As the boys exited the park, they passed rows of silent, abandoned buildings that once contained lit up, vibrant apartment complexes. Once full of laughter, life, and home cooked meals, they now sat dormant, dark, and empty. Each complex was adorned with protruding silver boxes that jutted out of the neighboring telephone poles. Emergency sirens, a last minute warning system for a population who already resided in bomb shelters awaiting the day to come. Besides Jace and Dax, only the discarded were outside living in the real world. These people took advantage of the migration to the shelters and occupied homes that they felt were theirs for the taking, living the lives they never could. Living until they could not.

  They passed a 7/11, crudely nailed boards loosely covered broken window panes. Jace’s gaze fixated on bright posters that were plastered to various parts of the building. He was biting his lower lip and his thumb was working away on a stray string of skin. His gaze rested on a poster that encompassed the entirety of one of the walls. It showed the image of a lean handsome man with short straight brown hair worn in a tight gentlemen’s cut. He had a menacing grin with sullen brown eyes that lacked color or light. This was in part due to thick eyebrows that casted a dark shadow, concealing any color that did exist. He was wearing a bright blue suit followed with a white silk dress shirt and a tie that bore the image of an American flag. The background showed a map of the world engulfed in gray with the handsome figure taller than life covering a North America encased in red, white, and blue. The man's hands were outstretched holding nuclear bombs with one above Europe and another over Asia. In bright white text the poster read, “Fisk will not miss! These empires will fall to sticks!”. These propaganda posters were commonplace in New York ever since Fisk took power, his way of making sure the people were aware of his ever growing presence and control, as if they could ever forget.

  “Jace, you good?” He watched Jace snap out of his trance, his hand moving quickly back to the safety of his Mets sweater. He gave a tight smile and nodded at Dax.

  “Stop worrying about me Dax, you know I am good! Just tired of seeing this asshole's face all over the damn place.” Jace picked up the pace leaving the lifeless man's gaze behind.

  “Why does he bother you so much anyways? I mean besides the obvious.” When Jace faced Dax, his eyebrows were furrowed and his mouth was slightly ajar.

  “And what would the obvious be Dax? Everything? Him being a racist, anti-semitic, sexist, isolationist pig who has put the world at a missile standoff?” Jace's face was flustered, his eyebrows sinking his eyes into a narrow eyed squint distorting the color of his eyes. Jace was not academically inclined or motivated. He never showed interest or focus in any subject, but when it came to politics and Fisk, Jace knew everything there was to know. It was an obsession that festered every year he stayed in power.

  Dax gave a mocking smile. “Come on, get creative with your reasoning. You are the majority, we do not even fit in the category of his hate. Why should we care?”

  “Oh, let me think,” Jace stated, holding his chin with his left hand pretending to ponder the simple question. “He did only mock someone with mental disabilities and made medication expensive as hell through his big pharma schemes. In a way, I am a minority group of the disabled and crazies”.

  Jace was not too far off. Four years ago. Fisk had mocked a failed school shooter who was caught before he could commit his attack at a local high school in Washington D.C.. Fisk on a live television debate was asked about how to stop these shootings and address an epidemic of mental health issues. Standing at the podium Fisk’s face had turned into a frown, his eyes becoming more sunken with his bushy eyebrows falling over his eyes.

  “Clearly what we have is an example of parents not disciplining their children enough.” he had commented calmly, “We have soft parents who believe punishment should go undone. Parents who believe in ‘participation awards.’ Children are not hit enough and parents believe that words of encouragement will fix this delinquent behavior. They are weak and pathetic and that boy deserves what will happen to him in prison.” Jace and Dax were 14 years old when he issued that statement and 2 months later, Jace was diagnosed with schizophrenia.

  At the time of the statement, Jace had a hatred for Fisk due to his childish targeted rants and hatred of minority groups. Many of his speeches were directed towards people who Dax and Jace were friends with but after his diagnosis, it was personal. It fueled his obsession. Jace had developed his schizophrenia at a young age by moments in their lives the two didn’t even remember. Two parents who introduced traumatic experiences in their lives from birth. Abuse, neglect, and lack of sympathy plagued their childhood narrative and was the reason Jace’s mental illness came to fruition. The fact that a presidential candidate would encourage parents to beat their children to reduce mental illness was contradictory and they knew that first hand.

