Bees?
Bees? I walked through the artificial twilight of the dome, alone as usual. The stars twinkled above me as I looked down the empty street of my Community. My long thin tail swayed behind me, my ears constantly alert for unseen dangers. In reality, I had very little to be worried about, the Community was completely protected. There hadn't been even minor crimes in months, and I couldn't remember hearing about violence anywhere near here in, well ever. We were kept well protected, and it had been that way since my parents were young, after the war. Still though, maybe my mouse nature just made me naturally skittish, but walking alone always made me nervous.Still, the mild fear of walking alone was worth it to escape the enraged tremors of the house. Fear of my mother's yelling or my father's rages were enough to make me brave the night streets for a while. My parents weren't abusive, neither of them had ever laid a hand on me or one of my brothers, but still we feared their rages. Their nature was mercurial, and they could turn from calm to enraged without cause or warning. Sometimes it was at each other, often it was at me or one of my siblings. My brothers had grown used to it at this point, the act of cowering meekly and until the parents calmed down, then not thinking anything of it. I couldn't take yelling though, even after all these times it still made me break down when I couldn't escape it. So I tried to find excuses to get out of the house as much as possible, one of these was my semi-regular walks at night. "pitpitpit" I heard, skittering in the distance. It was quiet and distant, but the Community was nearly silent and to my anxiously attuned ears it sounded like a bomb just exploded. I have to admit, that light skittering made me jump a little, turning behind me and calling out, "Is somebody out there?" I waited for a moment, eyes darting about rapidly, breath heavy. As nothing emerged from the darkness I let out a sigh of relief, feeling very silly all the sudden. Cautiously I turned back the way I was walking and continued down the empty street. "pitpitpit" I heard again. This time nearer. "O-okay... Who are you?" I called, this time truly nervous, my voice quavering. "What do you want?" This time, as I glanced into the darkness I saw a small dark shape approaching. The muscles in my legs twitched, ready to break out into a run a moment. As the shape grew nearer my fear increased. Suddenly the shape stepped into a light patch of the street, and I was ready to die. Not from fright, but from embarrassment."I'm sorry, I didn't frighten you, did I?" The small ferret in front of me asked. She looked to be a year or so younger than me, maybe fourteen years old or so. Her fur, while not totally black was quite dark but her eyes were a bright, an almost whitish-blue, seeming to shine in the dark street. She looked jovial, a mischievous glint in her eyes as she seemed to be holding back a laugh at my jumpiness. Her head hair was mostly black, but she had a streak of bright red dye running through it. "No, of course not!" I said, immediately denying I had been so surprised just by seeing another person. She gave me a glance that said "I don't believe you" and my facade crumpled quickly. I never was a great liar. "Well... Maybe a little. I didn't think anyone else was out tonight. You... suprised me." I admitted, blushing lightly. Suddenly it occurred to me I had never seen her around before. I certainly wasn't a socialite who knew everybody in the Community, if I were I would probably be at the mall as opposed to wandering the streets alone, but still, I had at least seen most people around and it didn't seem like it would be easy to miss this unique looking ferret girl. "I'm sorry, I don't think I've seen you around before, what's your name?" I asked."My name's Starla." She said. Thats an odd name. I thought to myself, but refrained from saying out loud. I had to wonder how her parents got it by the naming committee though, such irregular names generally weren't permitted. "My family just moved in a few days ago," she continued, "Me, my parents, and my sister just moved into the little house over on second street." I hadn't realized there were any houses for sale on second street. She said the small house, so I assumed the elderly couple from unit 32H had finally moved out. They had the only house that was noticeably smaller than the others. The government had offered to upgrade them to a standard unit on a myriad of occasions, but they always refused saying they liked it as it was. They also constantly complained about how much better things used to be, it seems that now they finally moved to go find somewhere better suited to their... unique personalities instead of complaining about the changes the rest of us liked just fine. "So, what's your name?" Starla suddenly asked me. "Oh my name is Olivia." I told her, feeling oddly embarrassed at my common name. Prospective parents were always provided with a list of about 100 standard names, they could request an alternate name