low, partly because of the sudden deaths and the awful injuries we’re struggling to heal. Dad didn’t say much about that; I think he knew the guys in that workshop, the ones that have died, and he didn’t want to talk about that. I didn’t push him.

Also, it’s going to take time to dig out the equipment and convert another space so that the work can be resumed. It could have put the schedule back by months. He didn’t seem particularly worried by this setback; in fact, he was very calm about it. It’s taking time for people to come around to working again, to pushing on towards making this thing happen. But they will, he said. They’ll pick it up and run with it again. They just need time. Because let’s face it: what else will we do?

Dad went back to the boys’ domain after the rain stopped, and I smiled at Jonah when he came to escort me. He looked at me sideways, unused to it. I suppose that’s my own fault; nice came too late for comfort.

It occurred to me on the way over that I’m probably the safest person who wanders around Haven now. I always have a cutout with me and company is a powerful level of protection. While Jonah might not be the most pleasant company in the whole world – I’m lucky if he says three words together to me – he isn’t unpleasant either.

On the way back tonight, he said the most that he’s ever spoken to me at once before. “You’re lucky. Having family here.”

I skipped around a puddle and glanced at him. “Yeah, I am.” I know that only too well, sometimes. It grabs me by the chest and it gets difficult to breathe, because I’m still afraid to believe it’s true. In case it turns out not to be.

I felt suddenly sorry for Jonah. It’s easy to forget that everyone here has lost someone they care about. The people we love slip through our fingers so easily in this time After the bombs, even if we clench our hands and try to hold on. We’re all damaged and grieving, in our own ways. He saw me with my dad and must have thought that things were so bright for me. But they’re not. It’s not like I haven’t lost people, too.

“It’s not all roses, though,” I said. He frowned at me, so I went on. “I barely see him. And while it’s wonderful that he’s here, I still…. It scares me.”

Jonah’s look turned quizzical.

I sighed and said, “He’s one more that I can lose.”

I don’t know how Dad did it, but Thorpe came to the infirmary today. The first I knew of it was a kerfuffle out in the main room while I was trying to get Clancy, the amputee, to eat something. He was resisting my efforts to get a spoon between his lips and I was just about to give up when I heard voices rising outside.

I went to see what was going on – some of the other patients have been getting snappish between boredom and a lack of painkillers – and found my big fireman friend facing off with the nurse, Peter. I rushed over before something unpleasant happened.

“He’s refusing to let anyone except you deal with him,” Peter said, throwing his hands up. Thorpe looked entirely unapologetic about the matter.

“He’s a friend,” I said. “It’s okay.”

“Special, are you?” I wasn’t sure if he meant me or Thorpe, and I wasn’t sure that I wanted to know.

I bit my tongue on what I wanted to say. “Not that special. I can’t get Clancy to eat anything – do you wanna see if you have any luck?”

“Great, now I’m doing your work too?”

“Consider it a swap,” I said, gesturing at Thorpe.

Peter grumbled away and I had to shepherd a scowling Thorpe into a back room so we could have some privacy. He’s doing better; he said things were fine and his ribs are healing. I noticed a couple of new bruises, though, and a recent scrape on his hand.

“Been keeping the peace again?” I asked while I cleaned up his hand.

He glanced at me sideways but chose to change the subject by asking, “He been bothering you?”

It took me a moment to realise who he meant. “Peter? No, he’s okay.”

Thorpe grunted like he didn’t believe me.

“Why, would you go out there and smack him if he was?” I was kidding, but Thorpe wasn’t. My half-smile faded and there was an odd little pain in my chest when I realised he really would do that. His affection is startling when it sneaks out. “It’s okay, you don’t have to,” I said quietly. “Don’t go getting yourself in trouble, huh?”

“Like you, you mean?”

Despite all the segregation in this place, word travels fast. I wrinkled my nose at him and scruffed his hair – he was sitting down, so I could reach his head without tiptoeing. He was as stoic as ever, pointedly ignoring his ruffled hair. That was when I noticed how short it was, barely touching his collar at the back, the ends all blunt and neat.

“Matt’s work?” I asked. There was an odd, nauseating twist in my innards when I thought about it; the image of Matt fiddling with Thorpe’s hair reminded me of when I saw them together on that morning after. It was ridiculous; a haircut was nothing to feel jealous over.

“They can’t send him back onto the roof until his leg’s better. He’s keeping busy.”

Well, he was doing all right, at least. I tried to ignore the rest and asked about the other Seekers instead. Thorpe said they were doing fine. There was no accompanying scowl to indicate secret concern, so I think that was the truth and not just a stout assurance.

