Chapter 2


“I’ll race you.”

Skylar’s grin shines, as if one of the sun’s rays managed to sneak out from the cloud’s covers and hid itself in his smile. He’s looking at my brother, who immediately smirks at his challenge and starts running towards the big white block at the end of the street. School. I frown in disgust. Boring from the outside, boring in the inside.
“Thanks for the head start!” Nolan yells, laughing behind him.
Skylar starts rushing after him yelling, “Hey! That’s not fair! I’m gonna get you little…” and I can’t help the curve forming on the edges of my lips because it’s ridiculous how Skylar can act like such a little kid. I know it’s not just because of Nolan, he’s always like this.
A drop of water slides down my slim nose and lands on my cheek. Another one and another one follow close behind it.
I hear Nolan’s and Sky’s shouts in the distance, “Come on, Ember! It’s raining!” and I find my legs moving much faster than before, getting into the building before soaking myself in the rain. I catch up to the school just a couple of seconds after they did, and I hear pants and long breaths of air around me surrounded by everyone’s laughs. After a while I make out even mine.
“Riiiiiiiiing!”
The bell interrupts us all as we hustle to our classrooms.

***


Triangles, tiny circles, shapes I can’t even remember the names of. It’s incontrollable. Ever since I was a little girl I found my hand drawing, more like scribbling, random things on the edges of pieces of paper, so close together and tiny that they almost looked like one compact shape once my hand had stopped. Even when I tried to stop myself, the temptation and almost longing for my hand to be on that pencil was too much. Like a magnet, my hand and the pencil always found a way to be stuck to each other until it was finally time to change poles and stop doodling.

“Ms. Bloom, maybe you’d like to tell the class the answer as you were so engrossed by my lesson.”
My history teacher, Mr. Sear, wakes me from my trance with his usual, fake smile, making me want to punch him more than smile back. I feel the bitterness in his voice, hanging on the word engrossed and wonder how it’s possible to be such an obnoxious person and yet still manage to look friendly and practically robotic with a smile.

Laughs start around me, quiet, trying to remain unnoticed without taking the attention from me. Pitiful or mocking glares around the room fix on my face as everyone waits for my response. Finally, I wake, hearing the whispers trying to help me open my mouth and give him an answer.

“Voracious!”

“Delicious!”

“Demetrious!”

“Aquarius!”

I can’t exactly make out anything of the helping murmurs slowly rising around me, and I settle for saying, “Hilarious.”
I have my head held high towards Mr. Sear, trying anything other than admitting my defeat.

But I fail.

Hysterical laughs cover the dullness of the room and I find myself looking around, not knowing what I’m looking for. Then my head stops, and I’m facing Skylar, his deep eyes are looking elsewhere other than the front of the class as they seem to be. He didn’t help me. He’s not part of the lesson. He’s not part of the present right now. Who knows where he is.

“Indeed, Ms. Bloom. You find the disease that has been killing your neighbours, friends and family, hilarious. Very interesting opinion, I must say. I’ll keep that in mind.”
Blood drains to my cheeks and I can feel them turning red. He has gone to the front now, his arms behind his back, acting like he’s the emperor and we’re his slaves. I’m not even sure anymore whether my classmates are laughing at my mistake or his ridiculous accent, saying highlarious instead of hilarious. I keep my expression solemn, trying to retain my dignity by not looking embarrassed or amused at his highlarious joke. Inside I smirk, I can also be sarcastic.

“I think what Ember was trying to say is that it’s hilarious how we are still being asked that in year 10, and I’m sure that if she’d been able to finish, she would have said Scorpius.” Veve smiles, her white teeth glowing from her dark skin. She reminds me of the moon or the stars, shining the way through a pitch-black night. How she is capable of mimicking exactly what people do is almost frightening. On her face I can see Mr. Sear’s fake expression, the look that is capable of making you burn inside and yet forces you to remain silent.

Mr. Sear looks away, annoyed at Veve’s perfect and diabolical response and turns to the rest of the class who has now gone silent. I quickly sneak a smile in Veve’s direction meaning thank you but as I’m looking away I catch Fleck also slipping in a hidden smile at Veve. He puts his arm up, gesturing a touch-less high-five in mid air and she returns one back. They laugh silently, keeping everything concealed from Mr. Sear. I face towards the teacher now, still thinking of Fleck and Veve’s strange new friendship.

“Class, class. Pay attention now.” His stern voice quietens everyone down. “Indeed, Scorpius is the main cause of death nowadays. As you all know, hardly anyone results to violence anymore like they did just some centuries ago. Oh, Humans were brutal, cruel creatures.”
His expression is disgusted and his shoulders shake, as if he’s shuddering at the thought. He’s probably just trying to capture our attention and exaggerating to give our lives some meaning as he obviously thinks without him they don’t. Well, if he is trying to get us interested, it sure is working on Sky. I look at him, arching my eyebrows, perplexed. He’s never been a fan of school. Mostly nobody is, but some adapt to living with it more than others. Like me. I accept it. It’s like a phase of my life that when I overcome, new experiences await. I laugh to myself. Sky is practically the exact opposite. It’s like he sees everything as a waste of time. School being one of the top on his I-have-better-things-to-do list. I don’t know what he spends all his time thinking about, but I can always tell when his mind has gone off wandering in his far-away land.
Today is different. He’s actually part of the class for once. And in a history lesson. It’s always been his least favourite subject.
I remember in Junior School, we were learning about the Rebirth after the Last Age, and when we got out of class I was completely shocked by the Earth’s past. The Authority had created a video with footages, clips of how the Earth used to be during the Last Age. It was practically unrecognizable, completely destroyed, buildings collapsed like pieces in a domino game, lands cracking in two separate pieces. One image stayed in my memory, a girl grasping for her life at the highest branch of a tree while the rising sea shattered the earth beneath her. I looked away as I heard the final wave taking her life like a beautiful sand castle freshly made at the edge of the beach. At the same time, war. Humans fighting, killing their own species for having different opinions. The Fatalists and the Fighters as they called themselves. Those who believed that when the end came, there would be nothing to do about it, and those who fought for their lives. The war kept changing and it never stopped; when situations got worse, the only thing left for humans to hold onto were the remaining resources. There were hardly any left, and the only way to win them was by battle. The more they killed, the less resources they needed to keep everyone alive.

He could always tell when my thoughts weren’t the usual.
“What’s wrong?” He asked me.

“Noth--” I didn’t bother finishing the word. He would never let it go. “I just can’t believe it Sky. How our ancestors, our own families were so ruthless, so barbaric, such monsters, Sky!”
I remember breaking down in the middle of the school hallway, with the violent images of the video burning in my mind and not getting out. I buried my face in his chest as he put his arms around me, one on my waist and one on my head, caressing my hair, and took me into the storage room for a moment to calm me down.

“Shh… shh,” My last tears escaped from my eyes as his soothing voice brought me back to the present. Once the sobbing had stopped, he took a hold of my shoulders, making me look straight into his eyes. It’s almost scary how I remember it so perfectly. It was maybe the first time I’d noticed those strange, changing eyes of his. They were hazel, but the small streaks of green made them look so bright it was so easy for me to get distracted and erase the vicious pictures from my mind.
“Ember, now listen to me. I’m gonna tell you a little secret, but you mustn’t tell anyone because they won’t accept it. But I’m sure you will.” He took a deep breath. “I don’t believe in history.”
My eyes widened. History isn’t a religion. Not a fairytale or a mystical creature. You can’t just not believe in history. History is a fact. He stopped me short before I could speak my thoughts out loud.
“I believe I’ll never know what the past was really like. There are many things we don’t know Ember, that we’ll never know. So many things that are hidden from us, and we don’t know it.” He hesitated, not sure how or whether he should say it. “Do you trust me?”
I nodded. “Then listen to me and not them.”
I didn’t understand what he meant by ‘them’ and I didn’t ask either. So many years have passed and I guess there are still many things about Sky I will never fully understand. I will never know exactly bit by bit the pieces that make him, him. I remember being so confused after our strange talk in the storage room, that I wasn’t even sure if he meant to calm me down or get me thinking of something else. It most definitely had worked. It’s that part of Skylar, the genius that hides beneath his insanity, that will always keep us from knowing too much about the other.

I finally escape from my own far-away land, ashamed that I’d been so distracted this lesson.

“You all,” he muttered something under his breath that I didn’t quite catch, “Think you know-it-all teenagers, really should be grateful for the Authority now. The Earth has reached its highest peak, the Peace Era they say it’ll be called. The Authority has made it possible to create just enough resources for everyone with what little we have left. That’s why, boys and girls, recycling, solar power, reducing carbon emissions is much more important now than before. We have no other options.”
I catch Sky’s disgusted glare and his eyes squinting with hate. Is this one of those times where I shouldn’t listen to ‘them’ as in Mr. Sear but Sky instead? Is this what he meant?

His hand shoots up and I bury into my seat, preparing for what he will say. Mr. Sear points at him and sighs, accepting to hear Sky’s usual childlike (as he refers to them) question.

“So, my dear Mr. Sear,” his face locks into an irritated, fake smile, forcing himself not to start a fight, “What does all this crap about equality and wearing the same damn grey clothes have anything to do with our special limited resources?”

Mr. Sear is not too surprised, and does not give into Sky’s skilful trap to get himself into trouble simply for expressing his thoughts.
“You’re quite right Mr. Hale, equality and ‘wearing the same damn grey clothes’ is difficult to see with…” he makes a face, and moves his hand up and down to indicate Sky. “Your mind’s capacity.”
Some giggles echo against the walls of the class but Sky does not give into Mr. Sear’s easy insult and keeps his chin held high and grin still beaming.
“Of course, I am not dumb, I see your point but what you and all your classmates do not understand is that the Authority has made equality for everyone to avoid going back to any wars. And this has to do with resources because as you will remember the Fatalists and Fighters…”
I zoned out again about there, not wanting to bring the images back in my mind. After a few minutes Mr. Sear and Sky’s debate was cut off by the town’s loudspeaker and the usual, stern lady voice speaks through in monotone:

“Fourth Ceremony of 125, 133, 146…” The robot-like lady went on a long list of numbers who correspond to 21 and 22 year old Incompletes all over Newbrook all looking down at their collarbones to see if their numbers are called out.
The list finally finished and the lady continued, “Will be held tonight in the Fourth Hall at precisely 6pm. Citizens, please check your Schedule and see if there have been any changes whether you are supposed to attend the Ceremony or not. Thank you. Please have a lovely rest of the day.”
The ‘click’ at the end indicates the announcement is over. I look down at my arm, like everyone else in the room, to see if the green, fluorescent words had changed from this morning when we all placed our arms into our Slots. A new word appears on mine: Ceremony. I look around me and the only other person who seems to have theirs change as well is Skylar.