  After the speech and diagnosis, Jace researched Fisk, watched the presidential campaigns, and even took to the streets with other students in protests against the candidate. It was the most focused and involved Dax had ever seen him. Regardless of Jace’s effort to show his dissatisfaction with Fisk, that year he was elected the new President. It was also around that time that fear consumed Jace, fear of the beasts who plagued the city.

  Dax hit Jace on the back, snapping them both out of the Fisk highlight reel. “See, Jace, bigotry and slang is a great reason to hate someone! Gosh who knew you had such a way with words.” Dax chuckled. They turned the corner of a street and passed a three story black concrete slab of a building. It had a near invisible awning that melded into the shadows and the dark background. On the building, a billboard with white calligraphic cursive advertised a performance by the Traveling Symphony. It was the only building that had any sign of life with a flashing open sign hanging in a cracked window. Dax thought it was odd that a group would perform musical theater for an audience hunkered down in the shelters, but it was also something of beauty to perform and keep hope alive. Jace smirked at the remark.

  “And what is your reason to hate Fisk or more importantly, what is your reason for calling him President? I thought you were the smarter twin.” Jace remarked using air quotations. The smarter twin smiled at the question and mimicked Jace by placing his right hand under his chin.

  “Ummm.” Jace groaned.

  “It can’t be that hard to find an ans-”

  “Well, let me think for a second, Jace.” Dax interrupted, causing Jace to roll his eyes. After a few more prolonged seconds of thought, he continued. “I would say I call him President because that's what he is and I am rooting for a sick comeback story. I mean to hit rock bottom like he has, it would be sweet to see him change it up and do something good.” Dax smiled knowingly. “Who knows, he could be the new Cinderella Man.” Jace was a mix of emotions. His hands had left the safety of the sweater and were searching for a gesture to indicate his feelings. Jace’s brain was playing catch up and his mouth kept opening and closing trying to pick the right words to say. Dax looked to his right to check that he had not grown a second head.

  “Come on Dax, stop messing with me!” Jace pleaded, his hands finding their place in his short pockets.

  “Oh I am completely serious.” Jace’s head fell limply backwards. Dax let out a world famous laugh that filled the dormant city street. He continued. “You know I am only kidding, I know how much you need your medication and how that asshat has only made it harder for us to give it to you. Besides, he made it nearly impossible for us to get to the national parks until this whole international crisis gets underhand.”

  Jace’s head straightened and a light lit up his features, “Ya, that asshat makes Geodon expensive as liquid gold, I say we just stop buying it and save up to hitchhike to Yellowstone. There is something about the woods that makes my mind right. I wouldn’t even need it anymore.” There was no reasonable logic behind the statement but Dax had seen the impact the woods had on Jace’s mental stability.

  When they were in high school they had a sophomore class trip to Maine to visit Acadia National Park where they camped on the outskirts of the forest. They were completely surrounded by rows of trees that stretched miles in every direction. If you went farther than 30 feet, the forest seemed to swallow you up. This was 6 months after the diagnosis and Jace was still trying to find medication that best suited him. At this time he was on medication that caused him to bloat and gain weight at an alarming rate which resulted in various self confidence issues and tear filled nights. But as soon as they entered the park and were surrounded by the lushness of the woods, his problems became lost with the song of the forest.

  That trip, the boys stayed up one night until 3 AM looking at the stars that lit up the sky without a cloud in sight. Each star was illuminated perfectly revealing the Milky Way. The brothers ate smores and used their phone’s app to view every constellation in the sky. Their laughs echoed through the woods while they read about a straight line that stretched across the illuminated sky. It was the most unappealing to both the boys and they were surprised it represented anything, let alone the God Ares.

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  “How in the hell is that line supposed to be a Ram? Aries must have been a shit God if they assigned it such an ugly constellation.” Dax had laughed to the point of tears. It was the first time in a long time that the twins felt like boys instead of men, the weight of the world falling off their shoulders for just one night.

  Ever since the trip, Jace had been gung-ho about researching and visiting every national park they could. His obsession with Fisk was quickly replaced with the national parks. Jace rented books from the library, borrowed DVD documentaries about Theodore Roosevelt, the creator of the national parks (Dax got to hear about that endlessly), and national geographics that focused on the U.S. park system. Maps and images littered the boys' single bedroom shelter room and national parks became their passion. It was only when Jace saw images of Yellowstone that he had the insatiable urge to travel and commit to his own manifest destiny out west.