He said that all the able-bodied hands have been put on the recovery effort. First, they covered the ruined area so that the rain doesn’t damage anything else. Now they’re working on salvaging what they can from the wreckage.

“Dad said the mood was pretty bad out there.”

“It’s not the first time something like this has happened.”

I paused to blink at him. “What do you mean?”

“There are lots of rumours.” Thorpe’s tone didn’t give the rumours much weight – he’s heard varying wild stories, no doubt. “Been a couple of accidents around this Converter of theirs now. Half of them are convinced that the whole project is cursed.”

“Cursed?” I wrinkled my nose again, in doubt this time. Thorpe’s grunt agreed with me. I don’t believe in any of that stuff. Why does superstition have to get involved in these things? People are so eager to see patterns where there aren’t any and make a meaning of it.

Or maybe there is a pattern and they’re just blaming the wrong cause. I asked Thorpe what kinds of accidents they were, but he didn’t know; I’d have to ask someone who was around when they happened. It’s probably nothing, though; just people’s paranoia inventing intrigue where there isn’t any. In the After, it’s easy to believe that the world is conspiring against you.

Still, no harm in finding out a bit of history, right?

Despite all of Simon’s hard work, Clancy slipped away from us today. His shoulder started bleeding again and we couldn’t stop it. Before we knew what had happened, he was pale and fading, and there was a red puddle growing on the floor. Then he just stopped.

Simon, Peter, and I were quiet for a moment after we realised he was gone. I felt like I should say something but nothing would come out – my mind was as blank as his eyes. Simon nodded to us and straightened his thin shoulders, then went to tell the injured resting up in the main room. They had all worked with Clancy and were his friends, andd I don’t envy him the job of breaking the news. I drew the blood-soaked sheet over the dead man’s face, trying to ignore his eyes, and strained to hear the fallout out there.

There was barely a peep. It was creepy – the murmur of Simon’s voice carried through the closed door and then there was nothing. I knew it wasn’t a surprise to them – the medic wasn’t expecting Clancy to last this long – but I thought there would be a reaction. It seemed like they just sucked it up like bitter medicine.

The patients were quieter than usual when I came out of Clancy’s side room. A couple of them were well enough to head back to the dorms, and they were promising to pass the news on. There was a weight on the room, pressing words down into a hush and keeping glances on the floor. I saw one fella cross himself and another spat over the side of his bed.

It was more than just losing Clancy. They’ve been like this since the roof came down – this death has made it worse, darker. The morose feeling is palpable now; sometimes it gets so thick that it’s hard to breathe.

They wouldn’t say much to me, so I went outside to get some air. After the cloy of blood and the atmosphere in there, even the low orange sky was a relief. Jonah was out there, standing watch, and scowled when I stepped outside. I waggled a hand at him and leant against the wall, assuring him that I wasn’t going anywhere.

“Did you hear?” I asked him. I could feel the sky lowering as the cutout’s expression darkened. I took that to mean ‘yes’. “I’m really sorry.”

“I didn’t know him that well.”

“Oh. You just seemed– something wrong?”

“I’m fine.”

“It’s not the first time something like this has happened, is it?”

Jonah speared a glance at me, weighing my worth against his distrust of me. “Yeah. Couple of accidents before this one.” Apparently, he didn’t think there was any danger in telling me.

“Like what?”

“Truck lost control and took out a wall, destroyed a month’s worth of parts. Then a fire gutted a building – only reason it stopped was the rain.”

I’ve seen a shell of a building with blackened walls, out towards the far edge of the compound – that must be the one that burnt. “Sounds pretty bad. Were many hurt?”

Jonah shook his head slowly. “Not like this. Minor stuff.” He glanced at me and then frowned at the door to the boys’ dorm across the courtyard. “No-one died.”

“Yeah, it’s awful.” I feel like I should be more used to it by now, but I still couldn’t shake the look on Clancy’s face after he was gone. I rubbed my arms as if I could drub the feel of it off me.

“Yeah. And each time, we get set back.”

“With the Converter?”

Jonah nodded and kicked a heel at the ground. The gesture made him look like a kid wearing grown-up shoes, and for a second, I was tempted to straighten his collar.

Jonah seemed more disturbed by the whole business than he wanted to share, so I left him alone after that. I have to admit that it seems strange. I’m not superstitious – I don’t believe that these things come in threes, or that there’s some kind of curse. There has to be more to it than that, or possibly a lot less.

I’m hoping for the latter, but a part of me can’t help seeing the former. What happened to me to make me so paranoid? Or is it cynicism?

Matt came to the infirmary to have his leg checked today. Simon says it’s doing fine – just needs time to heal fully and for Matt to stay off it as much as possible.