The ‘ring’ of the bell rescues us from Mr. Sear’s Hell Trap and everyone wanders off through the school halls, some with friends laughing and joking around, others letting their minds roam free and ponder like me. I wonder whose Ceremony I have to attend today. I look through the crowd of thrilled and bored faces, looking for a blonde scruffy head popping out but he is nowhere to be found. Who is someone that we both know who is old enough to be going through the Fourth Ceremony? A slim, long-faced blonde figure comes to my mind. Of course. Lexi. How could Skylar not even remember his own sister’s Numering Ceremony? Sometimes I wish I could pay a quick visit to his magical far-away land.

A light body thuds against mine with a girly scream, and knocks me to the side.

“Oh my gosh, sorry Ember!” Veve’s laugh rings in my ear as she stumbles over me.

“No proble-” I start to say but she doesn’t give me the opportunity to finish. I hear her sweet, high voice jokingly scolding someone.

“That’s not funny Fleck!” Well, she seems to be laughing pretty much herself I think to myself, “You should apologize to Ember right now.”
I look to her right and see Fleck’s mischievous smirk, and he says to me, “Oh my gosh, sorry Ember!” exaggerating Veve’s feminine voice and teasing at the way she uses her hands to emphasize everything.
I was again, about to say ‘No problem’ but am again interrupted by Veve’s laugh as she pushes him back while he continues mimicking her. Fleck is a funny-looking guy, his round glasses always pushed back in his dark-brown, almost black, messy hair, hardly ever combed I presume. His clothes are way too big for him, his shirt hanging loose just above his knees and his grey jeans pulled up by just enough folds to keep him from tripping over with his old trainers filthy with mud. I assume his clothes are all passed down from his two older brothers. On his left however, is one of the most elegant and self-aware girls I’ve ever met. Her dark wavy hair is pulled up in a perfect braid and her clothes, although being the same as any other girls’, somehow seem to fall flawlessly on her, shaping her body exactly how it’s supposed to be. They’re pushing each other away in a playful way, but no matter how many times they knock me over murmuring ‘sorry’ in between laughs, they’re always side by side. The pushing not creating any distance between them. They are like the different poles on a magnet. The exact opposite, and yet attract better than anything else, always ending up stuck to one another.

We’re already in the courtyard now, and I’m smiling as I assist their little show.

Veve is right behind me, Fleck’s round spectacles held clumsily in her right hand. He’s in front of me, yelling through me as if I were invisible.
“Hey! Veve, come on! I need those!”
She laughs as she skips from side to side of me, avoiding to be caught by Fleck.
“For what? Your geeky, curiously intriguing fashion sense?”
His gaze is now full of amusement, as if he’s just received a compliment.
“Oh, so Veve Ralley, the Veve Ralley thinks my fashion sense is… intriguing?”
She smirks, “If you think that’s a compliment—” but is interrupted.
“Veve Ralley is curious about my style! She’s jealous and wants to know more about it! Well don’t worry hun, they’re writing a whole article about it on the school journal entitled: ‘Fleck Joyles’ Fabulous Fabulousness’. You can get all the info there.”
I finally speak, stopping Veve from making a nasty response herself.
“Just putting it out there, the school journal which Fleck Joyles is the head of, writer of, photographer of, and only member of.”
He rolls his eyes at me and makes strange blabbering noises supposing to mimic me. Veve raises her left hand for a high-five from me. Catching her distracted, Fleck leaps in the middle of us, grabbing hold of Veve’s other hand just in time to take back his glasses.
“Geek victory again!” he yells as he turns and pretends to fly away with his imaginary cape while we laugh and turn the opposite direction.

***


The big white prison society makes us call ‘school’ is now far behind us and Veve and I still haven’t said a word. When she doesn’t speak, it means something is on her mind because Veve never loses a chance to gossip or chat about her neighbour’s new cat or Miranda’s cousin’s hair or Mrs. Twee losing an extra two pounds and so on. I look over at her and notice her cheeks brightened with a pink, red glow as if they’ve bloomed into beautiful petals and she’s the rose. She’s trying to hide her smile, not successfully, and I laugh at her weird facial expressions.

“What?” Now her brown eyes growing bigger in confusion.

At first I look at her as if saying, ‘Really? You don’t know?’ but then I give up and say, “What’s with you?” and a smile creeps back onto Veve’s face along with mine.
She looks away, the red flushing back to her cheeks. I realize waiting for her to answer is useless and there isn’t really much she has to say as she’s already said it by the way she’s acting.
“Seriously? Fleck?” I hear my voice saying each letter of his name separately, hoping that way it’ll really register inside her head. “Fleck? The weird kid who crept up in the middle of our conversations to pull a prank or tell an incomprehensible joke—”
We stop in front of the entrance to the Greenhouse and Veve turns her head towards mine, her expression now changed. She’s serious now, I can tell before she starts speaking and her eyes are fixed on mine, steady and filled with the emotion she’s trying hard to conceal.
“Sometimes we find happiness when we’re not looking for it. Or it’s been there all along and we were just too scared to take it. After all, happiness is really good at disguising itself. You never want to admit it’s there, worried that it won’t be enough to make you smile.” She stops a second, still phrasing in her mind what to say. “Well, it is.”
She turns and steps inside leaving me to stare at a closed glass door. Was what she said meant for me or her? Is my happiness hidden behind something that’s right beneath my eyes? Am I choosing to ignore it, waiting to see if I’ll find more?

***


We’re sitting on a green bench with a big bush of lavender on our right sweetening the air. Every day from 4.00 to 4.30 we sat here since we were 13, the age when you have your Second Numering Ceremony, when you’re given your part-time job, your “first responsibility”. There are aisles and aisles of flowers, plants and even small trees, which brighten everything around us, giving it a green glow as if we were in an enchanted forest out of a fairytale. I guess that’s probably why I’ve always liked working here, it never really did feel like work itself, more like a place where I’m allowed to lose myself. Being surrounded by lilies, dandelions, cacti and even the smallest of herbs wrapping under my feet, has always made it easier for me to lock myself into my little world. It’s always there, in the back of my mind, waiting for me to find the key and get lost inside.
Above us, the glass is crystal clear, reflecting the green from below with little splodges of yellow, pink and purple from the flowers. It’s always looked like a painting to me, with splatters of paint everywhere. Every time new flowers grew, new drops of colour appeared on the ceiling like an artist never fully finished with his piece, never completely sure if it’s yet a masterpiece.
The wall behind us is wrapped around in a huge, fuchsia bougainvillea entangling against the white wall as if it were hugging it to sleep, like a mother’s arms trying to protect the child from the world. It’s almost comforting looking at the bright violet plant against the dullness of the wall. While to many people it would just be a pretty plant, to me it symbolizes something. It gives me the feeling that even in the most tedious occasions, or the most dreary people whose lives are slowly draining away, there is always a bright bougainvillea there to bring back the life in them, or lighten the way. Or it’s there to protect you. Protect you from yourself, from letting the whiteness take over your life.
We’ve already finished our first shift, only opening our mouths for small comments like, ‘Did you water this one yet?’ or ‘Oh no, another one died.’ and now sitting on the bench having our lunch I see Veve’s usual, always glimmering face is back in its place. Thank God, I think Maybe she’s not actually mad at me after all.
“Ember I just can’t believe it!” she exclaims, salad still in her mouth as she speaks. “I mean, can you?!”
I know she’s not waiting for an answer. She’s not even looking at me while she speaks, her smile fixed on the daffodils and dahlias in front of us.
“Like, three… three ceremonies Ember!” She turns her gaze on me, her eyes always shining. Sometimes I wonder whether they are at all brown. The sparkle never seems to fade, maybe they’re golden or—
“Ember?”
“Yes?”
I don’t know why I always lose track of my thoughts. Veve on the other hand, never gets herself distracted. It’s like she doesn’t allow it.
“Oh yes, of course, yeah…Three ceremonies. We’ve actually come this far.”
There is more excitement in my voice than I thought, and I get a strange sensation in my stomach, like somebody was trying to mix ingredients inside of me. I’m on my third step to becoming a Complete. I consider the Third Ceremony the most important, receiving a full-time job in society and working to help with resources is an honour for me. I don’t really have a preference for any of the options, they are all equally important, as of course, the Authority meant it to be.
“You know, I dreamt about it last night.” Her voice is higher than usual, almost singing. “I was dancing in the Hall and-- oh my, what do you think the Hall will be like?” I see thoughts and wonders racing through her mind as she says the words out loud. “I mean, they’re all different, and I bet the Third Hall will be gorgeous! I’ve never been to one, have you? No, of course you haven’t, I would’ve known.”
She lets out a squeal of delight as I stare at her, trying to get some words in the conversation but failing.
When she’s done, I feel my fingers dancing around on the edge of my bench and I find my eyes fixed on my rucksack. My fingers hop around to open it, and they take out my sketchbook, as if they worked separately from my brain. Just like that, the whole world shuts out completely and it’s like my eyes switch off. I don’t even know, they might be closed; but all I can see is what my hand is forming. The patterns are flowing down from my mind, through my hand and fingers making them prickle, and finally from the tip of my pencil to the blank page. My wrist jerks with trying to keep up with my mind’s quick dancing and swaying, as if a new student desperately trying to learn the tango. The white slowly fills with black spots. At least they look like spots, or ‘almost-spots’ when you first look, but suddenly you realize what you’re actually looking at. Again, triangles, squares, circles, rectangles and several other shapes I don’t even know the names of not having paid much attention in geometry class.
“Never thought I’d ever see something like this.”
A male, husky voice abruptly halts my hand, so sudden that the tip of the pencil breaks, leaving me with no other choice but to stop drawing. Embarrassed, I realize that after all my eyes were closed, and I immediately open them trying not to look like a freak who draws without even looking at the page.
I finally look up and find a pair of clear, blue eyes staring down at me. They are so lucid that by looking into their reflection I realize that he is not looking directly at me, but at the strange shapes my hand was making just a few seconds before. His expression is not what I’d thought it would be. He looks stunned, two curved eyebrows forming at the top of his forehead, but as they come down I notice a strange expression on his face. Not exactly happiness, almost like relief.
“Excuse me?” I try to sound calm and steady but the words come out in a different tone than I’d intended. Maybe too high or awkward. “Ahem.” I try to clear my throat but it’s no use. His sky-blue eyes change reflection and I see his enchanting face looking down at me. “I mean, have you never seen a girl draw before?” I frown in my mind, not understanding why the words came out so defensive towards this peculiar but beautiful stranger.
“Pardon me,” A gleaming, broad smile forms just below his crooked nose. “If I may ask, what is it that you draw?”
“Uhm… honestly… you asked me the same question I’ve been asking myself since I was five years old.”
“Oh.” A strange disappointment strikes his face, but it is soon covered up with another question. “I hope this isn’t too weird, although I can’t really think of a reason how it’s not… but do you believe in fate?” he puts his hand behind his head, scratching the back of his neck, without looking the slightest bit nervous though.
“I, uh, well,” I realize how stupid I must look right now, and try my hardest to sound like Sky does when he starts talking to me about dreams and theories. “Honestly, I find it strange to believe that my life has already been decided for me. Which is exactly what fate implies.”
The blue eyes search into mine and he asks me again, “What do you mean?”
“Fate entails one’s life to already have been ‘lived’ so to speak; because all the events have already been planned, and you’re just walking in the footsteps which haven’t yet been washed away from the sand.” The edge of his lips dances, and the left side rises to form a crooked but still enchanting grin. “I don’t like to think that. If I am being controlled by a life that’s already been prepared, then I prefer not knowing it and just live with the moment.”
“So, you don’t believe in many possible futures? You don’t think that each road you take might lead to a different destination?” he says.
“Well, what about you?” I smile and add, “Weird stranger asking me whether I believe in destiny or not.”
“There are many answers to that question that I am formulating in my head, but only one will be my final one. Sort of like all the roads in life that there are, but only one that we walk until we reach the end.” He pauses for a moment and his smile fades. “However, to answer your question, or rather my question… My final responses are two. Both yes and no. Yes, I believe that fate has brought me here for the very reason to meet you. But no, I don’t believe that there is only one road I will walk until I stop. I believe I’m still walking a certain one and the choices I have made during this journey will decide how many other roads await me once I reach the end.”
I don’t know what to say. His stare holds onto mine for another lingering moment, and then his mouth opens again. “Another thing I believe in as I’m telling you goodbye: this will not be our last.”
I open my mouth to answer, but he is already facing the opposite direction, walking past the long aisle of pink, white and red carnations which glow against his dull grey clothes as nothing I’d ever seen before. My mouth is still open as the door closes. Not once did he look back at me. I don’t know exactly what I’m feeling: happiness? Confusion? Bewilderment?
Though what I do know is out of all these feelings, the one that echoes in my mind the most is hope. Hope. Hope that this really will not be the last time I meet the sky-eyed boy.