but these requests were rejected over 99% of the time, which made me wonder about this Starla and her parents. I began to walk again, gesturing for Starla to join me in my continuing trip through the Community. She followed, the "pitpitpit" of her odd black boots pattering along side my own nearly silent footsteps. We chit chatted about essentially nothing for a few more minutes before turning a corner that took us to the old playground. I remembered playing on it when I was young, but there was just something eerie about seeing it empty in the darkness of the night. As I briefly reminisced about being young, while seeing the eerie, empty, playground, I looked over to my new friend, and saw a childlike sparkle in her bright eyes. She ran over to the playground and hopped onto a swing. "Are you five or something?" I joked, walking over to her, mildly shocked at seeing another teenager suddenly playing on the kids playground for, apparently, no reason. When I asked her she looked at me oddly, her head tilted slightly to the left, as though she didn't understand my teasing. She didn't joke back, but she also didn't look upset or offended, just confused. I looked back at her, blinking, as I waited for her to say something. She didn't and I began to open my mouth to apologize, she hadn't seemed offended and she didn't seem like the type to get upset easily, but I didn't know her that well I thought it would be best to apologize just in case. This Starla seemed nice enough, quirky and strange, but nice enough, and I sure did need some friends, so I didn't want to get her upset early on. "Hey, I was just--" I had begun when her phone rung and cut me off. I
glanced at the ringing device in the pocket of her dark pants and raised my eyebrows questioningly when she didn't answer it. "It's probably just my sister." She explained to me, calmingly enough, but a moment after saying that her whole being seemed to change. She seemed to inexplicably be consumed by a sudden rage. Her body shaking furiously she jumped off the swing and began to pace circles around me furiously. "I hate her! I hate that bitch of a sister! You don't know what it is like to live with someone like that! She is the enemy! Why can't anyone else see it? I hate her!" Obviously I didn't know anything about this sister of hers. I had no idea what was going on, but it was obviously something greater than your everyday sibling animosity; having two brothers I was plenty familiar with that, but this was something different. I didn't know what her issue with her sister was, and I wasn't really keen to ask at this moment, but her yelling and anger was making me nervous. "St-Starla...." I stuttered nervously, "calm down, what's going on?" The ferret calmed down as suddenly as she had become enraged. She stopped her rapid pacing and her yelling. She was still shaking slightly, certainly not totally calm but not exploding like she was before. She stared at me now, almost deadpan, before speaking simply "You don't understand." She said this, not with angst, but with a nearly emotionless, matter-of-fact tone. Sh kept her odd, light eyes, on me for another few seconds, as though daring me to question her further. Finally, she turned her gaze away from me and nervously reached for her phone. She stared at the screen, seeming to be in a shock. I waited for her to explain, when she didn't I cautiously asked, "What was it? Was it your sister?" I bit my lip nervous about setting her off again. Her erratic mood swings were worse than my parents, she seemed alright, but I was beginning to grow worried. She hadn't been put into a lock-down facility though, so I guess her mood swings must be mostly harmless. "No!" she answered be, a grin spreading across her face. "The 'B's', they're real!" She told me excitedly. "We finally know for sure that 'B's' are out there. We need to tell everyone!" With that she took off running down the street, toward the Field. I don't know whether her choice was random, or if she knew about the Games. One night a week there were games hosted for the teenagers of the community. Kids and teens were encouraged to come, building teamwork and the like, but I rarely did. I didn't get along with the other kids too well so I prefered my solo walks to games with all the other kids. I forgot they were tonight, but I suddenly remembered when Starla went running down the street toward the field where they were hosted screaming about bees. "Wait!" I called after her, trying to keep her from embarrassing herself or worse. She stopped only for a second and looked at me, "No time!" she said, "Everyone need to know about the B's."I still had no idea what she was talking about, but I had to try to stop her from making a total fool of the both of us as soon as she moved here. Running to catch up with her I decided the only way to make her slow down and think was to humor her. "Look," I said,
