The basement. Cold and dank. Dark and dingy. Cobwebs clinging to corners like bats waiting to pounce, mice scuttling beneath the rusted floorboards; the persistent pattering of tiny feet the undeviating background noise. All you had to was prick up your ears, and you'd hear it. Gnawing, scampering, squeaking through their rotted mouths. A constant smell loitered, drifting through walls and refusing to submit to nozzles of detergent, a smell that the nose never quite adjusted to no matter the time you spent with it wafting through your nostrils. Nails stuck up from the ground like death traps, just lingering, waiting for the opportune moment, anticipating the second that the cold metal would reach tender flesh, longing to hear the cry of pain. In fact, there were only two rules in the basement. Don't go barefoot and, if you think something's biting you, you're probably right.

And so, no, the basement wasn't a tradition home. It was far from it. Inhospitable. The worst place on earth. But it wasn't the cold, not the cobwebs, not the lingering smell of mould that made it a home but rather the people. They say you can create a home out of anything. And Phil knew that better than anyone, for the beating hearts that sat around the room, some typing frantically at keyboards, and some lounging on questionable couches; they were far closer to home than any room could ever be.

On the surface it all seemed so bland. The smogged windows and dingy floors enclosing seven pale nerds with questionable haircuts, the aggressive clicking a constant background to chatter and laughter, when morale was high, and when food was abundant. But in reality it was so much more. It's always easy to see people staring at screens, sat at computer desks, lost in the 'new digital age', and shake your head, see nothing more, but it's much harder to see the full picture, to imagine the world they are absorbed within. It is hard to look at them and not just see a 'pale nerd' staring ferociously at a screen, and to imagine that each click is represented on a screen, each tap is a string of data weaving faster than a river, faster a lone car on a highway, that each click is a weave of data that is shooting so fast, running away like a streamer popped from a steaming party popper, click and off, click and off, bright lights travelling through wires and through air and through streams and through databases and hitting other data that is so very far away. Hacking. Phil still couldn't get his head around it. And Phil was a master.

There were many names for what they did; hackers, rebels, protesters, free-lance agents, spies, revolutionaries, programmer, geek, underground agent. The last one was Phil's favourite, and it was his favourite because just like the tinsel they had tried to hastily shove over the peeling walls, it attempted to embellish the truth. And it gave what they did just a little more importance, a little more reason. At least in his own head. He had needed that recently

When people hear the name 'underground agent' they imagine something much fancier than what it actually was, they imagine fast cars in blurs down streets and tight collars hanging black ties, they imagine burnished guns held against heads and book shelves that turn at the flutter of a page. They often don't imagine that they spent most of their time actually underground. But then reality always has a smidge of grime. Or a whole bucket load. And the reality was Phil's life.

The boys lay strung across the only sofa, arms tangled within legs and heads as they all fought for space, foam spilling out of tears in the sofa like rivers out of caves. There was laughter, but eventually it turned silent, as it so often did in those days, out of sheer fatigue, out of sheer sadness, and out of the one thing that constantly lingered above them. Flicker. Flicker. Flicker. A held breath. And then blackness.

"Are we seriously out of batteries again?" Phil sighed, "I think I'm turning into a mole rat." The boys laughed but it was a nervous laugh. And Phil could tell. He could tell from the twitching of Rowan's fingers as he pushed his glasses up, or the way Cedar's voice hitched, or through Ash's constant gulping. The air had been thick ever since the incident. Ever since the great unnamed.

The group had formed in the early days, before anything took hold, before the chokehold tightened and people began to realise that they couldn't breathe. That's the thing about a fascism, about dictatorship, it's not fast and scary. It's not falling off a cliff and flailing, it's slow like a snake in the grass. It doesn't come with a promise of death, but rather one of hope, of twisted hope but hope all the same. And it still promises hope. But hope no longer means the same thing. And people have forgotten what hope used to mean. Or rather they are scared to remember.

University. In plush sofas and beanbags, surrounded by rich bookcases and the every flickering lights of a television, the light of the moon their only friend and their panic growing stronger with every nod of a head, with every passing student who seemed to become seized by the regime, by the fear of saying no. And one by one, night by night, things would disappear. And then reappear. No difference to the average human, the ones who were too scared to look, too scared to question. 'Maintenance' they said, 'cleaning', 'sorry that book's out at the moment'. But more and more books were 'out on loan' and yet there were no less books, more and more teachers had 'grievances with families' or simply 'grew tired of teaching' and yet there was an abundance of teachers. They were being replaced, altered just slightly. A ripple across the surface of a lake, like a fish bobbing up for air, but you had to dive deeper to see the real monster of the depths. Mass censoring without anyone knowing, strange 'disappearances' in the night, shifting eyes and an understanding that certain questions were not to be asked. An understanding that came out of nowhere, that was not announced, not spread from ear to ear but rather just crept in the night, washing over the students, bathing them, cleansing them of the old and teaching them of the new. There was no such thing as choice, and yet choice was still offered, they were living in a world of allusions. A dark cloud hanging above, infiltrating their minds one by one. And then students started disappearing and they were being weeded, a giant hand reaching down from above and picking, it's fat fingers hovering, plucking, discarding, the pile of waste slowly growing. Only the weak reminded, only the pliable, only the compliant. But the roots were always good at hiding.