Chapter 3


“Tac. Tac. Tac.”
The splatters of transparent paint dripping down the window beat at the same rhythm as my heart. Rain sounds like steadiness, but not necessarily calmness. The clouds have finally opened, at least a tiny bit, and have allowed some feelings to pass through. A crack forming in the grey blanket up above, only knowing there was rain concealed inside you when it is ready to fall. Although the drops dancing every second on my window make it hard to see, looking across at Skylar’s room I can tell that once again, it is empty. He’s probably just getting ready for Lexi’s Ceremony, I reassure myself, but even though I have not heard the words out loud, I feel the uncertainty and preoccupation in my tone.

“Ember! Ember get down here!”
Sometimes I wonder whether the whiteness surrounding our home makes our voices echo more than usual. My elbow, stuck against the wood of my windowsill, quickly detaches itself and I run downstairs.

“What is it—” I stop midsentence as another, always familiar and monotone voice interrupts me from out of nowhere.

“Citizens. Incompletes and Completes. I would like to congratulate citizen numbers 28, 12, 76, 94…”
I feel my heart bumping faster and faster against my ribcage, losing beat with the still-steady rain. My ears take in every little word, letter, sound the robotic lady makes, fixing my mind on the only two numbers I hope to hear her say.
“…13,…”
I slowly raise a finger to my lips to check if those words hadn’t come out of my own mouth instead of hers. By the way my mother is smiling and coming closer to me, with her hands raised in the air ready to have me wrapped inside them, I understand that it was really the Authority Member who announced them. I can’t even tell whether my heart has stopped or is beating too hard for me to even notice. The warmth from my mother seems to calm me, decreasing my beat to match once again with the rain. Nobody says anything, apart from the rest of the two-digit numbers being called out. My brother just stares at me lovingly and curious as always, and suddenly I notice my father only walking into the room now. There is no emotion on his face, none that’s showing anyway.
“The Authority wants to congratulate them for completing the Second Stage and finally arriving to the Third. The third step to Completeness, but in truth the first to the actual start of their own, independent lives. Their job will be the beginning of their new era, one of the most crucial stages and significant not only to themselves as the previous stages were, but to their and our society. Ceremonies will be held in the Third Hall on Sunday, 1800 hours. We salute and congratulate you once again.”
The ‘click’ snaps and her voice disappears. I look around the room, the same room I’ve been in all my life, but strangely it seems distant to me now. It’s like I’m not there anymore, my mind being the only room open to me right now.

“Well, Ember. Congratulations. Not long now until you’re like your parents.” My mother’s smile brings me back into her arms, and there’s nothing I can answer.

“Not long until you’re like everybody else you mean. A Complete.” He does not say it as a compliment, like my mother had, and something about the way my father’s face, empty and emotionless gives me the sensation he was almost correcting my mother.

Com-ple-te. I feel as though a huge, heavy rock was being thrown into a small bath, the water not yet ready for this immediate impact, forced to not help it stay up on the surface and making it sink down below. Those three simple syllables are disguised as a tiny stone, meaningless and innocent; instead they have the force of an anchor, pulling all my thoughts down with them all at once, not giving me any chance to stop them. Complete. All these years of preparation, being Incomplete, awaiting the final Fourth Ceremony. I feel a mental slap, scowling at my thoughts and reminding myself that this is still just the third. Abruptly the anchor starts freeing itself from the frail sand beneath, the waves of my wonderings carrying it elsewhere to land. What happens after I’m Complete? Preparing as an Incomplete, that has been my life ever since I was born, the First Ceremony. It’s my life mission, everything we look up to in life. Being Complete, being ready, being full…being perfect. Equality is what the Authority has transformed our society into,
‘With equality comes perfection.
A perfect society leads to a perfect world.
Completes are what fills our Earth,
what completes our planet.’
This is what they have always taught us in school. What we have always believed, our top priority in life. Incompletion is all I’ve ever known. Life for me has always been mission to become Complete. As time passes, I’ve learnt what I fear the most in life is difference. Daring to be different in an equal society, what becomes of me if I change in a way the Authority does not want me to?
***


Nolan is far ahead of us, skipping and pirouetting in the tiny drops of rain that are starting to fall from the sky. It is considered magical to rain on someone’s Fourth Ceremony, it demonstrates that it’s time to let the water fall from the full grey clouds and in its place appear a bright blue sky. It symbolizes the start of a new life. Luckily for us, it’s just a little drizzle, so there’s no need to find shelter. We start emerging into the crowd outside the Hall, a sea of grey, and the raindrops seem almost as if to be paint splattering on all of us, bringing life. In the front are the red flowers, ready to bloom: the Matches soon-to-be Complete couples in their crimson outfits ready to embark on a new journey. The families stand close behind, their excited faces like rays escaping from their flowers. I can easily see Lexi, and my eyes widen. I had never seen her like this, so elegant and regal she reminds me of some princesses of the stories the Authority allowed us to read. She had always kept her blonde, long hair, tied up. Now, a thousand golden threads stream down her lower back, untangling themselves and roaming free in the slow sway of the breeze.
I look around, not realizing why, until I do not find what my mind is wanting and I understand that there’s one puzzle piece missing. Skylar. I unlock from my brother’s grip on my arm as we wait in line, starting for Sky’s family, in hope of finding him.
I’m just freeing my arm as Nolan says, “Where are you going?” his blue eyes lock into mine and give me no choice but to stop looking at the popping heads out of the crowd and answer him.
“Uhm, I, just--”
I am interrupted by my mother’s short ‘gasp’ behind us. I don’t think Nolan heard, because as I turn my head to face her, he still stares at me with his unanswered question. Absentmindedly, I answer, “I’m gonna go look for him.”
My eyes follow my mother’s shocked expression as she disappears away from the crowd. Skylar immediately disappears from my thoughts, and I wonder whether the look on my mother’s face is one of surprise or worry. Her back is turned to me, she is practically running away from everyone else, lagging at the end of the line, several steps behind the last people. I don’t go as far, and hide a few lines in front of her. She has not noticed me, and as I turn around I realize that her emotions were neither. It is fear that crosses her face as a woman approaches her. I’m just about to free myself and go save my mother; but then her arms widen in front of her, and she hugs the stranger. I stay where I am, my ears blocking out anything else apart from their voices.
“Jai…” it is a soft voice, mixed with concern and relief, happiness but fear for someone who’s returned that shouldn’t have. “What are you…” it is definitely my mother’s voice.
“I had to. I had to come.” The other voice is rougher than I had imagined, like a warrior’s but still evidently feminine and delicate. “Something’s not right, Amelia.” It is like she is spitting out the words before something happens to make her stop. “They are reinforcing everything, preparing for something, and we keep being told to be extra careful.” My mother’s silence tells me this is something she was not expecting to hear. “There are more of us now, they have put double security in all cities… They won’t tell us what’s going on. Amelia, everything seems more violent. It’s as if they’re preparing us for a war. Or trying to stop it from coming.”
My mother tries to say something, she mutters short words but nothing complete enough to form a sentence.
“I have to leave soon, I came to warn you. I came back because you know that all my dreams are haunted. You know that all I want for in life is your family’s safety. I will do anything. Be careful, Amelia. Everything is about to change.”
I hear footsteps running, stomping against the ground like bigger drops of rain escaped from the cloud. My mother remains where she is, and I hear a faint whisper, “Thank you.” But I know that the stranger is gone.