  “Dax, do you see the colors of the basins and hot springs here!” Jace was shaking and he hopped from one part of the National Geographic page to the next. Even though Dax was looking over his shoulder, Jace had continued to shove the magazine in his face. He was so close his eyes blurred the colors. When he pushed Jace’s hand away, an image of the beautiful basin that had a bright blue center with green rocks illuminated under the water stretched across his vision. It was followed by a ring of yellow, orange, and red shores that were the brightest colors the boys had ever seen, “We have to go! Like today, or tomorrow! And the wildlife I mean wow, wow!” From that moment, the future, their destiny clicked into place so Dax made a promise.

  “Jace, if we can save up money to take a plane or bus down, we can work out a way to move back to New York eventually. We can even stay in Wyoming if that's what you really want.” Jace’s energy skyrocketed and he danced in place at the mention of the idea.

  “Are you serious! That would mean the world to me Dax!” Jace exclaimed, hugging his brother off the floor.

  Since that day 3 years ago, the brothers had started to save. They worked an assortment of odd jobs from dishwashing to being a babysitter to help pay for Jace’s medication and the trip, saving whatever they could on the side. Within 2 years they had saved up nearly $3,000 to get to Wyoming but at the time they were about to buy their plane tickets, Fisk had his United Nations meltdown putting the United States in a state of emergency which had lasted nearly 7 months. Everyone was afraid of what was to come even after they hit a half a year and no one dared to leave the safety of their shelter. Which is where a majority of the population were now, stuck between a rock and a hard place.

  Dax grinned at Jace and slid his hands in his pockets, a cold breeze flowing through the barren street. “For now let us stick to buying the medication and waiting this crisis out, then we can head to the middle of nowhere.” Jace’s eyes lit up and he started to walk faster towards the shelter which had appeared in eyesight, the sun passing past its setting point, all light starting to disappear from the sky.

  “Let’s get going Dax! All this talk has me wanting to review our Wyoming plan one more time.”

  “That has got to be the whitest shit I have ever heard.” A baritone voice barked out. In the brother's excitement, they had failed to notice the shadows of a group of boys that were hovering in an abandoned loading platform a couple feet away. The voice was deep and commanding, it echoed down the row of buildings behind the brothers. It was familiar, and held enough power to stop the boys in their tracks. Dax and Jace first locked eyes with one another, a shared thought and recognition of the voice hitting them both. They then looked towards the boy who demanded their attention.

  “Well if it ain’t The Wannabes, how are you doing Elijah? Looking pretty cute tonight. You and your boys out for a date?” Jace commented, a shit eating smirk spreading across his face. Dax swore under his breath and clenched his fists when the figures emerged. Light glinted off the leader's eyebrow piercing and Elijah’s bright blue eyes stared disapprovingly at the boys. He approached slowly, his gait long and smooth accompanied by an heir of confidence. Two others flanked Elijah, their silence a sign of their subservience.

  “Always with the jokes, Jeffrey. I thought Fisk was starting to round you folks up? We don’t need any more school shooters.” Elijah said, throwing back the insult. Dax quickly attempted to pull back Jace, his hand comparable to that of a toddlers trying to grip his huge shoulder blades. Jeffrey, referencing the notorious serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, was Elijah’s pet name for Jace when everyone found out he had schizophrenia.

  “Come on, leave him, let’s head home.” Dax saw a stillness take over Jace, one that promised violence and he was eager to get him away from the group. Jace originally found out he had schizophrenia when he was being yelled at by a teacher who scolded him for dozing off in class. It stressed him out to a point where he entered what they called a fugue state. Half an hour later, Jace had awakened in a school bathroom with bloodied knuckles and a destroyed bathroom. The mirror had been shattered and Jace was laying in the fetal position next to a sink he had ripped out from the ground. A teacher had found him and word spread like wildfire.

  Jace was ostracized by the school and his own friends. Everyone feared him due to a lack of awareness of what his disease was. To say Jace had thick skin was an understatement. The bullying and comments had left scar tissue and calluses. Still, Jace had an ego to protect and when it came to Elijah, he tended to see red.

  I have to get him out of here or this will get bad, Dax thought. Jace was smart but never backed down from a fight, whether it was his arrogance or stupidity, Dax never knew. What he did know was that with him unmedicated, a fight could break loose and at that point there was no stopping it. Jace shook off his brother, Dax helplessly watching his hand fall down his back. He confidently walked closer to Elijah, his thumb rapidly picking away at his finger.