When I heard he was coming in, my heart beat all out of time, thudding against my breastbone. I’ve never been nervous to see my best friend before – I didn’t get the chance after our last brush with intimacy, way back in the time Before, because the bomb went off so soon after. It took me a moment to realise how scared I was.

I felt like a little girl with a crush, desperate to see that spark of acknowledgement and reciprocation in his expression. Wondering if he’d even meet my eye, or laugh it off as if it was nothing. It didn’t feel like nothing. At the time, the kiss was like a sigh we’d been holding in for a long time. Now that we’ve had a chance to draw breath again, what do we do with it all?

I hovered in the background while Simon checked Matt’s healing stab wound and busied myself with changing the dressing on the arm of a middle-aged man who got caught in the roof collapse. Then I was finished and Simon was wandering off to do something else, and there wasn’t any avoiding it any more.

I walked over to Matt, but while my legs were working, my tongue had abandoned me. I looked at him and had no idea what to say beyond a pathetic, “Hi.”

He didn’t seem to have trouble speaking. He asked how I was and how things had been here. If I was all right after losing a patient. All those things that friends talk about when they catch up. I found my voice enough to answer. I felt like there was a neon sign over our heads and we were talking about the weather. There was a smile lurking around Matt’s expression and a slide to his gaze that suggested he felt it too.

“I hear you’ve been keeping busy,” I said. Even Jonah was sporting shorter, neater hair since the discovery of a hairdresser in our midst.

Matt grinned and I saw my mischievous friend from the time Before. “I have. It’s all your fault, y’know. You started a trend.” He gestured to his own hair, which I’m sure is neater than when I had finished cutting it. He probably fixed it as soon as he had access to scissors and a mirror.

“And I haven’t even got to enjoy it. You do do girls, right?” The question was out before I could censor myself and my mouth formed a little ‘o’, as if it might be able to take the words back.

I don’t know if it was the phrasing or my expression that made Matt laugh. “Sometimes, but I’ll always make an exception for you. Come on.”

And off he hobbled to one of the side rooms. I followed him, not quite sure what we were talking about any more, and sat where he asked me to. He fussed around my head, leaning on his crutch with the ease of practice, and let his usual patter fall around us. Do I want this or that, it could look cute like this. If he had gel, he could make this bit stand up – maybe we could make do with something else like in that movie. I poked him for that.

I closed my eyes and let him do whatever he wanted. It was the old Matt. The friend who fixed my hair when I got to parties, undoing the wind’s work, and rescued me after my dyeing disasters. He tidied me up and made me feel pretty. I haven’t felt pretty in a long time, among the dirt and the grime.

When he was done fussing over me, I stood up and thanked him with a hug. He wobbled, so I made him sit down, but he didn’t want to let me go. He had a hand on my cheek and I couldn’t move away.

“What are we doing?” I asked.

“I dunno. What we want?” he suggested.

Could it really be that simple? It felt that simple as he wound his fingers through mine.

I looked down at our hands. My head couldn’t hold it all. My oldest friend, the one who knows that I ate worms when I was nine to drive my mother up the wall, who knows about each boy I’ve been with, each success and failure. And I know about his habits, his encounters, the few times he’s got close enough to someone else to get hurt and how badly they ended. Here we were, tangling up with each other. It was crazy and I was bursting with it.

The next thing I knew, we were kissing and winding in close. It was good, and right, and made my heart race.

The clatter of the door yanked us apart and Simon stopped abruptly to stare at us. He said something cutting and left again. The slam made me jump, but Matt was grinning. Then we giggled like kids and I was at home.

Today, it was hard to keep from smiling – my cheeks itched every time I tried to hold it back. It feels like things might actually work out, like there’s a weight lifted off Haven. Or perhaps it’s just me. Nothing has changed, nothing concrete. But now I have something – someone – warm and beautiful. Together, we belong. That makes all the difference in the world.

More of the injured returned to the dorms today, leaving only two still in our care. Draskill, the cutout with the broken shoulder, is still in a lot of pain. He’s white with it a lot of the time, though he has enough pride to hold back complaints. Pauly is a die-hard mechanic with tattoos like intricate sleeves stitched under his skin. He has internal injuries that Simon is unhappy about, but is holding his own. Liberal use of antiseptic and fresh dressings seems to have fended off any more infections so far.

Outside in the compound, the rebuilding is underway. All of the teams have been drafted in to help – only the sick, small, or injured are exempt, along with those of us caring for them. They’re picking up the pieces and salvaging what they can from the wreckage. There’s something heartening in that, in the silent determination to keep going despite the hurdles and setbacks. We’ll make it in the end.

