Undone: A Dystopian Fiction Novel by Chad Evercroft

the protests, or at least knew about them, and took off before things got really bad. That’s how bugging out was supposed to work. I wondered where they were, where they had gone, as we finished searching the apartment for anything useful. Beth found some first aid materials under the bathroom sink and we took them to add to our own stockpile.
    Downstairs, we watched the TV in Joe’s office with Jenny. The stock market had just had its worst day in decades. It was strange to see people in suits freaking out. Would they be joining the looting soon? Wearing hundred dollar cologne and fighting over a crate of water in a grocery store? It was hard at first to sympathize with them, but I realized that just because someone wears nice clothes, it doesn’t mean they aren’t in trouble or desperate. Beth still had some very nice pieces of jewelry she had gotten as a child, but she had to eat ramen every night like the rest of us. Someone didn’t need to be in rags and “look” poor to be poor. Especially during these days when financial giants were tumbling down left and right, razing empires to the ground.
    ***
     
    Protests had begun all across the state and were spreading across the country. The media had done a fine job of painting the students involved in the cafeteria riot as hungry, desperate children who were met with police brutality. They were held up as heroes, as justified rebels, who had gotten tired of being pushed down by “the man.” While I certainly understood the plight of broke young people, the story wasn’t that simple. I had been there at the riot. I had seen the six security guards facing down dozens of furious students. Sure, when things had gotten out of control in town, the police were a little rough, but could anyone really blame them? Because the media loved to simplify the truth and cast people as either heroes or villains, people were forced to choose sides. Angry debates were sparked in Washington D.C. and nothing productive was getting done. Not a real change from the usual.
    We did learn something unsettling on the news, something that got our blood boiling. Apparently our situation with the electricity and water was not that unusual. Utilities and everyday services all across the country had started cutting people off. Grace periods were cut short. If you hadn’t paid or had a history of paying late or skipping payments altogether, they shut down your electricity and water.
    “Cleaning out the system,” was the way they put it, which was a terrible PR decision.
    They were only interested in the people with money, who were financially stable. That applied to very few people in the country anymore.
                  Tyrsa went to the mailbox and returned with the check, which still sat untouched in the outgoing slot.
                  “We might as well just keep this money,” she said bitterly, “If they’re not going to give us the time of day anyway.”
                  She tore the check into tiny little pieces and threw them in the trash. As if on a timer set to go off with Tyrsa’s statement, the lights in the office suddenly went out. Rick opened the mini fridge. It was dark inside.
                  “Well, crap,” he said.
                  I still don’t know what exactly triggered the beginning of chaos, but all of the services we had taken for granted started disappearing. First it was our electricity, then the water, the mail, and then the garbage trucks. It had probably been brewing for some time - the degradation of modern society is never just an in-the-blink-of-an-eye thing - but to people like me who weren’t really paying attention to anything but themselves, it happened all at once. I do know that the garbage services went on strike. It wasn’t just the unemployed who were struggling; there was a huge group known as the “underemployed.” The over qualified people who worked long, hard hours at jobs they