Missing Girls & Lost Boys

Chapter 1

Chapter One

The City

I have never believed in God any more than I have in wishing upon stars or blowing dandelion fluff into the wind in hopes of good fortune.

My father always encouraged a cynical mindset, since preparing for what could go wrong was always more practical than expecting things to go right.

But at this moment, I can’t help but pray for a happy ending, wishing this to be the origin of some impossible fairy tale, for the twists of fate to fall in my favour.

I long for optimism to emit from my bones and have the universe rain blessings upon me.

I long to be rewarded for my patience, and my eyes swell with tears for fear of the unknown.

I’m scared and I’m alone, and I just want to go home.

I don’t know if I’m getting motion sickness, or if I’m just sick to death of being in this truck.

A panic of nostalgia grips my chest, and before memories threaten to tease, my eyes widen to halt the rush of tears.

A flock of swallows hook my attention, gripping me with their synchronised flight.

The hypnotic, sweeping motion is a soothing distraction after the miles of insentient land, as if they were sent for me—a sliver of light to reflect on in darker times—but I can’t help but envy their freedom, their unchanged lives.

Do the males quibble and fight for favour?

Are the females meticulously controlled?

Do they even feel the immense pressure to contribute to the world’s population problem? I doubt it, the lucky bastards.

The delight is spent, along with my last frayed thread of patience.

The unrhythmic rattle of something within the truck has been demanding my attention.

A loose screw clatters its steel washer against the Plexiglas partition between me and the driver, drawing my gaze across its surface, weathered with circular abrasions.

There’s a stripe of a stain, like that of a rusty cross, but on plastic?

Most likely not. Most likely blood. Between this and the crumbling mud and threads of hair upon the chequered steel floor, my bare hands have been tucked tight beneath my arms since we set off.

I dare to reach out and tighten the screw, so the washer will be wedged into silence.

“Hey!”

I flinch at the volume of the ranger behind me, my eyes drawn to the rifle gripped across his lap.

“Get back, woman! Stay away from the driver!”

With a narrowed glare towards him, I reluctantly flop back into my seat.

But without further distractions, I’m forced to pay attention to the bubbling nausea tickling my throat.

My mouth waters threateningly from the noxious scent of the exhaust filtering into the vehicle.

I clear the condensation on the window with my sleeve and refocus outside.

Without turning to the ranger behind me, I ask, “Is it much farther?”

The power-trip ranger ignores me, while the driver turns back, having to speak above the muffle of his helmet and the partition. “The checkpoint was the ten-mile marker. Any minute now.”

I nod, but my body tightens in response.

Since we set off this morning, the sun has arced across the sky and is now beginning to dip, and I’ve yet to see another hint of civilisation.

But like a grand inhale before a deep dive, I breathe in every last detail of the Wilds, because this is where I’m comfortable.

This is where I was raised. The way some people find peace with religion, the Wilds was my church.

I was taught the basics of faith, but never understood how anyone could step from the beauty of the outdoors into a stone place of worship to feel closer to God.

The idea of cement perimeters is not as homely as the corridors of dark, barren trees, which occasionally offer a glimpse of yet another derelict town.

I was a child when the world began to crumble, having never known a time before junkers and marauders looted and stripped buildings down to their skeletal frames, taking desirable resources to trade.

A time when the cracked, decaying asphalt of roads weren’t flanked by rusty, windowless vehicles pushed to the curb.

At the wrong end of autumn, I consume the dregs of colour among the russet forest carpets, the fallen leaves darkening as they turn to mulch.

Like the world beyond the cities, they’re left to degrade while Mother Nature restores the land, devouring the remnants of the modern world with every passing year.

The cities that survived the war were quickly fortified for fear of invasion from other nations.

But there was a community that didn’t wish to enter the walls.

These citizens refused to be herded by fear and propaganda.

Living in the Wilds was difficult—worse now than ever—but a life of hardship was the lesser evil compared to the complicity of city life.

It has been years since I left home, but the margin of freedom is shrinking before my eyes.

For those who chose the Wilds, taxes are rising, the sprawl of rangers is expanding, and even communities are struggling to keep women safe.

Disappearances are increasing, but not enough to provoke action from the government.

It has been getting worse. There is a darkness that even the peak of spring or a parade of sunshiny days can’t pierce, whether it’s a physical reality, or a miserable cloud of my own cynicism.

I visited cities as a child, but to be so incredibly close to the government—to be under their radar—set my skin crawling.

But I guess this is what they want: to make life unsustainable for those who refuse to move out of the Wilds.

A fog of disbelief veils my reality, even as I’m being escorted hundreds of miles north to continue my Independence Interval, so I can find work in a city like everyone else.

I dreamt of a career as a child—maybe a doctor, or a lawyer, and there was even a stint where I was convinced I’d be a fantastic bank robber, which was embarrassingly not that long ago.

But women are no longer entitled to such aspirations.

Well, they’d never be so bold as to state as much, but our education is no longer available—an unofficial snipping of ambition.

As a girl, I adored movies. Hollywood painted an enviable image of the world before.

What I wouldn’t give to walk the streets alone, visit shopping malls, or even come and go of my own free will.

But the abrupt arrival of the Missing Girls phenomenon put an end to such things.

So, I can only imagine what their freedom felt like before America was forced to take measures to protect its women—measures to protect the endangered human species after the fall of female birth rates.

If I had been born before the phenomenon, maybe I’d be on my way to college right now, or coming home to visit my family for a long weekend in the suburbs.

I can’t even remember the last time I saw a suburb intact, but I guess it shouldn’t be surprising that the world turned out like it did.

It seemed to happen overnight, when the generation of Missing Girls spread throughout the world.

Within a decade, animals fell down the scale of the threatened species list, and the danger of human extinction became real—and fear invites panic, while panic provokes anger.

I have no recollection of the Lost War, having been only a baby, but the aftermath has been my life.

The civil war that followed is there, on the cusp of the earliest memories, as broken and faded as a dream.

Not the battle itself, but how it changed the people in my life.

Quietened them. Angered them. Broke them.

The curtain of trees drops away, revealing a chalky rubble expanse as far as the eye can see.

Like a halo, the surrounding flattened land gives a clear view of one mile surrounding every fortified city.

The blanched, frosted sky emits a painful glow, and I lean forward as the city of Minneapolis rises from the horizon, looking like an apparition amongst the stark surroundings.

The cement walls stretch into the atmosphere, adding more grey to the achromic palette, and as we approach, the looming towers dwarf and humble me.

Now my nerves exceed the sickening fumes, the butterflies in my stomach going wild with the prospect of my new home—my new cage.

The daunting ashen walls of large concrete blocks are built at least thirty feet tall to shield the towering city.

Among the original buildings are the new soulless cement structures of the Shanty Towers, a nickname bestowed on accommodations hastily built in the cities for American coastal refugees from the Lost War.

The visual abominations are colourless blocks, hiding their windows within the shadows of vertical grooves stretching the length of the structures, resembling prison bars.