Title: Beyond It All
Pairing: Ville/Bam
Rating: PG-13 at the moment, rating may change per chapter

Disclaimer: In this chapter the characters who belong to themselves are Ryan and Bam. Chloe is a figment of my own imagination. This never happened and I have never met any of the characters; information has been taken from various sources. You could draw links between 1984 and this piece of fiction but this is not intended as a parody. In addition, Ville probably won’t appear for at least a few chapters so this could be considered a slow story.

Summary: “America,” boomed George Harby, Head of State, “is changing. America,” he continued, fixing the television screen with an impressive stare, “has changed. Changes,” declared the red-faced gentleman, “will be necessary.” The last word was spoken with deliberate stress and the millions of men and women watching the speech at home felt a vague cold feeling somewhere deep inside.




“I’m not quite sure how to start this. I’m not quite sure of anything at the moment. I’ve tried the “Dear Diary” approach, I’ve tried plunging straight in, I’ve even tried starting it like a fucking novel but I can’t seem to get my thoughts straight. My name’s Ryan Dunn. That’s one thing I am sure of. For now at any rate, maybe one day soon they’ll change the bloody thing like they’ve changed everything else. Make me Male 28595 or something. I don’t even know why I’m writing this. If anybody finds it I’ll be dead. Then again, in many ways I’m dead already.

I guess I’m trying to leave something behind. At a time when everything seems so worthless I’m trying to do something worthwhile. Maybe when this is all over somebody will find this and I’ll be like that Ann Frank girl. Except she hid in her annex. There’s nowhere to hide here.

Here is otherwise known as TGW. The Great West for those lucky bastards not acquainted with this hell hole. TGW consists of North and South America. Now I write this I’m not quite sure why they didn’t just rename it America. Most probably pure sadism, stripping one more precious piece of our identity away. Maybe they just wanted to confuse us, knowledge is, apparently, power, and even if I don’t know that they sure as hell do. You see, TGW is essentially a dictatorship, bloody ironic when you think about all America has stood for in the past. It is also half of the world. The other half is dubbed, rather charmingly I think, TGE (The Great East) and consists of most of Europe, Asia and Africa.

This all originated about 3 years ago in 2007. Global Warming turned out to be more dangerous than any of us idiots anticipated. A lot more dangerous. Through the combined efforts of the USA and China mankind managed to produce such a fabulous amount of carbon dioxide that we royally screwed up about 90% of the world’s ecosystems. This caused the earth itself to begin producing higher levels of The Bad Gases and it was basically a downhill road from then onwards.

We’re basically all out of any types of fuel now. The sea is like some fucked up mess of death and mutations due to the new temperatures and The Islands; Britain, Australia Greenland and the entire continent of Antarctica are basically out of bounds. Very Dangerous Areas. Or so we’re told. Apparently they’re mainly flooded, falling apart in the case of the icy regions and barren due to oceanic viruses affecting the food. Not that we don’t get viruses here but they’re not as bad. Apparently.

So The Islands became Out of Bounds, and TGE and TGW fell apart. Then, as The State would claim, a new world emerged out of the ashes of the old. Many would replace the word “new” with the world “worse”, personally I’d slip the words “bloody”, “repressive” and “dictatorship” in there somewhere too. We’re pretty much slaves now. They control where we work, where we live, what we eat, what we do. It pretty much sucks.

Anyway, my name’s Ryan Dunn and this is my diary. My memoir. My story.”

Bam gazed down at the words once more. Brown hair obscuring his eyes from view. Chloe shifted uncomfortably. That was one of the main things she hated about this flat - they all lived in flats now; left more room for food production - there was nothing to look at. No ornament she could pretend to study to avoid looking at the man before her. At least he didn’t seem to be crying, although she couldn’t be sure. She never knew what to do when men cried.

“And it just ends there?” Bam’s voice startled her. He always had that effect on her. She’d ‘known’ him for three years now and yet whenever they were alone she found it hard to hide her discomfort. Chloe sometimes thought that it was because she didn’t quite like him. Maybe if he’d been less popular and outgoing she would have been certain of this fact but as it was it almost seemed as if there must be something wrong for her to dislike the man. Whatever it was, she hated spending time with him without her husband present. But Ryan was dead now so she’d have to deal with Bam alone.

“Yeah… Pretty much,” she murmured. He returned, thankfully, to staring at the book. It seemed slightly wrong that her husband had just died and she was primarily concerned with the inconvenience of dealing with his best friend but she was experienced enough with death to know, with her at least, that was the way it worked. Hysterics for a few hours, crying for about a day and then deal with it for as long as you can.

“I applied to The State to start Viva La Bam again,” said Bam, “but there doesn’t seem to be much point now.”

Really now, Chloe thought. What on Earth was she supposed to reply to that. Her charmingly common mother would have offered to “make us both a cuppa” but she wasn’t sure if Bam drank tea and alcohol was banned.

“There doesn’t seem to be much point in anything,” she replied, equally redundantly, and was perversely relieved when Bam got up to go.

Current Mood: nervous