That's what they called themselves 'the roots', the hackers that slunk through the ground to attack from below, their aim to wrap themselves around the beating heart and rupture it, strip away the blood and expose it for the blackness that lay below. The roots. Rowan. Ash. Elm. Cedar. Forrest. Yew. Hawthorn and Juniper. Their real names lost to the wind, or stolen by the moonlight. They were the trees that would provide the great roots to dissettle the regime. Well, that was the plan. There was little success.

No one knew each other's real names, or they pretended to forget, knowledge was just too dangerous. Apart from Phil, Phil knew Dan's and Dan knew Phil's. But Phil was trying not to think about Dan.

He heaved himself off of the sofa, "Well we must have something." Yew shook his head,

"I already checked."

"Twice." Hick blurted. But Phil rose anyway, walking skittishly up and down the hallway of their makeshift kitchen.

"Huck!" Phil heard Yew shout, "You have to sit down man." Huck. Phil still felt distanced from the name, as if there were two of him, the one who lived in the dark, the one who knew how to stand firm but still had the twinkle of rebellion in his eye and the other one, the shy boy that lived inside of him, the one that silently cried at night and kissed Dan softly when no one was looking. Dan. No. Not now.

Phil sighed, "I can't just sit here!"

"The generator will be back on tomorrow," Forrest stressed but Phil knew he was skittish too, they all were. In fact, they were more than skittish, they were bordering on a breakdown. Fear ran like electricity through all of their veins.

Phil sat back down, allowing himself to lean against Rowan's chest. Rowan was the only one he knew before the darkness of the basement, his sandy hair just slightly lighter than the bark of a rowan tree, and his green eyes just slightly brighter than the leaves. Rowan, his name fit him perfectly.

Phil still remembered the day his name changed, wide-eyed, dusty floors, twelve boys sat in a circle, scared shitless and shaking. Phil had thought that he would feel something when he casted away his old identity, when he accepted his new one like a coat of arms, he had imagine his name floating through him like a ghost, stopping in his chest, and lingering there, filling him with a new-found hope, a new found confidence. But this wasn't a film.

Hawthorn. It sounded tough, poisonous, renegade. But in the end it was just another word, a word that tasted bad in his mouth, as if he had swallowed a mouthful of the hawthorn thorns themselves, and they were shuffling around, slicing into his tongue like small knives. It just wouldn't do. It wouldn't do at all.

He had spent hours sifting through all of derivations of Hawthorn, of which there were more than a few, trying them on for size. Hank? No. Thorn? No. Hawk? No. Howie? No. Thor? No. Theo? Harry? Haw? They just wouldn't do. But Huck, Huck fitted him immediately, moulding itself around the shape of his pale skin.

He sighed, literally staring into a black oblivion, "Alright then, boys, it's time for bed." Phil called, letting his voice wash over the men, interrupting their yawns and making them rub their eyes. At some point Phil seemed to have adopted the role as leader, the one who the eyes snap to in a crisis, the one who decides how to split the food, and what happens when the power goes out. Phil wasn't the oldest, or the smartest, or the wisest, but maybe he was the kindest, and the group seemed to have warmed to that, to have adopted him as a parent. It's odd how, when in situations of fear, people still continue to elect parental figures, the older ones, to make them feel as if they are less alone. Even a group of twenty year old men would choose someone to make them feel less afraid. It wasn't exactly like a parent though, it was more reciprocal than that, they took care of each other, and fought the demons stood side by side.

Phil felt his head hit the mattress, but rather than being soft and encompassing, it was hard, shooting a small pain through his head. They only had one benefactor, which just about covered the money for the tech equipment. The people on the floor next door? They were less important. Revolutions always had to come first.

Phil felt a leg bang against his, followed by a muffled cry of apology. Phil, as usual, was sharing the mattress. In fact, that night they all were, they had pushed them all together to form one big mattress and blankets and duvets were strewn in a giant pile. Forget strength in numbers, warmth in numbers was what they were interested in. And right then, they needed all the warmth they could get; the basement in winter felt as if you had been stripped naked and cast astray on a floating iceberg. And thanks to the generator, they had no radiators for the night.

