elimination
Chapter Eighteen

The alarm sounds to the right above my head as I drag myself out of bed. I flinch as the meager warmth that lingers in my toes is slapped away by the frigid tile floor of my station. The shower feels colder today and a small gasp escapes my lips as I am hit by the unfamiliar familiar cascade of ice. Something feels slightly off. It’s an uneasy feeling, a cross between that shivery eyes on the back of your neck feeling and deja vu. There is something I have forgotten, and I really ought to remember it. I give the mirror a quick glance before heading out the door and feel my spine recoil as I catch a glimpse of my eyes in the reflection.

My stiff, plastic limbs stumble over the tundra in a makeshift run. My arms desperately punch the wind as my lungs burn with every breath. I am no stranger to fatigue, yet this is not fatigue, it is something sickly and sinister. I am enveloped by a cloud of weakness. I drive myself forward, faster and faster, yet nothing kills the weakness. Something has changed. It’s as though I haven’t run in a long time. That’s impossible though; I have made this run every day of my life. With further desperation I drive my legs forward until I am practically sprinting. With a final burst of effort I replace myself lying on the ground with a foggy, throbbing head and a bloody chin glued to the icy ground.

I truly haven’t run in a while have I? I rack my brain for a distant memory. Practical Training, 14, Dagger. Splintered rips and harpooned lungs. Did they live or die? I was carried away by Apocalypse; there was foam dribbling down my chin. There was a white ceiling. There was a monster, a million monsters, they had my eyes. How very odd, they had my eyes didn’t they? Am I a monster? Mutation? Methylation? The memories are confusing and gloppy, far too viscous; they flow through a strainer with holes too small. I close my eyes and momentarily toy with the idea of falling asleep, yet snow is starting to fall in swirling clumps. Surely if I continue to lie here I will be buried alive. In a feat of unbelievable strength my eyes open. I have to keep running. With a wave of nausea I stand up taking a ball of soft snow from the ground and wiping it across my chin. My blood leaves a slushy red blob in the center. I run my tongue over my now chipped left middle tooth clearing away any hard grit. Swallowing hard, I begin to run.

Heavy footsteps slowly pound to a winded walk as I join the ocean of identical black clad bodies filing into the school. I vaguely wonder how long I have been gone, or if my presence is noticed by the nameless faces around me. My fingers nervously travel to their opposite wrists gently running cold, dry fingertips over soft smooth skin. Too soft and smooth, the kind of skin that grows out of a container of mysterious medical table goo. It’s supposed to make it so you don’t scar, but the scar is still there. The coarse reality of skin burned by cold wind is gone and spongy weakness is left, a reminder of my shackles.

I catch a green glint shining through the masses, a pair of eyes. Where had I last seen them? Cold water is the first thought to fill my brain, but no that wasn’t real. The last time I saw that color was in two glints of suffocated fear. He lived. Relief floods through me as my lips part to form a big toothy smile. My gaze prods his; I will his pupils to lock onto mine. His eyes briefly run over my face. Desperately I search for some kind of message but he sends nothing. There is no relief, no warmth, no friendship, no amicability of any sort. He looks at me like I’m a blank wall.

I hastily make my way to Bump Nose’s class feeling uneasy. It seems I have woken up in the French Revolution. How many years of history has it been since I last sat in this seat? How many trials? The class is half of what it used to be, the seats are spread farther apart to create the illusion of fullness. The imperfect Titles have been removed, not a word to commemorate their absence. Yet their space remains, leaving the room in an imperfect configuration of desks placed eons apart. On the island parallel to mine sits 12. For a moment her eyes bulge with shock as though she has seen a ghost, then they harden. I search for something in those deep brown eyes, relief, curiosity, anything, but all I see is defeat, disillusionment, disgust? Her face has changed, high cheekbones poke through where before they would have been hidden under cheeks. What used to be a small smile is now a thin impenetrable line. A gaze that used to regard me with kind tenderness now holds utter contempt. I swallow hard, a question mark getting caught on the lump in my throat.