I Am Trying to Believe.

[DM692]

"Experiment entry D4. Subjects A35, A37, and A42 no longer dependant on Class C medicinal support. Intravenous needles in remaining subjects have been prepped with 350 milligrams of sodium cyanide, and are currently streaming. Intravenous needles in subjects A12, A37, and A42 have been prepped with adrenaline, and will be injected at 13:00."

I pulled out the earbuds, leaned over, and put my head in my hands. I knew that the government had been trying to kill us off for a long time, but I knew the new drug they were giving their soldiers was going to change everything.

My name Allen Castillo. I am a member of the Resistance. I used to not see the cameras. I used to believe that our government was doing the right thing. I used to drink the water.

The water. The government was putting drugs in the water. Most people would call those who know this insane, but it's true. We know that. We can see the people who drink the water become susceptible to what the government has to tell them. They believe that everything is alright, that there's nothing wrong with what the government is doing. They believe the censorship that it brings; shutting the Resistance's websites down, imprisoning those who try to speak the truth; is good.

I used to drink the water. Every day, I would go to the bank, work a full day, come home, watch T.V., and live my life like a drone. One day, I caught a clip from a Resistance radio broadcast while scanning around for a good station.

A man with a rough voice was saying, "... and we won't put up with what they're telling us to do anymore. We won't lie down, we are the Resistance." The radio had went silent for a few seconds. As I was mulling over what I had heard the man say, the radio came back on. A monotonous sounding woman's voice came on, and said "www. I Am Trying To Believe .c-". The message was cut short, and the woman's voice was replaced by static.

Instantly, my mind was filled with questions. What is the Resistance? What do they stand for? What is I Am Trying To Believe? I grabbed my laptop, and opened up the Internet. I went to the address bar, and typed in www.iamtryingtobelieve.com. It took a while to load, but it finally did. The website almost looked like it was destroyed, with coloured lines going across the screen, text laying over each other, and all kinds of blocks all over the place, but it was readable.

The first thing I read was "Parepin affects brain chemistry--especially dopamines". Those 6 words changed my life. I read every word on the website. I had pured myself a glass of water earlier, but I threw it against my small house's wall. I knew I had to stop drinking it.

According to the website, Parepin, a drug I had unknowingly been taking all my life, was in the water. When you ingest Parepin, you start living in something I can only describe as a trance, the way I had been living my life. You stop thinking for yourself, and start believing all the government propaganda and lies. It disgusted me, and it still does. How can a government lie to its people like that just to keep them in control?

Anyways, after I heard that message, my life changed drastically. I stopped drinking tap water. I started boiling everything I drank to try and get rid of the Parepin. If I felt like I was entering the trance again, I wouldn't drink whatever caused me to enter it again. I became wary of everything going on around me. I started seeing the cameras everywhere, and the microphones so they could hear what we were saying. I quit my job, and started living off the savings I had.

About 4 months after I had discovered I Am Trying to Believe and the Resistance, I was walking down a back alley after coming back from a store. A kid in his early twenties, which was my age then too, was walking the opposite direction of me. Not remembering that I needed to hide the fact that I was off Parepin, I raised my hand as I approached him, waved, smiled, and said "Hi".

I walked past him, but I could tell he had stopped dead in his tracks. He said to me in a low, hushed voice, "You're not drinking the water, are you?" "It depends who I'm talking to," I said without turning around. "Don't worry, I'm not a cop or anything. Just tell me. Are you drinking the water?" "No," I said, and turned around.

He was already looking at me. He extended his hand and said, "My name is Erik. You should probably come with me." I shook his hand, but I was still unsure of his intent. "Why? Where are we going?" "My house. We need to discuss something."

When we got to his house, he told me to kick my shoes off into his closet, so I did. We went and sat on a couple of couches in his living room. He asked me if I wanted anything to drink, but I declined. He got up and poured himself a glass of scotch. When he came back and sat down, he asked me a question.

He looked me dead in the eye and said, "Do you know about the Resistance?" "I do, I heard about you guys from a radio broadcast a while back. But it was cut short, why was that?", I replied. "The government's been monitoring the radio waves a lot more lately. We can hardly ever get a broadcast out without our frequency being muted 10 secods later. I'm glad to see they're working, though." He downed his glass and said to me, "Are you interested in joining us?"