  One of the thugs from Elijah’s gang chimed in, “Awww that's cute Jeffrey, are you going to let your older brother wipe your ass for you too? I didn’t know that being schizophrenic meant you were retarded! It's cute how the disabled need help from their elders huh, Elijah?” The boy quipped with a high pitched chuckle.

  Elijah turned his head and narrowed his eyes at the boy. “You don’t say shit you hear, Devon? Just shut the fuck up.” Dax’s eyebrows shot up in surprise at the misdirected outburst. He continued the barrage, “Do you think I need you backing me up?” Elijah spat, “If I needed my lap dog I would have called you.” Devon’s mouth gaped but he lowered his head submissively and stepped back into line. You could almost see his tail hunkered in between his legs.

  Devon was a smaller stockier kid who was also one of the few black kids to go to the high school Dax and Jace attended. That was one of the reasons Devon joined Elijah, due to the familiarity felt with their notorious leader. Being an outsider is tough especially when you were a black student in a country ruled under Fisk. Elijah was the voice for the disenfranchised. Every day racist slurs and derogatory language was thrown towards Devon, leading to many fights. He was always thrown under the bus and always in trouble regardless of who threw the first punch. Devon was lonely and depressed with no one to share the pain and taunts he received until Elijah took him under his wing. That was the start of The Wannabes.

  The third Wannabe member grabbed Devon and pulled him back in line consoling the boy. His name was Arthur, to most he was a 6 '2 thin white kid from New Orleans, but what surprised most was that he was biracial. His dad, who was a light skinned black man, married his white mother leading to his tan appearance. Arthur was gentle and kind but was constantly bullied and taunted for his white appearance and what other students deemed his “black voice”. It hardened him and made him soft spoken, afraid for others to hear his southern accent. It was hard to conceal because his voice was deep and resonated from his chest in a southern tone that seemed to sing gospel.

  Jace’s thumb jumped to another finger, his agitation growing. “That isn’t a nice thing to say especially when you love a good lap dog.” Jace started. “But hey if he isn’t good enough for you, I hear the churches are still open, I bet you could waltz in there in a nice altar boy suit and get your needs met”.

  Dax sighed. Well shit. We are in it this time. Jace was the king at finding every insecurity in someone and exploiting it. Living in an environment of constant torment, he had to grow claws, be ruthless, and Jace was the king. He did not care that Elijah was gay. He marched with many of the pride community during the Fisk protests but that was second to hurting Elijah. Being gay for Elijah was a great fault especially already being a school full of white straight kids. Being black already isolated him but being gay too was his nail in the coffin. Elijah’s jaw ticked, his fist turning white. He lifted his black and white New York Yankees hat, his hand running along his short and curly black hair.

  “What did you just say Jeffrey?” Elijah whispered looking down at Jace who had crossed his hands showing large forearms that were riot shields ready for the barrage of insults that were about to come his way. “I don’t think I heard you right.” Jace grinned and a scar on the lower right side of Elijah’s face popped.

  “Oh I think you heard me right. Only reason you have The Wannabes is because you're hoping for one of them to find themselves.” His hand positioned like a tea spout the other hand placed on his hip. Jace walked closer to Elijah only inches away from him. His grin faded, replaced by sunken eyebrows and a straight mouth. “I ain’t no school shooter but you definitely are light on your feet. I suggest you go to your Wannabes or I will show you how crazy I can fucking be.” He promised in a low tone, staring down intently at the boy who barely met his gaze. Elijah’s face flickered and his hands shook with rage, the only signs he showed of how far the insult cut. The original confidence was replaced and Dax could see the wheels spinning in Elijah’s head, desperate for a snappy insult. Before he could retort, a voice cut through the tension.

  “Ayy cabron how about you just hit the yellow brick road to the looney bin.” With the intensity of the two boys facing off against each other, they didn’t notice the fourth figure who was still looming by the loading dock. As he came into the light his voice rang out, “We don’t need any more psychos in New York.”

  Jace's expression snapped into a smile, the menacing threat replaced with jovial exuberance. Elijah backed away from Jace, freeing himself from the intense gaze that had bore into him. Dax faced the new figure who was briefly illuminated. The boy was small, with a muscular toned figure. He was wearing a long sleeve shirt rolled up at the elbow with a pair of American Eagle jeans. He was attractive, with slicked back black hair and dark brown eyes that seemed to glow when the fading sun hit his face. To top it all off, his voice was smooth and quiet but echoed with confidence paired with a thick Hispanic accent. Dax let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding and nodded at the emerging figure.

  “Hey there Mateo, long time no see.”