***

I am back next to my brother and so is my mother; although I know that both our thoughts are on completely different planets. Everything is about to change. Their conversation echoes through my mind endlessly, and I know that no matter how many times I’ll repeat it, it’ll still make no sense to me. It’s like when you repeat a simple word over and over again until it means nothing to you, but this time it never meant anything in the first place.
Too many emotions pass in and out of me, they come and go so quickly I can’t say exactly what they are. However they are slowly draining all feelings from my face, leaving everything inside; I wouldn’t even know what to show on the outside. I’m not used to change. The Authority tells us change is bad, change does not give equality and equality is what leads to a perfect world. I’m starting to think I don’t even know of a world familiar to change. Even though I’ve always been taught these things, in these past few days they are becoming more like learned by heart, recited lines from a book, not what I believe in.
My eyes are not looking straight in front of me as they appear to be, it’s as if I were keeping them open underwater but not seeing at all, the water blurring my vision. Instead, my eyes are racing through the narrow alleys in my mind, crowded with confused information which I can’t classify into anything.
A bright, blonde head interrupts all my questions, and I run in front to catch up to him. Sky’s emotionless face is something I definitely cannot miss, dulling the air behind his mother’s excitement and his sister’s smile dashing at her new Match.
“Sky!” he looks to his left, where I now stand, and a bit of colour reappears in his eyes, and I can see a bit of myself reflected in them. “Where were you?”
“Ember, hi.” His mouth is still open but no words come out, as if he’s thinking of too many and cannot filter them to decide which go out. “I was just—”
Three ‘dongs’ of an old bell ring at that moment, and we are all forced silent in a matter of seconds. I look to my right and see that immediately Skylar has taken the opportunity to avoid me and my question, and I can sense a look of relief on his face. I stick my hand out to lock with his, as all the pairs in front and ahead of us are doing in a formal, straight line. His does not meet mine and I look down to see it is in his trouser pocket, struggling to keep something hidden, as he gets it free and joins mine. He looks at me for a second, a fake smile flashing against his rough cheekbones. I give one back, realizing that he is not the only one keeping secrets. I cannot tell him what I’ve heard, I can’t. It would completely ruin him, he is already tangled up in too many mysteries and one more would just rend his whole life a question even to me.

***
I feel everyone’s feet in front of me tapping against the marble floor, scurrying inside like tiny mice hurrying to scramble into the hole before the cat catches up to them. I don’t only hear them. I feel the footsteps in my heart, beating fast inside my chest, the rhythm rising and rising until the doors of the Hall close, all the mice safe inside. The pace falls now, everybody halting their feet and staring up at the skies. It feels as though I am not in Newbrook anymore. The ceiling is made up of hundreds, thousands, of tiny rectangular mirrors, rising up into a dome about 10 metres above my head. At the top, there is a huge, antique bell turned rusty from all the years of Matching so many Incompletes.
We are all awed by this new and strange design, and as I look around me I see the look of enchantment on everyone’s faces as they recognize, like me, that it is not our reflection which we see in those mirrors. Instead of seeing ourselves, bright light from the mirrors jumps down like rays of the sun onto our faces. I don’t understand how this could possibly be, as I place my neck down to turn to Skylar I see he is neither facing me nor the mysterious mirrored ceiling. I follow his gaze, his eyes are now a type of topaz brown, luminous and blazing with wonder. Against the wall he is facing, there stands a tall and narrow heptagon window, arching and reaching up until the top of the dome. Golden streaks shatter onto the floor, and my eyes follow the light as it bounces off the clear marble onto the mirrors above my head; and that is why the Hall feels as though we’re all crossing paths with one of the rays of the sun, billions of miles away from us. On each side of the long window are others exactly the same, surrounding the walls all around us, exactly 14 windows.
I can’t help the curves forming at the edges of my lips, and neither can Sky as we both look at each other and practically let out giggles of delight as if we were little children receiving a brand new toy. I notice his hand still jiggling with something in his pocket, and as he takes it out to reach mine once again, I feel it is much sweatier than before.
‘Dong. Dong. Dong.’
The bell above us sounds again, now more piercing than before, the mirrors ringing at the same time. This means it is time to start the Ceremony. All Completes and Incompletes have been taught exactly what to do in each Ceremony ever since they started school, so as I look around me I see nobody hesitates to link with another person and go stand at one of the planting aisles carved into the marble floor, seven round patches of soil on both sides of the corridor which we’re standing on now. Sky and I head over to the closest near us on the left hand side alongside three other pairs, including a Match of soon-to-be Completes.
We both sit quietly on our knees and wait for an Authority Member to come round and hand us our Seeds. The Seeds are technologically engineered plant seeds made to grow into flowers, and they’re mechanical so do not require light nor water. The Authority has created it especially for that, to teach us that us as humans should not interfere with nature, we should not watch living things die every day right in front of us without being able to help the poor plants. Another small adjustment rending our earth what it is now. It is tradition that on the Fourth Ceremony all invited have to plant a Seed, and just before we leave, it will have grown and bloomed into a marvellous flower; representing the start of a new era for the Completes. A middle-aged woman with a tight, pulled back ponytail sticking out the top of her rectangular face, comes toward us in her Member uniform, a white long shirt, almost like a tunic, and matching white trousers and shoes. Just as each Citizen has our grey ensemble, the Members have theirs white, as if they were the clear clouds guiding the grey ones into Completeness. She bends down and places the Seed into my psalm with a smile. I smile back with respect and turn to face Sky’s rolling eyes. Sometimes I wonder if one day they’ll just roll right out of his face for how much he does it.
“Are you going to help me or not?” I tell him, as my hands dig deep into the soil.
His gaze is fixed across the hall, in his sister’s direction, but he neither looks proud or excited as his mother does, his is a face of pure disgust.
“Ember do you see that?” He keeps looking in her direction without turning away. “It’s sick. It’s weird. It’s just plain wrong.” He emphasizes with his hands and points to Lexi and her Match. Embarrassed and worried somebody might notice him, I quickly place his hands down and try to calm him down.
“Sky, what are you going on about now?” I hush him, his eyes still fixed elsewhere.
“They don’t even know each other, Em.” Sky’s mouth is still open and he’s stammering something, but not yet a whole sentence. “It’s all part of their plan. Their game. They’re using us as puppets, mindless human beings, completely unaware of the strings controlling our whole lives.” He pauses for a second, finally looking away from his sister and into my eyes instead. I look away, trying to look uninterested and keep working on our Seed. “It’s all pretence. It’s pretence the Authority puts in our heads, places false beliefs in our helpless minds, making us think things we would never have before. Lexi doesn’t love him.”
I look away from my work to watch her, her eyes staring deep into her Match’s as he plants a kiss on her cheek.
“She looks pretty interested if you ask me…”
“Oh, please. The Authority told her that Ian is her soul mate.” He makes a groan of disgust as he speaks. “Her one, true love. The one she’s destined to be with. Her perfect match. The one. Her prince—”
I stop looking at the soil and face him, giving him such a look that he understands perfectly well that he needs to stop. The truth is, he wasn’t completely lying. When you’re 21 or 22 years old, the Authority takes you in to prepare you for the Fourth Ceremony. They have you Scanned to check your current and final personality traits, they then combine that with your genetic and DNA data, and with that they are able to find the exact person you belong with to make you and your society happy. ‘An environment reflects its people’ is what the Authority taught us. If humans are unhappy and battle constantly, their society will be affected as will the environment and earth. So yes, Sky is right. The Authority does tell us who we’re destined to be with.
He lets it go for a couple of minutes and even goes as far as to help me with our Seed. But I know Sky well enough to understand that he was just taking time to drop his next bomb.
“Fine, fine fine. But tell me this: do you remember Ty?” There it is, already ticking and about to explode. “You don’t do you? Well, I’ll tell you who Ty was. Nobody even remembers him. Yeah. He was Lexi’s boyfriend. They only dated a couple of months but they used to be best friends before that. Lexi was madly in love with him. You know why they broke up? They were 20. They were about to become Completes. What if they weren’t their compatible? Huh? So yeah, they broke up even though they were still in love. Who knows? Maybe her heart still belongs somewhere in his and vice versa. Maybe not all of it, but definitely a part of it will be lost in his forever. She’ll never understand that her heart is still speaking for Ty, not Ian.”
Bam! Exploded. He finally lets a breath in, and his chest starts panting as if he’d lost too much air to let so much escape from his mouth.
I have nothing to say.
***

I stare at the ground beneath my feet and nothing seems to be real anymore. They don’t look like my shoes, they’re just an image, moving back and forth and in and out with the other feet around me. It feels as though I am looking through a grey and red kaleidoscope, with a soft touch of icy marble in the background.
On my left I recognize my brother’s shoes, his feet always a bit too small for his age, and his hand is tugging on mine with energy, guiding me through the dance moves. The hand on my right is as dull as the face of the person holding it. Sky has gone from a complete explosion to a total black out. He keeps gazing into the air around us, and I know that his eyes see something else entirely, deep within his thoughts. Every once in a while his vision comes back to Earth and I see him glancing at his pocket, but that’s all.
I turn my neck as my feet continue to tie and untie into each other like knots on a rope; and I see the mirrors above are covered by grey, shimmering clouds. Yet, the rain that appears to be falling from it, the many tiny dots, are not water. They are red. almost as if the sky was weeping blood instead of tears. My first instinct would be to think how eerie it all seemed, and maybe escape that visual and find somewhere safe to hide; but now my mind sees it in a completely different way. It is not the blood of a victim, the blood of someone hurt, it is the blood that bonds everyone together. The blood that runs through Matches’ veins, their bodies, their souls and hearts; and with the Final Ceremony fuse together to form a whole new person. One person of two minds.
The bell rings and we all know this will be the last ‘dongs’ of the Ceremony. Slowly, everyone comes to a stop, the whirls of the girl’s skirts falling to the ground and the waves of our arms brought down by our waists. Sky immediately drops his hand from mine and his other arm goes up to look at his watch. A second was all it took, I don’t even know if he read the time; but he turned the opposite direction as everyone else and started for the entrance. I want to call for him, but the silence echoes so loudly in the Hall I’m afraid to break it. It is obvious he took this opportunity for a reason, being the last ring of the bell, everyone is intent and anxious to greet the newly born Completes. I follow his slim, running figure as the doors slam quietly behind him and I know he is gone and there’s nothing I can do to stop him. The last thing I see as the light from the doors escapes through a tiny gap is Sky reaching for his pocket, something colourful sneaking out from inside.
All of the matching pairs scurry elegantly into the light reflecting from one of the 14 windows around the Hall. The rays are still bright, but won’t be for long. The guests follow the Matches they came here for closely behind, hiding outside the reflection from the windows. Lexi and Ian are at the farthest window to the West, where the sun is going to set. Each pair waits anxiously for the sun to escape from their window, symbolizing their Completeness, the start of a new day and a new life. Skylar’s mother has no idea of his absence, her face fixed on her daughter, but she is not smiling. To think of it, I have not seen her smile in so long, ever since his father was taken. Her mouth might not say anything, but there’s no need for a smile. Her eyes are glistening, tears covering the iris and the grey colour beneath. Of course, Lexi has no notice of anything outside the light at the moment; her and Ian. Where is Skylar? He cannot miss this. How could he? I feel a shade covering the right side of my body, and I turn to find already the first three windows dark, marking the Completeness of three pairs. The doors are still closed, no sign of opening again. My mind races, as do my feet as I look down to find them rushing to where I last saw Sky. Nobody notices as I create a tiny crack by opening the doors just enough to quickly pass through. I am ready to run down the front stairs, rush through every alley and every block to find him; but my body halts to a stop as something strikes my eyes, making me almost squint.
Blonde, sandy hair, his eyes transformed from a bored, dull light brown to a burning, practically golden colour. His face looks wild, sweat, no- fear, shining on his forehead. His hands are clenched into tight fists at his sides, covered in blue veins spiralling like poisonous snakes.
It’s Sky, but I wish it wasn’t.

