After the most painful two hours since the release of Fast & Furious 15, Logan was released to his study hall and sauntered towards the library. The walk from his classroom to the library, situated in the middle of the building, went by quietly. He was grateful that no one wanted to study with him - he didn't like working in groups and his class tended to hold large study groups.
The library was actually more like an emptied out classroom with regulated books the Herd allowed students to read and study, meticulously placed in shelves along the sidewalls. Burnt umber bricks shown through where the shelves were bare of books and full-length glass panes allowed visitors on either side to observe in both directions. Although there were no desks in the room, there were upholstered chairs of various makes strewn about the floor.
As far as libraries went, this particular one didn't appear to receive much funding from the local government.
The librarian also didn't seem to have much funding if the bags upon bags under her eyes were anything to go by. She was an older woman who tended to wear the brightest, gaudiest clothes she could find, probably to make up for her lack of any sort of personality.
Logan entered the room and put his bag down in the corner where he always sat. The window next to his preferred leather chair spilt light across his feet and gave him a perfect view of the Inner Wall.
He sank into the thick leather, pulled out his education reform textbook and prepared himself for the next few hours sitting in silence reading about how education changed when the Infection began. In the background, he could hear the librarian grumbling about something under her breath. He'd listened once to her rambling and couldn't escape until after dark. Since then, Logan never made that mistake again and actively ignored the woman.
Once he'd finished his necessary readings, he got up from the chair and started to browse the history section of the shelves. Before he could start deciding which book would make for a good read, he felt a presence behind him. Turning, he found the librarian inches from his face, scowling up his nose and he jumped to put distance between them.
"Did you need something, ma'am?" Logan asked.
"What are you doing with my books?" She grumbled.
"I'm a student here, ma'am, and have been given free reign to read the books in here whenever I please."
The librarian looked him up and down, grunted heftily, and left him to his own devices, returning to shelving newer books. Logan stroked the spine of a book in front of him absently while glancing back at the old woman. She looked up after a few seconds shuffling through books.
"If you're not going to read, get out of my bookroom!" She shouted.
Logan jumped again, grabbed the book he'd been groping and retreated to his corner before looking at the title: "Working Our Way Around: Science, Society, and Sanity." Not wanting to upset the librarian any more than he already had, Logan cracked the book open to a random page and began reading.
"Rather than a perfect upward progression toward a perfect society, cultures follow a spiraling path towards civility. Every element of culture moves from the most simplistic to the most complex, from primitive or civilized. Cultural evolution follows a thin pyramid, from lower savagery (represented in the model by the Infected) to barbarism (represented by the Circles) to higher civilization (represented by Herds). It is estimated that Circle society will take an estimated 30 more years before they will reach the next level above them, while it is highly unlikely for the Infected to ever achieve higher than savagery."
Logan blinked in confusion. He'd already learned about societal evolution and what the Circles outside the walls had to do in order to survive. He shrugged, supposing that the structure of a Circle most likely did fall under Barbarism, though he felt strange calling other human beings "barbarians".
Shaking himself from his thoughts, Logan flipped to another page later in the book in a chapter titled "Modern Medicine?" and began to read again.
"Each person is responsible for their own health and all thoughts and actions have consequences, including illness, disability, or trauma. Due to the absence of modern medicine outside the wall, Circles have resorted to praying or herbal remedies. In some higher-functioning Circles, practitioners will apply humoral pathology as a form of medicine."
Logan chuckled at the idea of herbal remedies working when they were one of the factors that began the Infection, according to the history books. He distractedly wondered which deity the Circles prayed to. Logan flipped to another chapter titled "Diagnosing Insanity" and started to read.
Logan hadn't finished the first sentence before he heard the sirens. Those blasted sirens. They screeched loud enough for other Herd miles away to hear and signified new people entering the walls. In other words, it was a way to brag to other Herds that we gained more followers. It also meant that Logan could roll his eyes and return to reading.
The familiar scream of the sirens suddenly turned sinister, screeching higher and more infrequently, like someone was rapidly pressing the button to turn them on and off again. It was unlike anything he had heard before in his years living in the Herd, and it left a sour taste in his mouth. Even the old woman paused in her incoherent rambling to listen.
Logan shoved his books in the bookbag and rushed out of the library. The sirens wailed in the background and he couldn't seem to tune them out. By the time he'd left the campus, so had all the other students, it seemed, as a mob of people poured from the double doors of the buildings into the streets.
Logan kept walking hastily towards the entry to the Inner Wall near the south side of the city. All he could feel were his feet pounding against the pavement and the blood pumping heavy through his veins. All he could hear was an alarm sounding like a cacophony of animals on their last breath.
As soon as Logan reached the southern border and could see the Inner Wall, he became frozen to his spot. There, standing at the door, stood an Infected.
Its pale grey skin shone in the bright evening light with stark contrast to its dark shirt and jeans. Its chest heaved with every pant it released. It eyes appeared unfocused and when its head turned his way, it was enough for Logan to lose his breath. It stared unseeing through Logan, before turning its head again in a different direction and staring off again. Logan did the only thing he could think of.
He ran.
Comments (0)
See all