It was during one of these forays in the year 2082 that disaster struck. The group was made of three young women, named Thandi, Lira and Agnes, Agnes was a twin and her twin brother had never been outside.
She and her brother were of the same height, and looked very much the same, without letting the elders know or the hunting group she was a part of, Agnes and her brother switched places. They had planned this for months, in that time she had taught him what to expect and how to behave,she had also taught him the hand signals that they used when speaking aloud was not convenient.
What she had thought was her idea,was the idea of the men in their camp.
With the rules of their little community they knew they would never be let out of the mines,from child to adults they were not even allowed to hear the reports of those coming back from the outside. All they were told was that they would be corrupted and become a danger to all women if they were let out of the mines.
So they had concocted this plan due to their dissatisfaction with their lives as hostages, which is how they viewed themselves. A couple of them were old enough to remember the world before they fled.
There were only five men in all, and there were ten women under the age of forty who had never had children, including Agnes. The men could only marry those they were not related to. So there were five couples seemingly tasked with growing the population.
Seven days after "Agnes" and the group had left, the real Agnes, who was avoiding her brother's wife while pretending to be her brother was sitting alone in a secluded alcove in one of the open air shafts they used for agriculture when she heard a commotion in the main living caverns.
Hurrying to them she found her brother's wife weeping and speaking incoherently as some of the men tried to drag her away.
Seeing Agnes she yelled:" is it true?!", breaking from one man's grasp she rushed at Agnes, knocked her to the ground before tearing at her clothes.
Agnes didn't bother fighting her,she understood that the men must have told her that she was pretending to be a man while her brother was pretend to be a woman and had gone out. When her chest with it's itty-bitty titties was exposed, Breanne,her brother's wife, gasped and moved away from her.
"You stupid bitch", Breanne said,her voice low and flat. " Do you know how I found out that you are not him?"
Agnes got up and calmly buttoned up her shirt;" obviously", she spoke coldly, " the men told you, probably your stupid brother".
She gave him a dirty look before she turned to the elder women who stood clumped together opposite the cavern.
"It's not a big deal", she spoke loudly, drowning out what ever Breanne tried to say. " What we do here to the men is no better than what the menup there do there do to the women. When they come back-"
At this point Breanne loudly cut her off:" they are not coming back?" She moved towards the elders, there were twelve of them,three had died in recent years from illness or old age. She sneered at Agnes and continued;" I was going to ask them if they knew why my husband was ignoring me when I overheard them talking about how they hoped the government wouldn't punish us to severely for hiding out here all this time when Ben told them about us"
She took a breath and took her mother's hands in hers and said;" I shouldn't have confronted them then, but I wasn't thinking "
She pulled back her dissarrayed hair away from the left side of her face, and that is when Agnes noticed how messed up he clothes were,the bruises on her face and neck. She turned and looked at the men and said in a voice of iron; " they attacked me. My own brother was strangling me and if his wife had not come and made a fuss he would have killed me."
Agnes could not breathe. It was not possible that her brother had betrayed them,had betrayed her. Swaying she lowered herself to the ground in the silence.
" I am sorry Breanne." A voice said gruffly:" I overreacted " it was the would be killer.
Agnes gasped in pain, finally getting air in her lungs which started her coughing. No one spoke as she hacked and gasped on the ground, with tears streaming from her eyes she said to the ground at her feet; "he wanted to see the outside, when he came back with the others you would see that the men here were different from the-" again Breanne cut her off.
" Different?!" She screamed at her, " my own brother attacked me!!! I ran here and they came after me. They were dragging me away before you came in here and what did you see Agnes? Are the women here different from those up there? Everyone was just standing around inanely asking " what's going on " instead of helping me ". She started crying again, huge racking sobs that put her on her knees.
Agnes looked away from her to look at the men. They stood together, belligerent casts to their faces and their firsts clenched.