There are still grumbles. Even the cutouts have dark expressions as they work; as Matt said, they’re fellas too. They’re as prone to superstition and pessimism as the rest of us. It’s easy to believe in the black when it feels close to us all the time.

I suspect that there’s something in the rumours and fears. Nothing supernatural; I think it’s more mundane than that. There’s no denying the pattern and the only reason that no-one is crying foul play is that it doesn’t make any sense. Why would anyone attack their best chance for survival? Even if someone was that malicious, the cutouts would have posted guards over the Converter and scoured the place for culprits. There hasn’t been a whisper of it. It was the acid, they said. An accident.

It shines a curious light on the cutouts and the General. I don’t think that the General has as much control as he would like us to believe, but I also think that if something is going on, he knows about it. I just can’t fathom why he’d hide a problem like this, why he hasn’t solved it by now.

I wonder if I can get to see him tomorrow, while the rain falls. They’re starting to get wise to my little tactic now, so maybe I should go earlier and see if he’ll talk to me willingly.

Maybe I should go tonight. I feel so light that he can’t possibly say no to me. I itch, to smile, to spin, to run down and find Matt. Or to request answers from the General. Some options are nicer than others, but I’ll take what I can get right now.

Yesterday, I forgot about Jonah. All caught up in my own determination, I didn’t give a single thought to the chain lashed to my leg.

When I cheerfully went to head to the admin building after the rain, he planted himself in front of me and asked where I was going. I gaped at him like a guppy and told the truth on reflex – I was going to see the General.

“He doesn’t see anyone this late,” the cutout said with an edge to his voice that wanted to end the conversation right there.

“Not even if it’s an emergency?”

“Except if it’s an emergency. Is it?”

I didn’t think I could pull off a convincing lie, so I didn’t try. I couldn’t think of anything suitably emergency-like to use beyond ‘we’re almost out of bandages’.

“I just really need to talk to him. It’s important,” I said.

Jonah was unmoved. “You have to return to the dorm now.”

I thought about asking if I could visit Matt instead, but that would have flown as well as a crumpled paper aeroplane, so I didn’t bother. Back to the dorm with me it was.

Today, Jonah was watching me much closer than usual. If it wasn’t his eyes making the back of my neck prickle, it was nurse Peter’s. I don’t know if it was coincidence or if they’re double-teaming me, but it was annoying. Every time I looked around, one of them was there.

Dad swung by for dinner and that gave me some relief. He’s still allowed to do that, despite my close cutout monitor. When I asked him how he was able to come, he just shrugged and said they had no reason to keep him away. And why shouldn’t he be allowed to see his daughter? Someone has to try to keep me in line.

Like they’re not already trying. I didn’t mention that; he knows well enough already. But maybe his visits are a reason for my relatively mild punishment.

I asked him about the Converter. What it’s supposed to do, how it’s supposed to work. He shrugged and said he didn’t know; it was a different mechanical team and they didn’t share that kind of information. But his expression gave something away – it clamped down the way it did when he didn’t want to talk about something. He was holding back something he didn’t want me to know. He used to look like that when I mentioned my mother in the months after she left us.

I never pressed him about my mother. He was hurt so badly when she left and I didn’t feel like I should pry. It was between the two of them and that’s where he wanted it to stay. I tried to respect that.

But this is bigger than us and I’m a different girl. If my mother came up in conversation now, I’d probably press him about that, too, because we might not have time to get to it later. So I didn’t let him get away with claiming ignorance; he knew something and I wanted to know what it was.

“It’s nothing, Faithy,” is all he said.

It’s not like Dad to refuse me like that, even if he did it with a note of sadness. Normally he would give in when he saw that I was determined about something. When he wouldn’t do that this time, I got upset and gave up. I had to bite my tongue against saying something we’d both regret; instead, an awkward silence descended. I wasn’t sure what to say next and Dad isn’t the most verbose person in the whole world, so we finished our dinners in silence.

What kind of secret would he hold back like that? From me? It must be important for him to keep it to himself. It makes a trickle of fear sneak up my spine – what would be so big, or so bad? Maybe he just doesn’t know what I can handle these days.

Besides, he’s not the only one who knows; I’ll just have to get it out of the General. As soon as I figure out how to get to him.

For the past few days, I’ve been trying to think of a way to get to the General. I have considered many ways to escape Jonah’s watchfulness, though they made me feel guilty in advance; I didn’t want to get him in trouble. He has been good to me when he didn’t have to be and I don’t have anything against him. I even tried asking him to take me to the admin building a couple of times, but he shook his head and said that I had to stay in my designated areas – the infirmary and the dorms, with brief trips to the mess hall.

