Chapter Text
They had always described Phoenix as a warfront city.
The last time I had visited, I didn't even know what “warfront” meant. I was far too young. But I did remember my parents instructing me not to leave their sight for even a second. And never to correct them in front of anyone else. Don’t speak unless you were told you could. And above all else, do not head towards the setting sun.
Being a curious four-year-old, none of these rules had ever made any sense to me. I had never had to follow them back home in Bismarck-- why start now?
But something, something that my four-year-old mind didn’t put a name to, was what told me to obey the rules my parents had set out for me. When my parents talked with my grandparents and uncles and aunts about “technocracy,” or “quarantine,” or “hierarchy,” I didn't ask them what any of those terms meant. When my parents had spoken to the tall man asking them so many questions, I didn't speak up when they said things that I knew weren’t true.
For some reason, when we left the dreary streets of Phoenix, I immediately forgot about all that had happened. When we went back home, none of the rules applied to me anymore, so why did I care? Why did we even go to Phoenix in the first place, anyways? There were no other little kids to play with, and I wasn't even allowed to do anything.
It would be one decade exactly when the memories began tumbling back.
2046 April 11. That was the date that I had etched on the lined paper, the graphite from the pencil rubbing off into the top corner of the assignment.
Perhaps the memory had been triggered because it was the same assignment, on the same day. What I Did On Spring Vacation. Dated April Eleventh.
The first time, I had written about the visit to Phoenix and how un-fun it was.
This time, I had nothing to write about. I stretched my mind, trying to figure out what to write.
The Phoenix trip?
For a fraction of a second, I was surprised that I had remembered such an event. In the next fraction, I dismissed it wholly. That was ten years ago. There’s no way I would remember such a vacation with enough detail to put together a convincing fake report.
“What are you writing about?”
I turned to see my friend Chandler. “No idea. I don’t have anything to write about.”
He pondered on this. “What did you do last year?”
“I don’t remember. And besides, it doesn’t matter. I can’t re-use it. I had the same English teacher.”
“Nuts. Well, I have to run. I’ll see you after school.”
“Later.”
But for some reason, I still couldn’t shake the memory of the Phoenix trip. What was there to remember? It was a completely meaningless trip. There was nothing worth remembering.
But my mind refused to cooperate. The thought remained nagging at the back of my mind. Even in geometry class, as I tried to find the angle PQR, my mind rearranged the letters to PHX.
(Okay, that one might have been indicative of a bigger problem.)
The problem, though, remained. There was clearly something important about Phoenix, and I was going to find out what if it killed me.