One by one, people drifted off, soft snores slowly circulating the room. But Phil couldn't sleep. He hadn't in about a week. He had no idea what he was running off, except perhaps haunting memories, he seemed to be full of them. That's not to say that he didn't shut his eyes, that he didn't fall into what one might call 'sleep', he did that, he did that most nights, but what followed was no more sleep than it was peaceful. As soon as his eyes shut, he saw it on repeat, he saw it over and over again until his eyes opened again. He hated it. He hated it. He hated it. He hated it with a gnawing groan in his stomach and a bile which rose in his throat.

But darkness was inevitable, and despite Phil's fight, eventually his eyes sowed themselves shut with a horrifying finality. He suddenly became a spectator in the cinema of his nightmares, the chairs closing him in, almost sucking him into the universe, their arms like claws clamping him still. And then the screaming began.

Phil watched from behind the crack of a wall, his arms aching harder than the pain in his head, his eyes only just drifting above the wall, and his chin knocking against the stones as he desperately tried to cling on. Phil forgets what the aim was, from time to time, all he knows is that it was a mistake, and it was his mistake. His mistake. His mistake. The ghost that has followed him around for what seems like centuries, but can't be more than mere weeks, but with each sleepless night his eyes grow heavy enough for a year. The camera's he thinks, they were there to look at the positioning of the cameras. But his 'dream', if you can call it that, is never about the cameras. Oh lord, if only it was. His dream is about Dan. About Juniper. About Gin. All three names threading together to form the boy that had so often stood before him. And he could see him, small and insignificant, a little black dot against a giant stone wall. So little he had to remind himself that it was Dan. And Phil's heart pounded against the wall, because was Dan was too close, he was too cocky and Dan, like his code name Gin, had the uncanny ability to make Phil do unpredictable things. And Phil's breath was short as he watched him, as he watched him turn the corner, and a scream died in his throat as he saw the soldiers round the corner, unable to even process what was happening as the kick hit, and the cry sounded out, the hopeless cry and Phil screamed and screamed as he tried to hoist himself up, as he tried to clamber over the wall, but hands held him back as he screeched and cried, his torso arching like a wild animal. But the punches were still flying and blood had begun to splatter as Rowan's arms wrapped themselves around, 'sssh' he hissed into his ear, 'they'll see us, they'll see us!" and Phil knew he was right but still he fought, the two of them balanced precariously on the forty foot wall as they began to carry Dan's body inside, lifeless yet twitching like a fish who had been out of the water too long. "Huck, Huck! We have to go, We have to go," Rowan choked, "there's nothing we can do, Gin's in there now'" And Phil seemed to accept defeat like a broken man, slumping and allowing Rowan to attach him onto the rope once more, tears in his eyes as he looked back, Dan's body gone now, his last word snatched by the wind as his hands gripped the stones, "Dan"

He could already feel himself writhing as he ripped his eyes open, only to be faced with more darkness, he was living in the nightmare, there was no escape.

There was a face hanging above his head, Phil could just make it out through the darkness, his eyes growing more and more accustomed until he could see the sharp edges of hair falling across the boy's face. And for a second, just for one split moment, he was sure it was Dan. And his chest filled with deluded hope. His eyes lighting up just slightly, but then the boys arms wrapped around him, his chest falling onto Phil, and Phil could feel his ribs pressing against Phil's stomach, and the boy was much too slight, far too skinny to be Dan. And he felt tears begin to leak from his eyes, giving up on hanging on, as his chest fell once more into a spiralling despair. 'sssh sssh' the voice whispered into Phil's ear, the body beside him now rubbing his arm softly. It was the same voice from the wall, except this time the soothing was softer. Rowan. Wall. Happy memories. Soldiers. No. Blood. No. Happy memories, he urged himself. Twitching. No. Remember. Remember. Remember. Remember Dan's soft lips upon his own in the darkness of the corner, the sounds of the sleeping and the cold wall against their backs. Thump. No. Phil started to twitch. Remember hands clutched under desks, Dan's thumb stroking softly over the back of his hand. Screams. No. Remember the whisper of names through the sunken pillows, what once was stolen now returned through the breath of night. Pain. No. Remember glances across rooms and tongues in mouths, remember limbs entangled as the sleeping bag enclosed them, remember hands in hair, tugging softly. Tears trickled down Phil's cheeks and he began to rock, Rowan's arms drawing him in closer,

"We'll get him back, we will, we will, don't worry, and don't worry." But Rowan's tears were dropping onto Phil's skin like rain on the desert.

"I love him" Phil whispered through the dark, calling to the night, pleading to the stars, as if it would bring Dan back.

"I know." Rowan whispered back, and he did. It was something that wasn't spoken but seen, not uttered but heard, seen through the way their eyes lit up when they saw each other, seen through secret shuffles closer to each other, heard through their whispers to the stars and heard through the gentle thud of Phil's tears as they hit the ground.

Thank you for reading ! Hope the new year goes well for you :) This is the start of a mini series, and so I am sorry that this is mainly just background but it seemed important.