It takes me a moment to realize what expression is being mirrored on my face at the moment. My mouth drops open and immediately I realize it’s panic. I hear a muffled noise coming from my throat, but I don’t know what to say. His name? Scream? Cry for help? But what good would that give me? Only trouble.

I look up and notice that the drops I’ve been feeling streaming down my cheeks are not rain drops. They are tears. My feet start running, running towards him, and I put my arms around him, trying to cover up as much as possible. My mind is running as well, with nowhere to go, no solution in sight.
In my arms is my deepest fear. Change.
I look down at him, at his clothes, and they are no longer the same as mine. The same as my brother’s, his mother’s, my parents’, everyone around us. Splatters of yellow, blue, red, purple and colours we haven’t even learnt in school are decorating his whole body. I know that this is no ordinary child’s game. No ‘accident’ or act. This is an infraction. This is Sky’s way to tell me, to tell his family, everyone he knows, most importantly the Authority, that he believes he is different. That he demands something different.

“What are you doing Sky?!” I say between sobs and hugs to cover him. He pushes me away, heading for the Hall’s doors.

“Ember, get off of me.” He still says it gently, but with an edge to his voice telling me there is nothing stopping him. Although still in fists, his hands are trembling and something falls from his right side. It’s an empty, transparent box, and it is evident that before there used to be the splotches of paint which are now on his clothes.

“Why are you doing this? Do you want to get yourself sent away—” I stop, knowing what memories that will bring back to him. His father. “Skylar, you know what happens—”
“Yes! I do! And don’t you see, Em? That’s the problem,” He’s shouting now, a tone of desperation in his tone, too strong to cry but too weak to hide it any longer. “Look at you. You’re terrified. You’re scared of this!” His eyes are not burning with fire anymore, but something shiny, water. His hands point at his clothes, “Difference. And why? You don’t even know! The Authority has put this all in your head, in our heads. I will not let them control my thoughts anymore, Ember. I can’t!”
Skylar turns before I can say anything to change his mind, but it’s not me anymore to stop him. Behind me I hear stern voices, I can feel my heart missing a beat and my tears finally exhausting themselves, my cheeks too shaky for the water to flow down them. Members of the Authority. I know how it works, Skylar knows how it works. Whenever something out of the normal happens, they know. They always come. There’s no way out. I have never felt more out of myself in my life. It is like seeing this scene from someone else’s eyes, not knowing what you’re about to do and what is about to happen. I can see the same look on Skylar’s drained face. His feet face the doors, leading to his doom, and his eyes towards his ambuscade. He collapses onto the white marble ground, his hard cheekbones suddenly becoming softer, like a little boy who cracks his shell and admits of being scared of the monsters hiding under his bed.
Before my mind fully processes what is happening, I feel a rough hand caressing my shoulder. I turn, and behind me a pair of strikingly clear blue eyes stare deep into mine, bringing calmness and relaxation like the blue of the seas’ waves. The enchanting stranger from the Greenhouse. My thoughts don’t even have time to question, What is he doing here? as he elegantly walks towards the white, formal suits approaching us. I cannot see his face anymore and I watch attentively as the Members react to him. He puts his hands towards his neck or at the top of his chest, as if to show them something. Then he points at Skylar, and as he faces me I see the shape of his mouth and manage to hear something like, “I’ll take care of it.”
I don’t care what he said or what just happened, all I know is that the Authority Members are slowly disappearing in the opposite direction while Sky’s head is still buried in between his knees at the top of the stairs, right next to me where he has always belonged. And all I know is that it is all because of the blue-eyed stranger.

Chapter 4

I feel a piercing ache in my chest, each breath I take like fire being inhaled into my lungs, burning every inch in my body. It feels as if I am grasping onto my last breaths of air; yet my ribcage is moving in motion with my legs, going in and out faster than ever. I don’t remember how I got here, or how long I’ve been here, for how long I’ve been running. Too many questions run through my mind while my legs keep running through these blinding-white corridors, as if they are disconnected from my brain but trying to get me somewhere important.
I strain my eyes, half-hoping the white I see is just in my imagination, and will slowly blur into a place I recognize.
But the white does not fade away.
I turn on the right, into another glowing corridor, so bright that even with my eyes closed I find no darkness. I can now hear a muffled noise in the distance, as if by closing my eyes my other senses heighten. As my focus grows stronger the sound starts to come together at different tones and pitches… like a song. I can feel myself getting closer as the song gets louder, the sweet melody entering my body, rushing through my veins, speaking out to me. It’s not just music, it’s trying to tell me something, like a message. Drops of sweat start staining the floor below me. My eyes are opened wide and a sense of panic rushes through my spine. The song becomes a lament, beautiful but stinging, each note filled with pain and agony. Strangely, I recognize it, and that is why fear suddenly takes over me. I realize it’s not the music that’s familiar but the thing behind it. Or the person? It is someone I love, someone I would save with my own life and I need to find this person now. As the running grows faster the setting around me becomes clearer; I push past white doors onto other corridors, zigzagging endlessly into more and more doors. Does the singing become louder or am I just focusing harder on it? Am I getting closer?
But there is no time to find out.
I wake up at the sound of my father’s voice in the other room.
“We can’t keep living like this Amelia!” there is a strain of desperation in his voice, one I’ve hardly ever heard from him before. “We’re never safe like this!”
“You think I don’t know that?” I hear the unsteadiness of her words and even from my room it’s as if I can feel her lips trembling, letting out so little of what she’s holding inside. “This is all about our safety! This is all about protecting us, how can you—”
“Amelia. Protecting us from what?” His voice is so stern it quiets my mother for a bit, maybe calming her, maybe making her despair even more. “You know…” He doesn’t want to say it. “You know we don’t think the same. You’re trying to protect us from something that’s all in your head, that’s been put in your head, while you should be concerning yourself about the woman who put it there!”
“Jai is not our enemy!” There is defensiveness in her tone. “She is right, we’re all in danger… we’re all in danger…” I’m not sure if it was just the echo through the walls or if my mother is actually repeating those three words.
“I’m sick of it. I’m tired Amelia! Living in secret, living a lie. You know we should have never...”
“Never what? Huh? Never taken her? Is that what you’re trying to say?” My mother’s voice rose in anger.
“We should have never gotten ourselves mixed into this!”
“It’s not just us, Dennis, nobody is ‘mixed in’. We’re all a part of it, it’s our world!” My father doesn’t answer, and she adds, more hushed, “We would have never had her. Is that what you wanted?”
There is a long silence, neither of them have the courage or even the force to start speaking their thoughts out loud. I stare blankly at the wall for that time, the words that came out of my parents’ mouths still entering and processing in my mind. We’re never safe, my father said. Is he scared of something? Someone? Is there somebody going after us?
“She’s going to get us all into trouble. Or worse yet. Nobody messes with the Authority.” He is calmer now, “She’s not who you think she is and we don’t even know who our---”
I hear footsteps towards their bedroom door and my mother interrupts him, “Well, the Authority is not what you think it is.” slamming the door shut behind her.

