Voluntary Imprisonment

• Abbie Kent, Grade 10
• Short Story
• 2020

Day 401. How do I know this? Well I’ve just counted every notch out of boredom that I have scratched into the wall of this minuscule, freezing and wretched bunker. Who would've thought spending my entire childhood building this bunker with my father was in fact preparing my own imprisonment? I feel suffocated living with five people, even though they are the people I love the most. I lie here daydreaming about a real life, one above the ground where I can feel the warmth of the sunlight on my skin, I can hear the birds singing every morning and a place where I can be free.
“Zari...ZARI!” I hear my father shouting, as I slowly come back to my reality.
“What?” I groan.
“Please get up and help us prepare in case we run out of batteries.”
“Prepare! I’ve got a better idea, why don’t we leave, we shouldn’t have to feel imprisoned.” I say, holding back my tears.
“Imprisoned! We are to be safe. We don't know what's awaiting us above after the virus has infected the world.” He hesitates, as he turns around, implying he wants the conversation to end.
But I don't give up that easily. “Exactly, it's been over one year everything might be okay.” I cautiously say.
I just want to escape; I need to escape. My dad said he dedicated many years to this bunker so we could live and have our freedom, but not once in 401 days have I felt free or alive. Am I going to miss highschool graduation, to have my own kids? Am I going to die down here? I sit here daydreaming in frustration, at times out of boredom longing for a life, a happy life. One where I finally feel alive.

Upon waking this morning my father is going berserk, frantically slamming the steel locker doors open and shut that line the walls in our bunker.
“What are you looking for?” I mumble half asleep.
“The thing!” He shouts while going insane.
I look over at mum, she has that petrified looks she gets when my father is being irrational and unpleasant.
“David!” my mother screams hysterically as my father drops dead on the ground.
It's been ten minutes now and my mother is exhausted from trying to bring my dad's lifeless body back. I stand huddled with my younger siblings feeling helpless, begging for my father to take another breath. I reach for my mother's shoulder to try and comfort her, even though my father was sometimes lunatic, he loved him. I can see the loneliness and sadness in her eyes.
“You have done enough.” I cry.
We sit for what feels like an eternity.
“What now?” My mother agonizes.
“We can't stay here mum, this isn't living.” I look at the hatch. “We have to leave,” I demand.
Not another word was said, not even a whisper. They follow me to the ladder, I begin to climb; finally a breath of fresh air.