I shifted around uncomfortably in my seat. "Well... What all does that entail?" I asked, not wanting to jump into something I knew practically nothing about. "All it means is that you'll 'Officially' be against all this government corruption. We do things like that radio broadcast every now and then to get the word out, and it gives you somewhere to turn when you're in trouble. You see this star?" He pointed to a small, white asterisk no bigger that a bottle cap on the left side of his shirt. "This is what marks you as a member of the Resistance. The government hasn't caught on yet, and I doubt they ever will. They're too busy scanning the radios and trying to make everyone think we're terrorists." He chuckled. "At least we know they're not doing a very good job."

I though about what he had asked me, and after a good 20 seconds, I said, "I want to join the Resistance." He stood up, extended his hand to me once more, and said "Welcome aboard."

I smiled at him and simply said, "Thank you." I thought for a few seconds, and asked "One more thing, how did you know I wasn't drinking the water?"

He replied, "Think back. Do you ever remember anyone just trying to exchange niceties for no reason?"

After that, there's not much to tell. For 3 years, I lived as I had been. Eventually, I ran out of money and had to get a job as a courier. I stitched a small white asterisk onto all of my clothes. Every time I saw someone else wearing one, I would make eye contact and nod. Even though there was practically zero communication between the members of the Resistance, I knew I was a prettly low level guy. You'd see names of websites written on public bathroom stalls, you'd go home, type the address into the Internet, and you'd be on a forum just for the Resistance. You'd always see big players like AngrySniper, one of the violent members of the Resistance. Far from everyone approved of his means of spreading the resistance. There was one incident where he shot a politician and got away with it. Every message board relating to the Resistance that AngrySniper posts on brings that up.

One day, I was going about business as usual when a young woman wearing an asterisk pulled me into an alley. "There's a Resistance meet in the old warehouse by the harbour at 7:00 tonight, make sure you tell every other member you can find." She left the alley, and as soon as she had appeared, she was gone. I called work, asked if I could take the rest of the day off because I wasn't feeling well, and spread the word.

[Reddal]

At 7:00 PM, I had arrived at the warehouse. There was an uneasy feeling in the air, and everyone mostly kept quiet and to theirselves. There was a few friends chatting here and there, but I, like many others, was alone. A middle aged, gruff looking man walked up to a podium in the room we were waiting in, raised a microphone to his lips, and said, "Fellow members of the Resistance. I'm very happy so many of you were able to show up tonight. I have recently caught wind of a government movement. You all know that they hate us, and want us to disappear ASAP. Well, according to my sources, they've been testing a new drug for about 4 years, and they've finally perfected it. Apparently, it makes the user lose his mind. It makes him or her do anything to complete their given task, even the violently unnecessary. I was able to hack into a server and download a file confirming the completion of the drug. I've copied it to hundreds of disks, so take one on your way out. The reason I called you here tonight was to warn you about this. Be careful. If you think a soldier might be coming anywhere near your house, leave. Find another member to live with for a bit. These soldiers will interrogate you for information about the Resistance in any way they can. They have no boundaries. Thank you for coming tonight, and may you fare well." After he was done, everyone just kind of left and went home. The feeling in the air leaving the building was even more tense than the one going in. I grabbed a CD from one of the booths on the way out, and went back to my house.

I know this drug is going to affect the Resistance, but I don't know how. I guess I'll just live like I have been since I joined it. I'll lay low, and hope to God they don't find me.

End audio log A.C. #1.

[tinytim12]

Did you create the website yourself?

[DM692]

At 1/5/11 02:54 AM, tinytim12 wrote: Did you create the website yourself?

No actually, but I wish I could say I did. What this really is is a spinoff of Trent Reznor's (Nine Inch Nails') Year Zero album.

The setup is basically that government has full control (like in my story), but it's placed in the Year 2022, and the Resistance and everything still existed. I think this would be in around 2042, because the main character says he's about 20, and he can remember always drinking the water.

But really, I admire Trent's ability to slowly piece together a story and keep the reader interested. Do some research on The World of Year Zero if you're interested in that.

Sorry about not explaining that in the first post, I just didn't want to spoil the mood of the story.