The list

     The attic was miserable and hot, but despite the creaky mattresses and dusty sheets, we managed to find some sleep. The next morning, we woke early and moved downstairs into the hive of activity that rustled under us. They assigned us computers, and offered us food. We were treated very well, I think because they knew that if it came to it, we would have to protect them. There seemed to be a lot of respect coming our way, it was nice, but a bit tiresome. People always ready to help, or just get in our way.
     We spent the better part of a week poring over the lists, scanning line by line, looking for connections anywhere. It was a long list. It wasn't until Saturday that we found our own names on the list. We were on a page labeled "Active Threats" along with a few other names, most of whom were also tagged as deceased. Silas took it very seriously. There were only about twelve names on the sheet, and he seemed to know a lot of the names. We didn't talk much after that, he just got angry and settled in front of a tv, cleaning his rifle. Silas has a very cold, steely anger, the silent kind of rage that is even more terrifying than a man yelling at full steam. I was glad he was angry at whoever had created the list, and not at me. Although, I think I reminded him of the people he had lost, which made things tense for the rest of the weekend. He didn't speak to anyone until Monday morning, when he walked down the stairs, humming a quiet tune, as if he had never been angry to begin with.
     You could see a difference though, in his attitude. He was more diligent in his list sifting, more determined to find the connection. There was a new passion in his hunt, but it seemed more and more that there was no connection between these people. Finally, on Wednesday, Silas made the connection. He had decided to try more rudimentary sorting techniques, and sorted the list alphabetically. Suddenly, almost every person on the list had at least one pairing. The people in the list shared last names. They were all families; mothers, fathers, children. We started to look them up as families, always with the same results: newspaper articles with headlines like: " Family of Four Dead in Catastrophic Fire" or "Insane Mother Drowns Two Daughters". Almost all of them were dead, but none of them in identical circumstances. Thousands of people dead, with no connections between the deaths, just a laundry list of obituaries. I cried myself to sleep that night.