find Nathan’s continuous efforts at friendship sweet, and I try to receive them as best as I can. In my spare free moments, I continue to read Les Miserables , often with the light of a candle that I balance precariously on my lap in my uncomfortably flammable tent.
By the end of the first week, I can get the bolt to stick in the board consistently, sometimes even near the middle, but I can’t figure figure out any correlation between my technique and my accuracy. Whether or not the bolt hits seems completely random to me. Everyone says that the only way to learn how to shoot properly regularly is through developing instinct, but I can’t help but feel that all of my hits are based only on luck.
Throughout the week, I get the know all the members of the Rebellion. Most of them don’t speak about their pasts, but those who do give me enough material for a mental collage of their stories. Through covert references, I find out that Hannah and Matt joined the Rebellion together when they were exiled from their town. They were part of a local gang that pulled a really big heist. When they were discovered, and all of them were forced to leave the town, they scattered. Hannah speaks of it wistfully, saying, “Those were the days” often. Matt avoids talking about it altogether, cringing every time it is mentioned.
All that Rebekah tells me is that she joined seven years ago, when the Rebellion was still on the move. Smaller Sally tells me that Rebekah managed to follow them and steal their supplies for two weeks before anyone noticed and decided that they needed a person like that on their team.
Kristina spent an entire year looking for the Rebellion, approximately five years ago. That was the first year that the tax raises became a problem for many people and the threat of execution started to hang over our heads. Nobody was ready for a tax raise or a punishment of that scale and many people died. That was nothing to the CGB, and they only continued raising the taxes year after year. That was the last straw for Kristina, and she decided to stand up against it. There was a mass migration of people out of cities that year, looking for places where they could escape CGB control. Kristina ran away and travelled with various caravans of townless people hoping to find better lives. She spent a year listening to whispers and stories until she found the Rebellion. In the process, she discovered that she had an uncanny knack for survival. Some caravans she left because they went in a directions opposing her’s. Some she left because she was the last survivor.
“It didn’t really matter if I survived,” she said. “The way I saw it, if I did, I might as well do something with my life. If I died, then so be it.”
All of these stories give me a newfound respect for the members of the Rebellion. It’s a tribute to how much they can do. They also make me feel wildly incompetent. It seems that everybody had to prove their worth, while I just stumbled in. They came in having already proven that they deserve to be in the Rebellion. I have yet to do so.
Another thing strikes me: throughout all of the stories, the beginning of the Rebellion is never mentioned. All that is said is that the founders of the Rebellion were Mike and Nathan’s parents. The Kerman couple as they are called. But there are no stories telling what happened then. What happened to the Kerman couple, how the Rebellion actually came to be, or what they were doing in the years before it became a major threat to the CGB. The stories that are told about that time period are about other people’s individual towns. Everyone who was part of the Rebellion then only shrugs and says “I was here for a long time.” It is a dark spot in everyone’s combined history. Nobody speaks of the first five years, almost as if there is a secret taboo on it. I don’t have the courage to ask about
By the end of the first week, I can get the bolt to stick in the board consistently, sometimes even near the middle, but I can’t figure figure out any correlation between my technique and my accuracy. Whether or not the bolt hits seems completely random to me. Everyone says that the only way to learn how to shoot properly regularly is through developing instinct, but I can’t help but feel that all of my hits are based only on luck.
Throughout the week, I get the know all the members of the Rebellion. Most of them don’t speak about their pasts, but those who do give me enough material for a mental collage of their stories. Through covert references, I find out that Hannah and Matt joined the Rebellion together when they were exiled from their town. They were part of a local gang that pulled a really big heist. When they were discovered, and all of them were forced to leave the town, they scattered. Hannah speaks of it wistfully, saying, “Those were the days” often. Matt avoids talking about it altogether, cringing every time it is mentioned.
All that Rebekah tells me is that she joined seven years ago, when the Rebellion was still on the move. Smaller Sally tells me that Rebekah managed to follow them and steal their supplies for two weeks before anyone noticed and decided that they needed a person like that on their team.
Kristina spent an entire year looking for the Rebellion, approximately five years ago. That was the first year that the tax raises became a problem for many people and the threat of execution started to hang over our heads. Nobody was ready for a tax raise or a punishment of that scale and many people died. That was nothing to the CGB, and they only continued raising the taxes year after year. That was the last straw for Kristina, and she decided to stand up against it. There was a mass migration of people out of cities that year, looking for places where they could escape CGB control. Kristina ran away and travelled with various caravans of townless people hoping to find better lives. She spent a year listening to whispers and stories until she found the Rebellion. In the process, she discovered that she had an uncanny knack for survival. Some caravans she left because they went in a directions opposing her’s. Some she left because she was the last survivor.
“It didn’t really matter if I survived,” she said. “The way I saw it, if I did, I might as well do something with my life. If I died, then so be it.”
All of these stories give me a newfound respect for the members of the Rebellion. It’s a tribute to how much they can do. They also make me feel wildly incompetent. It seems that everybody had to prove their worth, while I just stumbled in. They came in having already proven that they deserve to be in the Rebellion. I have yet to do so.
Another thing strikes me: throughout all of the stories, the beginning of the Rebellion is never mentioned. All that is said is that the founders of the Rebellion were Mike and Nathan’s parents. The Kerman couple as they are called. But there are no stories telling what happened then. What happened to the Kerman couple, how the Rebellion actually came to be, or what they were doing in the years before it became a major threat to the CGB. The stories that are told about that time period are about other people’s individual towns. Everyone who was part of the Rebellion then only shrugs and says “I was here for a long time.” It is a dark spot in everyone’s combined history. Nobody speaks of the first five years, almost as if there is a secret taboo on it. I don’t have the courage to ask about
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