This is Not a War

[frogue†]

Tessa thought of her classmates and could feel nothing but pity.

They were all of them in hell, but Tessa and Tessa alone knew why. They'd been told that they'd been kidnapped by terrorists, that they were here as part of some vague and unspecified agenda, and her peers had actually believed this ridiculous story. She'd seen it on their faces, at first incredulous at how brainwashed they actually were, and then just sad.

Tessa though, hadn't been fooled for a second. Anyone who had any idea of what was really going on, of how the world really worked, knew exactly who these so-called "terrorists" were. The survivalist community had known for years now that Survival of the Fittest was the United States Government's paramilitary enforcement wing, used to force state and private compliance with federal decree.

Some senator getting a bit uppity, talking about all sorts of electoral reforms? The thought of his favourite granddaughter having to blow her boyfriend's head off might change his mind. Some donor not coughing up like they should be? Maybe they'll be more generous if they don't want their hometown to be where a supposed act of terror hits next.

It was so staggeringly naïve, everyone who believed the official story. Some terrorists manage, five... no, six times, to kidnap hundreds of American children, on American soil, and take them to some private island and they don't get caught? Then the one group who's ever able to find them is some untrained, volunteer nobodies, and yet the largest and most powerful military in the history of the world apparently can't do shit?

Yeah, that sounded likely.

It was such an obvious lie, and yet everyone bought into it. Everyone simply took the facts that were spoonfed to them, not questioning, not wondering, not thinking. Well, not her. Not Tessa Cole. The rest of these sheeple might accept this ridiculous premise, might buy into the idea that they had to kill each other to survive, but she certainly wouldn't. Tessa was smarter than that, Tessa was stronger than that, and Tessa sure as hell wasn't going to play their stupid little game.

Tessa was getting out of here.  

[Tessa Mabel Cole continued in Call Me Maybe]