She got to her feet shakily, she moved towards the elders, her own mother had died five years ago, but she took the nearest old woman's hands in her own and said in a voice full of grief:" I have erred, I told him about the outside. I told him how women were treated out there. He said he wished he could see it for himself. " Agnes sighed; " he used me." She went down on her knees before prostrating herself before them. " I have put us all in danger" ,she spoke loudly," please help me make this right"
"It's too late" a male voice spoke badly. " Just because you have seen a few men misbehaving doesn't mean it's all men. We just want to be free,we wouldn't do-" Sudden laughter halted him mid-sentence.
Agnes looked up to find the old women laughing, including Breanne's mother who was on her knees with her weeping daughter in her arms.
One of the old women spoke then, " we were shocked at first to see men attacking a women in this place,after all, we thought we had raised you to be better. You're right boy, it's not all men, not all men rape women in the streets, others pay the government to be allowed to rape children and women kept in chains for that very purpose." She sighed loudly,shaking her head and walked out of the cavern.
Soon the others followed her, except Breanne's mother who was locked in an embrace with Breanne. She was looking at her son with distate. He in turn stared at his mother with rage. He had been eleven years old when they had gone into hiding, the oldest child by two years. His sister was not yet born, their father had come in and out of their lives as he pleased.
Weeping was the only sound heard in the caverns, more of the women were crying, and some of the children were crying as well.
The old women came back, some held guns that had been taken when a foraging group came upon them. Some of the guns were old,Agnes doubted if they would work. The woman who's hands she had held fired a single shot into the air.
Everyone flinched and screams filled the air before being replied by silence.
The old woman who had spoken earlier spoke again;" Breanne said that we are no different from the women up there, standing idly and watching a woman getting attacked. We were wrong for that. We have lost those two women that went out to provide for us with a snake in their midst." In unison,all the guns were pointed at the clump of men.
" You will leave now,satisfy yourselves with the knowledge that you have wounded us all and will now be free a greater number of women" She continued in a stern tone.
Another old women spoke with a quaver, " Leave us to our fate, or do you intend to join the soldiers when they come here in the rape of your sisters and mothers?".
A man's voice spoke but before he could get a syllable out another gunshot resounded,followed by yellowing from the men. Agnes rose up and turned to see Breanne's older brother with a busted leg bleeding profusely.
She turned back to the old women to see his mother was holding a smoking gun in both hands, Breanne was sitting on the ground.
"Thandi, your daughter is even now being horribly abused,if she had no courage to kill herself. She is only twenty years old." The old woman sighed and trained the gun on her son again. " you will take your sons and leave without another word, the next man to speak dies. Any woman who cannot bear to be separated from her husband and sons can leave as well"
Whimpering followed her orders. The were seen boys under the age twenty five the yoingest was seventeen years, no one under twenty five was allowed to marry. The living arrangements made it impossible for sneaking around to occur so there had never been any children born out of marriage.
Two of the married women left with their husband's and took their daughterswith them,all the boys left and an umarried woman also left,she had no siblings and her mother was dead. She had been born in the caverns and had never qualified to go outside.
After they left, preparations to leave the cave. The back up plan was known only to the elders. The foragers knew there was a back plan,they didn't know the details.
When Agnes asked for help in righting her mistake she was referring to this plan. The women who left took their daughters, daughters were all they had left. And emergency pack which everyone had to have ready according to the rules.
In silence they left the place they had lived in for nearly fifty years.
Agnes' heart was ashes.
She knew she would never see her brother again. She sorrowed for the women who had left, they all had one thing in common; they had never left the mines,the reports of the foragers were nothing but stories.
The wife of Breanne's brother did not leave, she had looked at him with fear and turned from him when he beckoned her to follow him. He had taken her three sons, but they had left willingly enough to shake her, her first child was out in the mad world,to be considered lost forever.
She walked away from the cave with her head bowed, pack on her back, cradling her pregnant belly. She had been unsure until today when the baby moved for the first time.
She had told no one.