"No one will believe you if you just run in hysterically screaming about bees. Why don't you tell me about the bees, what's got you so excited?"Breathing heavily from the running she calmed down again, "The B's. They are real." She said, simply, still not telling me anything. "Ok?" I said, wondering what she was talking about about. "No one doubts that bees are real. The little yellow, stripy, things? I see them flying around flowers all the time. What is so important?" "Not bees you dunce!" She said to me. "B's". Now I was really confused. Not bees, but bees? What was she talking about? She seemed to see my confusion and she pulled out a marker. On a nearby wall she drew a large, capital letter "B." "Oh okay, B's." I said, still not having the slightest clue what she was talking about. What about B's?"Type B's! They're real. This changes everything!" She said, excitedly, leaving me more confused than when we started. "Thanks for your help Olivia, I think I know how to explain it
now." And with that she took off running again. Leaving me staring blankly at her rapidly disappearing form. "Hey! Wait!" I called, trying desperately to chase after her. This time though, she didn't bother to stop for me, and she soon turned a corner, and left my line of sight. I chased after her, hoping to catch up, though at this point it seemed futile. Eventually I arrived at the Field, without ever catching up with Starla, and saw many teenaged of furs gathered in small groups in the field. I recognized most of them, though I hadn't actually spoken to very many. Sure enough, I saw Starla standing there in one of the groups. Oddly enough, while I recognized nearly everyone at the games no one in her group looked even a little familiar. Starla, seemed to have had another dramatic mood shift, she was standing in the group with her arms crossed and a childish pout on her face. I don't know if I should be worried or relieved she was no longer screaming about "Bs", whatever that meant. I waved to her, but either she didn't see me or was ignoring me because she didn't respond. "Everyone has thirty seconds to get into a group!" called a large bear man, who was running tonight's Games. The few others than me who weren't in a group all scrambled to join one. Since I was already here I knew it would be disapproved if I didn't join so I ran toward a group of people from my school. I considered joining Starla's group, but I didn't recognize the kids with her and I wasn't sure what this strange girl thought of me so I played it safe and went with the people I knew. As I was running toward the group though, the man running it grabbed me roughly by the shoulder. "Not you!" He told me gruffly, pulling me away
from the other groups of kids. I jerked his hand away, uncomfortable with him roughly grabbing me. "You're coming with me!" he said, grabbing me again and dragging me behind a wall away from the group.Now I knew something was really wrong. I didn't know what was going on, but I knew the best thing to do was to comply. "Sorry I--" I began before he cut me off, hands grabbing at my throat. "Shut up!" He roared at me, hands tightening and choking me for a brief instant before relaxing his grip again. His hands were still near my throat though, so I didn't dare say another word. What is happening?I thought to myself. What does he want with me? Did I do something wrong? He continued to roughly guide me down the street until we reached The Cliff. The Community was built on the edge of a cliff. There was a gate bocking it off, I had never seen it open. No one wanted to risk someone falling.He pushed me toward the gate, and pulled the large, steel handle. Shockingly the gate opened. No key card, no identification, it seemed the gate was just unlocked. "We don't want any more of your kind." He spat at me, before opening the gate wide and shoving me toward The Cliff. I stummbled back, but
managed not to fall off. I didn't know what was going on, but he just tried to kill me. I nearly died. He was moving toward me again. I didn't know what was happening. I didn't know how he opened the gate, nor why I was being pushed through it, but I knew that I didn't want to die. So, I ran. I ducked under the arms of the hulking bear and I ran. I didn't know where I was running to, the entire Community was secure, with nowhere to hide and no way out, but I knew I had to run away from there. So into the darkness I ran, hoping for a way out, hoping for an escape from the inescapable, hoping, at the very least, for answers. Alright, so this was something I literally dreamed about. (My subconscious is weird...) I thought it was interesting enough and made just enough sense to turn into a story, so that is what I did. I might make a series from this in which my conscious mind will have to figure out how to explain all the weird stuff my subconscious thought up. As a personal challenge to myself I tried to keep as close to my actual dream as possible, which is why some parts may seem so weird or inconsistent. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed (I would assume you did at least a little if you bothered reading all the way), but if you didn't, sorry for wasting your time.