***
I don’t know for how long I’ve been awake anymore. Sometime during that conversation I found myself staring at a dead end, lost in one of the alleys of my thoughts. I go back and try to remember step by step all that’s happened this night. A jab of pain hits my stomach as soon as I recall the Fourth Ceremony.
Sky. The colours. The infringement. I remember those haunting eyes again, the stranger who seems to be in front of me no matter where I look. Why did he help us? How was he even able to get the Members to leave so quickly? Nobody has superiority over them, almost nobody even dares to talk to them. We know they’re of a higher standard and that without them our world would be once again falling apart. Part of me now feels as though I owe him, someone whom I still don’t know the name of; but who saved one of the most important people in my life. Where would Sky be now if it weren’t for him? Where would I be?
I realize there is no point in trying to fall back to sleep and as I look out my window I see a bit of light is already sneaking up in the distance.
Quietly, I go downstairs, not wanting to capture the attention of either of my parents who seemed to have had a rough night. My mouth is dry, so I head to the kitchen. As water pours into my glass I see a flicker of light on the back wall of the living room. The lights are all turned off, since we are only allowed to have them on during the evening as it is one of the many ways to keep our Earth healthy like the Authority teaches us. I place my untouched cup on the counter and walk towards the living room. I don’t know what I expect to find until I hear some familiar sniffs. I walk inside and find my mother, in tears, clutching onto a wide cardboard box on her lap and staring at the Projector. Every house has a Projector; but is almost never used, it only turns on when the Authority has messages and announcements to inform us on. The only way for us to use it is by scanning the certain clip we want to watch and enter a specific code. I don’t understand what my mother could possibly be watching. She is so focused on the screen she still hasn’t noticed me.
“Of course, honey, we hope there will be no need for you to watch this,” A woman’s voice from the Projector speaks, I feel her expression into a smile but a fake one. Worry and fear hiding beneath it. “But if you are that also means you are in safe hands and that’s all we wish for our little blaze of fire.”
“Be very careful.” Now I hear a man’s voice. “Everything in this world is an illusion, we are all living lives which wouldn’t be our own. Which are guided by others. Em—”
“Mum?” I am whispering, almost stammering although I wasn’t aware of how scared I was until the words came out of my mouth.
My mother’s wild eyes untangle themselves from the strange voices. She looks at me, shock covering her pale cheeks.
“Ember!”
I don’t even know if she just mouthed my name or if she said it. She was so quick. Just as I turn around to look again at the two strangers, she rushes to the projector and turns it all off. I’m staring at a blank wall, desperately trying to put the faces I just managed to glance at back on the screen. Two relatively young adults, a man with dark hair and thick eyebrows and a woman with a very long face-shape, her cheekbones heightened with freckles. That is all I can seem to place.
I stand motionless for a few minutes, neither of us saying anything. My mother doesn’t look at me, and I feel as though she is ignoring looking at me in the eye.
“I can’t. I can’t tell her. No. It’s not time yet.”
Is she speaking to herself or to me?
“I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. When is the time? No. Too young. I don’t know.”
“Mum..?”
She gives a quick movement of her head and looks at me with a sharp expression, making me step backwards.
“It’s not the time yet.”
“The time for what?”
She hesitates. “You’ll know soon. It’s coming.”
***
I never thought that it would take so long for the sun to come up. Or is it just me? Time seems to last forever when it is spent trying to answer impossible questions. Last night felt so unreal. Who were those people? Why was my mother crying? What is coming?
Like every other morning, I place the bottom part of my arm inside the hole in the wall beside my bed. It’s our Slot. A light turns on as it senses my arm and after a second I can already free my arm. Now instead of my bare skin I can see fluorescent green words telling me what I have today: “Third Ceremony” is in block letters and I notice that my curfew is now an hour later. I realize that tonight I’ll fall asleep as a Third-stage member. There’s also something else I didn’t expect. Today is Remembrance Day. It will take place right after my Ceremony, in the Town Square, where all citizens get together and remember all those who died.
Breakfast is awfully silent, my mother avoids not just mine but everybody’s eyes and my father is uninterested in making conversation. Nolan, like always, seems to be on a completely different planet. He is one of the only people who has the power to make me smile just by being himself and he reminds me so much of Sky. They don’t have to do anything. Just by sitting at the table, unaware of the world changing around him, falling apart, he is able to make me laugh.
I ruffle his hair as I get off my chair, and he seems to wake up from his daze.
“What?”
I laugh. “Nothing. Love you, Nole.”
“Love you too, Em.” He keeps looking at me as I head for the door. “Where are you going?”
“Meeting Sky. I’ll be home soon. Try not to cause too much trouble.” I say.
“I’ll try, but I can’t help it!” He grins and I smile back as I close the door behind me.
I’ve decided the only person who has any chance of helping me get rid of at least some of my questions by either giving me unreasonable answers or making me forget by dragging me completely off-topic is my best friend. He would love this information anyways.
I open the door to his house by baring my number ‘13’ and scanning it. He and I are both permitted by the Authority to enter each other’s houses so our numbers are already registered. As I walk past the kitchen I see his mother’s blonde hair scattered on the table with her face buried in it. There is a photograph of a handsome man locked in between her fingers. Sky’s father. I try hard not to wake her and go up to find an empty room. Sky isn’t here. Where could he be so early in the morning? After confusion I immediately start having a panic attack. What is he doing especially after what happened yesterday? Thoughts are rushing into my mind, making me so dizzy I sit down, unsure whether I was turning on my feet or just in my head. What if it’s not him who left? What if somebody took him?
I get up, look outside his window which overlooks into mine and I see a skinny boy running between the two houses. Before I have any time to start questioning everything like I always do, I find myself downstairs, running outside his home and following Sky’s tracks against the tiny pebbles.
For some reason something stops me from calling out for him. Who knows for how long he’s been doing this every morning without telling me? A bolt of pain hits me. I realize I feel betrayed. Maybe even for the first time in my life. And it is definitely not from the person I wished to be causing me this feeling. We’ve always told each other everything, never felt the need to keep secrets or maybe was never even able to, both of us always able to figure what was hidden beneath the other sometimes even before we knew it ourselves. At least that’s how I always saw us. Was it all just from my eyes?
Now I am even more careful than before, I do not want him to see me. He is in a part of the city no one ever goes to. We are uphill, the blocks of houses and pebbled roads far behind us now. Somewhere beneath all my curiosity and even anger towards him I sense a new feeling coming over me: fear. I don’t like where we’re going. Ever since we were little kids our families have always told us that the forest up this hill was haunted, and called it the Infernal Forest. Where Hell had been brought upon years and years ago. Of course, I would never believe any such thing now, but part of me also wouldn’t want to test it. I’ve always trusted Sky as if he were the second half of me but I just don’t have the slightest clue why he’d be coming up here at 8 in the morning.
As we’re back on flat ground I see trees towering over our heads, covering the sun and bringing a shadow across our faces. In front of me, Sky hasn’t stopped once, obviously knowing where he’s headed. Where we’re headed. I can’t afford myself to have come all this way and then turning back because of a childish fairytale. I also can’t afford to waste time deliberating whether or not to enter the forest while he camouflages himself amongst the trees.
I let out a breath of air I didn’t even realize I was holding onto and step into the Infernal Forest.
***
I don’t know what I was expecting. A witch’s cackle echoing as I walked? Birds falling dead from the sky?
Instead I feel as though I have entered inside a labyrinth. Tree behind tree behind tree is standing in front of me, with hardly any room to walk in between. The green above acts as a blanket to hide the forest from the sun and the sky. There is absolutely no light, no thin rays of sunshine peaking out from small cracks in between the leaves. The only reason I am not collapsing onto the hard soil or banging my head against one of these huge tree trunks is because of Sky’s blonde hair, his golden aura lighting the path in front of him. Now I’m certain of it. He must have been here before. More than once. How does he know the way so well?
After being deep into the hollows of the Infernal Forest, knowing there is no way I could ever possibly go back without him, I realize what it is that’s been sending constant shivers tickling up and down my spine all this time.
There is no life.
Where are the animals? No birds chirping, no crackling of leaves as they crumple underfoot. I start looking around me in quick glances while my feet follow Sky. Green. Dark green. More green. Where is all the colour from the flowers I’m used to seeing in the Greenhouse? It is like watching the life of someone in black and white, with no happiness or joy. Somebody with their light switch turned off. It is like seeing the white wall behind the bench in the Greenhouse without the glowing fuchsia bougainvillea to bring it to life.
Goosebumps start prickling all over my arms and legs. I look ahead of me, concentrating only on the direction in which Skylar is heading.
He slants slightly towards the right, just enough for me to look further ahead than his head. Not too far in front, I see a single ray of light which managed to escape from the forest’s hard cage.
We are moving towards it. As Sky’s pace is slowing down I hide myself behind the trunk of a tree, which is twice as wide as my body. He comes to a halt.
It is like his legs suddenly disconnect from his brain, and they sink all of a sudden onto the grass beneath his feet.
I step away from the tree, wanting to run for him, wanting to scream for him.

But something stops me.

I look at him. His head is turned away from me so I cannot know if he is in pain. I realize I don’t know what he is doing. He starts bending his back closer towards the grass. Is he praying? Crying? Should I go comfort him?

I stay still where I am, my eyes widening as I pay closer attention to what he is doing. It is times like these where being taller would be such an advantage. I can’t see exactly what he is doing but I know he is moving his hands…stroking the grass? No. It is more as if he were moving his fingers. Before I can know for sure he straightens his back, still without standing up.

I feel my lips part, forming an oval.

Before my eyes I see what just a few seconds ago was dry grass on soil rising slowly above the ground as if it were a door into a new world. Again, I am at a loss of words. My mind still hasn’t registered exactly what is going on and while my brain is working at full speed, I catch a glimpse of that familiar blonde head disappearing beneath the darkness of this entryway.

I run towards it. Towards him. I quickly look at this piece of land moving slowly to open itself. The only thought which comes to mind is, It must be really heavy to be so slow. I notice what Sky must have been using his fingers for before opening this door, on the ground, hidden beneath a rock is a type of scanner which reminds me of the ones outside our homes. But it’s not. It has buttons with numbers on them. A combination lock, I guess.

I don’t waste too much time debating whether to follow him or not. Before the mechanical door starts to close itself again, I jump down into the emptiness below.

***


The chute is quick and I almost feel nothing except for a sort of vacuum force pulling me down. When I land Sky is nowhere in sight. There is a loud clunk and as I look up I see the piece of land is now back in its place, the door closed.

On my right and left, glued against the mud walls are infinite zigzags of metal tubes and pipes. I find myself stuck in the narrowest corridor I’ve ever stood in, the metal clanging against my body each move I make. The walls on my right and left curve upward instead of being straight.

Suddenly I feel my face go white. Two hands grab tightly onto my shoulders. All the muscles in my body tense, and then they go numb, too scared to do anything. More hands take heavy grips all over my body, forcing me still and clamping my mouth shut. I take in a deep breath and hold it as darkness falls upon me.

***

“What are we going to do with her?”

“She’s a spy!”

“I knew we weren’t safe here…”

Muffled voices awake me. The immediate blackness again from covers my eyes and it scares me. Why can’t I see anything? I feel my hands brushing themselves against a rough fabric where my face lies, so I know they have put something, a bag, to cover it. Or to cover what my eyes should be seeing.

“She’s awake!” someone whispers.

“How did she even find us?”

“Whatever. I say we kill her.”

Panic strikes me. They are talking about me. Kill me. I’m the one who snuck into a place I shouldn’t have entered. I’m the one who followed him here.

Him.

Sky.

What is he doing here? Why isn’t he freeing me?

I try looking at myself from outside my fabric. The same gray clothes, black bag covering my face… There is no way he could recognize me.

I start shouting, frantically needing to see where I am. Who is talking. What they’re doing.

“Sky?! Sky where are you?!”

It’s only a few seconds later that I realize the sound coming from my mouth is not what I’m hearing in my mind. They have also covered my mouth, making it impossible for me to speak. I feel my chest moving up and down heavily, and I try to break free from the chair I’m tied to. Fear drains in on me. I am trapped.

“Give her a shot to make her sleep! Come on!”

I agitate myself even more, banging my knee against a table, sending a sharp sting of agony rushing through my veins.

“Why don’t we just talk to her, I’m sure we could reason… Make her see like us, maybe just let her go and leave it all behind us…?” a sweet suggesting voice suddenly fills me with calmness, but it doesn’t last long.

“Shut up!” Everybody seems to shout at the voice.

“I swear, why did we even let him into this group?”

“I thought we agreed to kill all trespassers, what are we waiting for?!”