It was so frustrating. The General is so close but I can’t get to him. There’s something going on that no-one will talk about, and it just killed three men. One of the survivors might never use his arm again. There are fresh stains on the infirmary floor, none of them pleasant. We’re running out of disinfectant to scrub away the smell with.

Then suddenly, there he was, right here in the infirmary: the General, in his neatly-pressed uniform with its shiny buttons and impressive epaulettes. He looks so neat until you get up close and see the frayed threads. He was talking with the patients quietly when I saw him, patting shoulders and hands reassuringly. I thought his hair looked greyer since I’d seen him last, the ageing creeping out from his temples to swathe his whole head.

My pulse juddered uncertainly as I went to position myself close to the doors. I wasn’t going to interrupt him – the two injured fellas, Draskill and Pauly, seemed heartened by whatever he was saying to them – but I wasn’t going to let him leave easily either.

As it turned out, I didn’t need to ambush him and demand his attention. He stopped in front of me and looked me squarely in the eye, with a sharpness to his gaze that made me self-conscious. I restrained the urge to tug my shirt straighter or glance away.

“I hear you want to talk to me,” he said. Straight to the point – I like that.

“Yeah, I do. Probably not in public, though.” He had his usual escort of cutouts with him, a grim-faced man behind either shoulder. And I didn’t want Draskill and Pauly to hear what we were talking about. Those guys need to heal up.

The General gave me an assessing look – the kind that makes my skin crawl uncomfortably – and waved his escort away. We moved off to the side of the room, but not out of it. It meant I had to make an effort to keep my voice down, just between us. I was nervous – I had gone over how I’d approach this a hundred times, but it still felt like a test I was about to fail. I took a breath and grabbed hold of my courage, and opted to just dive right in there and see which way the tide was flowing today.

“I want to know why you’re not doing anything about the sabotage,” I said. My courage sat on the back of my tongue, waiting to see if it had to run and hide.

The General’s eyes narrowed and demanded to know what I was talking about. So I told him what I knew: that this wasn’t the first time the Converter had been damaged, and each disaster in this place seemed to involve it. At least, the ones I knew about.

“I don’t believe in curses or that God is doing this,” I said. “It’s being done on purpose, and it’s killing people.”

His expression clamped down, trying to shut off the conversation right there, but I caught a glimpse of something that stabbed ice into my belly. It was so much more – so much worse – than I had assumed. The pieces shifted in my head into a pattern, a sickening picture that I didn’t want to look at. The whole room got darker.

That was when my dad’s words rang in my head, carried on his sadness. “It’s nothing, Faithy.”

I thought he had been fobbing me off, but he had been telling me the truth. It was so obvious. The Converter was nothing: an illusion. The roof collapse was keeping the citizens of Oz from seeing the curtain that hid the wizard. The General didn’t just know about the sabotage; he ordered it.

My mouth opened but nothing came out. In hindsight, that was probably a good thing – who knows what kind of trouble I would have got myself in if I had been capable of forming words at that moment.

“They were accidents,” the General said, biting off the words precisely. He leaned in closer to me and I suddenly realised how big he is: as tall as Thorpe and almost as wide. I’m tiny next to him, and I felt it. “Nothing more. Do yourself a favour, Faith. Leave it alone. You’ll only end up hurting yourself if you push this. Do you understand?”

I stared at the General like a horrified rabbit and nodded. Usually, I’m the first one to speak when others can’t; this time, it was me who couldn’t make a sound.

His heel squeaked when he turned and stalked off, tugging his escort along with an imperious gesture. I could feel my heart thumping out of time with his boots as he stomped out of the infirmary.

I wish I had pushed him. I wish I had made him explain to me what the hell he thinks he’s doing, setting this thing up and then tearing apart its edges so that no-one can see the whole thing. Once anyone sees the Converter, they’ll know it won’t work and this whole place will come crashing down around us.

If I had pushed him, I think he would have had me killed to keep his secret. I think he still will, if he thinks I’m a danger to his project.

I remember the look on the General’s face when he told me about the other bases when I visited his office last. He told me how they imploded and tore themselves apart, one by one. Matt told me that cutouts are just men; their discipline is thinner than anyone would like to admit. Give them a little of what they want and they’ll accept the rules and the restrictions; letting them become unhappy is dangerous for everyone.

I thought that was just about sex, but it’s so much more. This whole place is a construct of compromises and lies designed to keep people just happy enough to stop them rebelling. There’s no truth in any of it. There’s no future here. Any real hope was left out in the rain long ago.

The question now is: what do I dare to do about it?