“Kill, kill.” I really do hope they would stop saying that word, “Okay then, Lou, since you’re so eager to take lives away, tell us how exactly you would proceed in this?”
I don’t think I want to hear this girl’s answer.

“Well, my mother used to kill rabbits holding them by their ankles and hitting them with a large blow to the head…”
I feel myself swallow hard, my throat remaining dry. She was obviously not finished, but the man who had asked her how she would kill me interrupted her, clearly not having been affected by her comment as I have.

“Okay then, there is still one thing I’m just not quite sure about… I hope you could shed light on it for me. Where, I ask, would we find a giant in order to hold her arms and legs apart?”

I can hear the girl Lou starting to stammer a good comeback but I don’t get to hear what she’s come up with since someone else saying, “No, seriously, if we were to get rid of her, I would suggest enclosing her in one of our narrow storage rooms. And, according to my calculations, it would probably take about 36 hours for the oxygen to run out…”

“Come on, if you consider the height and area of the storage room you would be smart enough to know that it would take her approximately 4 days to die. It’s basic knowledge.”

“Oh really? What about the weight of the prisoner?”

“The weight?!”

After that people start bellowing and arguing about my weight, whether I’m 55kg or “What the hell are you saying? She’s maximum 52!” and I don’t know anymore whether I’m scared, confused or even just the slightest amused at the scene. I prefer my ‘kidnappers’ to fight about my weight rather than ways to kill me. I don’t know from where it’s coming from, but part of me wants to laugh, almost all fear slowly draining away. I realize the people on the other side haven’t the slightest clue of what to do, just like me.

“Everybody shut up!” It’s the stern voice that shuts off all the amusement in my mind. “God, we just need to figure out what to do okay?” He pauses for a second. “And no more talk about killing for goodness sake, we’re not like them.”

I can slightly hear some annoyed mumbling, probably from the most eager to kill me, Lou, “And no more talk of killing for goodness sake…” she repeats, in a high pitch, mimicking her leader.

The silence doesn’t last long. Soon enough, they are all back to disputing and shouting about their various ways to confront me. Confront me. As if I’m some kind of danger?

“Make her think this is a dream!”

“She’ll return here to find out, you idiot, then we’ll be back where we are now.”

The leader, I’ve now recognized is sitting on my left, lets out a long sigh and I imagine him burying his head in his arms.

I stop trying to make out what they’re saying. Instead, I listen for voices, trying to concentrate on his familiar, melodic voice.

To my surprise, there is one voice I do recognize, but it’s not his. It can’t be his. It’s too rough. Husky, reminds me of an edge of a cliff. One side beautiful and the other rocky and jagged, a vast emptiness beneath.

But Sky’s is higher, always sounds like he is thinking of something other than what he is saying, his thoughts always one step ahead. Distracted yet spirited like the melody of a bird. It sounds like…

“We certainly can’t let her go now.”

Sounds like that.

I move up and down, trying anything to let him see through the black cloth and into the friend he’s grown up with all his life.

But there is no use.

“That’s it. Hand me the anaesthetic.”
My mind activates its engine. There has to be a way for him to realize who I am.

And then I know.

I bend my neck down, moving my chin close to the rounded collar of my shirt. Unable to use my hands I manage to pull down the top of my shirt just enough to feel the shape of my collarbone brushing against my chin.

I feel a sharp sting of a needle starting to enter the skin of my arm, letting go of any hope I had that Sky had understood what I was trying to show him.

“Stop!” my drooping eyes open wide. Silence falls in the room and all I can hear is his confused whisper, stuttering my name.
“Ember?”

I hear a chair scraping against the soiled floor and trembling legs moving towards me. I feel his hands, as rough as sandpaper, and the chewed nails grazing for a second against my neck as he unties the fabric loose from my head.

The last thing I see are his amber eyes growing brighter as he slaps me hard on the cheek to try and get me back to them.

Chapter 5

“I swear, she’s my best friend, I’ve known her all my life… she’s no harm to us.”
“Why should we believe you, you moro-”
“Let Skylar speak.”
When I first open my eyes I immediately shut them close again, the light blinding me and sending a sharp pain to my temples.
My head feels fuzzy, and now I’m pretty sure it’s not because of the light. I can’t feel my lips. I put my fingers over them but I feel nothing. I hear gibberish words coming out of me and as I keep brushing my fingers against my lips I start making sputtering, blabbering noises.
The strange creatures sitting at the long, rectangular table in front of me instantly turn their heads to look at me, apparently surprised I have regained consciousness. I tilt my head to the side, staring confusingly into these animals’ eyes as they glare at me. One of them has purple, spiralling horns. The one sitting on my left is covered in blue fur and its feet are like a ducks’. A slender, winged creature with huge, grey ears comes up to me and looks me straight in the eyes.
I see my arm raising and my hand stamping a bright red mark onto the creature’s cheek. I look at my hand for a second, shocked at what I’d done, and when I look back in its eyes it is not a bizarre-looking animal anymore but a bizarre-looking human: Sky.
“What was that for?!”
I pretend like I’d seen him as himself all along. “You slapped me, I slap you back.” I answer, with my chin held as high as I possibly can reach and my eyes closed. I stick my tongue out as well.
He raises both eyebrows.
“Yeah, but that was to stop you from falling asleep.”
I frown at him. “Well I also was trying to stop you from falling asleep.” He looks unconvinced. “You never know when you might doze off!” I add to defend myself.
“But you had a sedative!” He looks like he’s going to continue but he stops and says, “Oh. That’s why…” and grins.
I get bored of talking to him, he’s being rather annoying I think to myself, and look in front of me. Like Skylar, the monsters have transformed into five humans, all looking at me shockingly or amused. My eyes grab hold of a metal plate in the middle filled with chocolate chip cookies.
“FOOD!”
I lean into the table and dive for the plate.
A cold hand slaps mine hard as I lean back and take possession of the cookies.
“They’re not for you.” She spits the ‘t’ right at my face. The girl has as much bitterness in her tone as she does in her dark brown eyes.
“Oh, you must be Lou, right? It’s a pleasure to meet my most eager killer.” I beam at her my brightest smile.
She sneers back at me, not returning my kind gesture.
“What’s her problem?” I whisper to Sky.

He laughs under his breath.

“She’s we-ird… You know, I don’t think I like her much.” I say to him as I stuff a cookie inside my mouth.

“You know I can hear you, right? I’m right here.” Her tight, blonde ponytail somehow seems to stretch out her forehead more, making her look downright terrifying.

But I giggle.

“Whoopsie, Sky, she can hear us!”

I see him raise his arms up at our audience as if to defend himself but he can’t wipe the smirk off his face. His eyebrows form high arches above his eyes and I think to myself that he looks very silly.

He looks back at me and says, “You know, I think I rather prefer sedated Ember to normal Ember. She’s so much more fun.”

“Thanks.” I feel flattered by his compliment. Then I realize, “Hey wait, what’s that supposed to mean?”

My mind is about to get lost again in one of its endless roads of confusion when a voice brings me back to reality. It is rough, but I can taste the hint of honey in it.

“You.” I raise my head to look at those blue eyes that have been haunting me for the last few days, the eyes belonging to the voice. The left side of his lips curves upward. “Now I ask you, fate or coincidence?” He raises his eyebrows at me.

I know him.

The stranger from the green-house. The stranger who was intrigued by my strange sketches. Last night flashes in my memory like a lightning strike in the middle of a calm and still night. Sky. The colours. The Authority Members. The stranger who possibly saved my best friend’s life from entering chaos. The stranger who is sitting right in front of me, somewhere I was never even supposed to be in.

Or was I?

Is this really the game of fate and coincidence he is talking about?

I realize that during all this time I have not said a word.

I open my mouth to speak but am soon interrupted.

“I’m sorry to disrupt everyone’s, most intriguing, conversation, but are we going to get to the matter of things yet or not?” I look away from the stranger and face the person who spoke. He seems nothing but bored, judging everyone with small, narrow eyes. I can’t make out his age. He doesn’t appear to be older than my parents. Yet his eyes are completely drained of colour, something which only happens to victims of Scorpio, or, very rarely, if you make it past the age of 60.

Silence continues to fill the air around us.

“No? Nothing? Really? What are we going to do with her?” He raises his voice, a frigid tone that sends shivers up and down my arms.

“I’m thinking, Agro,” The young man at the head of the table says.

“Well, we can’t read your thoughts now can we? It would rather help if you spoke them out loud,” Lou snaps back.

“Hmm. It would be rather helpful if we had a telepathy machine right now wouldn’t—”

“Shut up Noah.” Lou snarls at him.
I look over at him. He was dead serious, not kidding. His voice so calm and peaceful against Lou’s battling cries I almost have the urge to laugh.

There is only one more person I have not yet noticed at this table.

A woman, with black, lucid hair cropped up to her shoulders and a diamond shaped face sits hidden behind the man who is apparently named Agro. She is so slender and tiny behind his masculine build that I hadn’t noticed her before. As she comes out of his shadow to speak, I feel my body go suddenly still. My eyes unblinking, shock numbing my muscles.

I have also seen her before.

Before Sky’s incident. Something that had completely escaped from my thoughts. The woman. The mysterious woman who was talking to my mother. The woman who ignited my parent’s fight during the night. The woman who warned my mother to be careful about our changing world. What is she doing here?

I keep my eyes fixed on her, but she refuses to face my way.

“Kole, why don’t we simply have a discussion and decide what to do with her?” She says in a still, soothing voice.

“You mean how to get rid of her.” Lou retorts back.

I roll my eyes. I don’t think I’m scared of her anymore.

I realize the blurry fog that covered my eyesight up until a few minutes ago has cleared, the sedation losing its effect.

The leader, Kole, finally opens his mouth to speak.

“Right. Ember, isn’t it?” He looks at me, “See that door behind me? Go through it and we’ll come and call you when we’re ready.” I think he’s about to offer a smile, but then he changes his mind and just points to the door.

I hear Lou behind me making some type of protests on how I shouldn’t be left alone. As if I could back-flip out of a window, I laugh to myself.
As I go through the door, which looks more like a metallic vault, I remember there aren’t even any windows for me to back-flip out of. Before I have time to process, I feel my breathing grow heavy. I feel my heart run faster and pound against my rib cage as if wanting to get free of its cage. I am far, deep underground, I remind myself. Sweat starts dripping down my forehead. I don’t like closed spaces. I never have. I have to restrain myself from letting the screams escape from the corners of my mouth. I clench my teeth together and my hands are held in tight fists on my sides. Something salty gets into my mouth. Blood. My lip starts stinging. I must have bit it.
Distract yourself, I think, Get your mind on something else. Before my head starts spinning and growing dizzy as I feel it just might, I start walking around. I realize this room is even darker than the one we were just in. All around me I feel surrounded by a tribe of dancing spirits. These oil lanterns give off the strangest of shadows. This room is so tiny it would be considered a storage room in normal houses, although I highly doubt this… refuge can be compared to the cube houses we all live in.
In front of me is an old book shelf, and I think it’s made of wood, which is unusual though because the Authority forbids the cutting down of trees and production of any wooden materials. What is this place?
“The dust on these books is unbelievable isn’t it?”
I don’t have any time to jump at the sound of his voice since the dust he blew of the top of one of the books got into my throat, making me cough.
It’s Noah.
He looks at me, offering an unrequited smile. I keep glaring at him. I finally exhale, about to speak, but stop. I continue trying to talk for about a minute, not sure from where to start. All he does is flick the pages of the old book in his hands.
“Take your time.” He says.
I count to ten and start again.
“Why are you here?” I finally hear words come out of my mouth.
“Why am I here with you or why are we here here?” he keeps flicking the pages, never looking at me.
“Both.”
“Okay, well, as you may have guessed the people in there don’t really care about my input, I’m considered the weirdo of the group,” He laughs. “Which is big considering the group itself.”
I start to think he forgot about the second question when he finally raises his head at me, his tiny spectacles laying on the tip of his nose. “Why are we here, in this strange underground refuge? I don’t think I’m really supposed to tell you yet but if they get mad at me you can just say ‘Oh you know, Noah’s just the crazy old man, he didn’t know what he was saying’ because that’s what they think anyways.” He chuckles to himself. Part of me wants to smile. He is like a weight leaving your shoulders, he already made me forget about my small claustrophobic attack. “So this is our secret meeting place. Think of us as secret, ultra hidden spies who no one knows about.”
I can’t say his answer really helped me place the pieces together, but I don’t ask again.
“You know what this place is anyways?” He asks me.
He doesn’t wait for an answer. Instead, he goes to the end of the book he is holding and lets a crumpled up, almost brown piece of paper slip out and hands it to me. I notice his arms are very shaky, and his veins slither through them like blue snakes. I wonder if he has Scorpio. The paper feels rough, like sandpaper, I assume it must be very old.
Inside it is a drawing.
It’s nothing like the geometric scribbles I always draw though. I’ve never seen this type before. It’s like a plan of this place, this underground retreat. There is a symbol on the top left corner: a yellow circle with three black triangles.
“What does this mean?” I ask him.
“This,” He answers, “This place, is called a Fallout Shelter. It was built during the Last Age, more than a century ago. The Last Age, you’ve studied that, I believe. The wars. These refuges were built everywhere, specifically built to protect the civilians from those minor nuclear bombs.”
A lot of questions form in my mind and I try to get them out.
“How do you know this? Why didn’t they ever teach us? Why haven’t I ever come across one before?”
He chuckles.
“I like you.” He smiles at me while I continue staring at him, my eyes widening by the second. “Well, firstly, I’ve read it in all these books which lay before you.” He starts running his hand against the spines of the books on the shelf as if they were sacred and a single touch brought knowledge into his brain. “These aren’t the books you’re used to, Ember. The Authority doesn’t know about this place. They think all of the Shelters have been destroyed.”
I don’t immediately understand how the two things he said relate to each other but soon enough it hits me, The Authority doesn’t know about this place, I repeat in my head. That means that these books in front of me are…
No.
It can’t be.
Banned Books.
These are the Banned Books. These are the books that the Authority does not know of. These are the books which might actually come from our past, not the books the Authority provides for us, written by Members.
It takes a large part of me to grab hold of that rope in the back of my mind and pull me back in before spiralling in between these pages and never wanting to leave this room. This small and narrow room, I remind myself. I can’t dive into these words, I need to find out more.
“Banned Books.” I whisper.
“Yes, yes.” Noah has a slight twitch in his left eye. Plus, he has a bloodshot expression which tells me that he’s either impatient or excited. “This is the last refuge remaining, at least that we know of. This is where we meet.”
“Who’s ‘we’?”

He smiles, “Just a bunch of misfits.”

***


“You’re risking everything if you do this.”

A few steps behind me, Kole and Sky are talking in hushed voices, it’s hard to make out what they say.

“What is it that I’m risking anyways, my freedom?” Skylar snickers.

“You know what I mean.” Kole snaps back, not in a harsh tone but he is definitely not keen on making jokes.

“Yeah, okay, whatever.”

“I just wanted you to know.” Kole calls after him as Sky makes his way towards me. “You know this isn’t just talk anymore. You don’t want to fail again. We don’t even know exactly what and who we’re up against, we don’t know the consequences.”

Sky doesn’t turn around.

“I said I’m ready.”

He approaches me, his eyes locked in a staring contest with his feet. Behind us, I could hear Kole sigh, not an exasperated one, more like a feeling of worry. As if he’s scared this fragile piece of glass will fall off the edge of a cliff. I glance back and see him vanishing back underground into what seemed like a separate world.

We walk silently through the same way as to how we got here. It’s strange how it must have been just an hour ago, and yet now it’s a part of my past I will never get back. A time where I didn’t know of secret rebel groups hiding underground, when I didn’t know of Skylar’s true secrets hidden beneath his mask, how he can let himself free only underground, veiled from this world. This world which now seems unknown to me. How is this the same way I walked an hour ago? It can’t be. So much has changed since then; and yet everything looks the same.

When they finally let me out of the little room with Noah, everything after that sort of rushed past me in a blur. I remember everyone looking at me, and then Kole announcing I had been allowed into the group. I remember thinking, When did I actually ask to be in this group? How did I even get to this? But I was given no time to speak. He read out to me a kind of principles or rules list which went like this:

1.
You are not to speak of this group with anyone from the outside world
2.
Don’t do anything which risks the secrecy or safety of the group.
3.
Never get yourself involved with the Authority unless planned with the rest of the group.

He stopped talking after that, nodded to Jai and next thing I knew she came up to me, took my left hand and I felt a short, stinging pain coming from the left side of my index finger.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Symbol of our group.” she said. “Represents wholeness and unity.”
That was the last time I spoke, after the incision into my finger Kole nodded to Sky and he lead me out back into the open. Now here we are, side by side as we were 10 years ago, yet separated by miles of questions and secrets.
After a while I’ve grown tired of letting the wind carry my questions, finally letting one out.

“Sky, I,” My voice falters. I don’t even know how to start. “What is this group? Who are these people?”

“You shouldn’t have followed me.” He doesn’t look up to answer me.

I’m caught off guard by his answer. He’s right. I wish I hadn’t.
I try changing the subject before we go into another eternity of silence.

“What’s up with that girl… Lou? Why is she so… you know.”

“Lou has anger issues, I guess. A great fighter, someone who’s always on the edge of their seat ready to either protect you with her life or make turn you into dust and ash. I think it has something to do with her past, something which I bet you will always remain a mystery to the world. No one knows anything about her, and no one probably ever will.”

“Kole is the leader isn’t he?”

“Yeah, I would call him that. Although sometimes it’s like you have to remind him.” He pauses and finally looks up at me. “He can’t remember anything of his life before last year. He says he just has this feeling that something is wrong in this world, and that something is out there.”

He can’t remember anything before last year? What happened to him” I guess Sky would’ve told me if he knew so I don’t mention it.

I want to ask about Jai, I want to ask about the young man who seems to follow me wherever I go, but he answers my questions before I get the chance to ask them.

“Jai and Lucas, they’re the quiet and mysterious ones. I don’t know much about them, apart from that they’re obviously against the Authority.” I’m surprised as to how nonchalantly he just stated that, it’s not something I’m used to hearing everyday. “Oh, sorry. Forgot how new you are to all this.” He must have noticed the hint of shock in my expression. “Don’t worry, soon enough you’ll be thinking like us.”
I don’t know who he means to reassure with that. Do I even want to think like Skylar? Do I want to question my society, put my whole life at risk?

“Agro, the big guy who sat in front of Jai, he’s basically just there to grumble the whole time. Doesn’t give any suggestions or ideas, just there to tell us off. As if he were some sort of guard asked to keep an eye on us or something.”
I hear Sky muttering to himself something like “Who does he think he is coming here just…”

“Last but not least?” I ask.

“Oh yeah. That loony head.” I restrain the urge to laugh hearing that from Sky. “Noah. Ever since he started blabbing on about beings from other planets invading our own and magical resurrecting birds, we chose to just leave him be. He himself thinks he isn’t human. He keeps coming up with these insane ideas on how we’ve all been brainwashed by aliens.”
Ironic how I must sometimes think the same about Sky as he does about Noah.

We keep walking, and I get that same tingling feeling I got on my spine when I followed him to the refuge. It’s not cold, but I hear my teeth clattering against each other, shivering.

“Don’t you get a…strange feeling about this forest? Like, I don’t know, everything’s dead?”

I expect him to make some sarcastic comment about it being haunted, instead I get something very different.

“Everything is dead. Well, not dead, just not alive. Artificial. You see, after the wars the Authority tried all they could to hide the ruins as they were,” He rolls his eyes and makes quotation signs with his hands, “reminders of inhumanity. They knew that this area was likely to have secret rebel refuges, so they tried concealing this part of the city from the people by creating the ‘Infernal Forest’ and spreading these rumours of it being haunted.”

My ears suddenly pound at the sound of clanging of metal. Skylar raises his hand to a tree and knocks hard. I follow his movements, but at the touch of the tree I do not feel something hard and metallic as I expected. The tips of my fingers scrape against the rough bark of the tree, disguised as any other one.

“You see what I mean now with the ‘don’t trust the Authority?’ They’re a bunch of lying, manipulative, power-hungry tyrants, hiding behind their polished white uniforms, holding us by a couple of strings with their left hands as if we were puppets.”

I hush him. The last thing I need, he needs, are his comments to be heard by those who could do something about them. As I think I realize, why am I even telling myself this? I am basically saying that there is no freedom of speech. Is that not proof that Sky’s insane talks of defiance are true? Stop it. I mentally slap myself. It is way too early to make myself believe that Sky is right.

“I say it’s finally time to cut the strings.” He says.

After that we walk in silence, past the metal trees and back into the gray city.