“Stop! Stop it now!” pleads Jacee rushing back through the doorway, but it doesn’t matter. There’s nothing she can do. There’s nothing anyone can do.
They beat me into submission and drag me down the infirmary hall like a tattered mop. Being pulled at each wrist, I can’t escape if I had the strength to.
“What seems to be the issue here?” asks a menacing voice, stopping them dead in their tracks.
“This one’s out past curfew. Second time this week, Sir,” answers the lead officer driving me to the ground to face his superior.
One glance at his shiny black shoe and I already know what he is. Ice flushes into my bloodstream with unforgiving relentlessness. The acidic taste of my stomach burns in the deepest depths of my throat. There are countless stories of their terror. They are by far the most dangerous humans alive.. if they’re even human.
My gaze rises and briefly locks with the cold dark glare of the Suit. His black jacket is as dark as a nightmare. His hair is just as black and slicked back, wet-looking. The same chiseled jawline they all wear. Suits are the strong arm of the Lethe Corporation. Corporate muscle. The label Suits comes from their predictable attire. I label them scum. Those that enforce tyranny are worse than those that write it.
“Why did you break curfew, citizen?”
“I.. I lost track of time,” I stammer, my voice cracking.
“Is the curfew not at the same time every night, citizen?”
“Yes.”
He’s silent.
My heart beats louder against the walls of my chest. I feel his gaze all over me, scanning me. What is he searching for? With our eyes locked, the sound of the clinical bustle seizes. The artificial lighting seems to focus solely on this personification of Lethe Corp. The recycled air impossibly grows even thinner as breathing becomes one of the most difficult tasks to accomplish.
“Give the citizen a strike and send him home. If he chooses to commit another violation this cycle, exile him from 34.”
“Yes, Sir,” snaps the lead officer.
As I’m limping out of the infirmary, I find Kalli somehow still at the front of my broken mind. Every possible scenario for tomorrow occurs simultaneously within my imagination. It’s a shame they don’t have some kind of catalyst to quiet an anxious mind. I mean I can always buy some drugs at the exchange like everyone else or try something homemade if I’m feeling stupid enough, but numbing my brain isn’t really the same as curing anxiety if that’s even a thing. Once you think about it, ridding anxiety is pretty much doing to yourself what Lethe forces us to do with their poison – become a different person. Well, I suppose it’s not forced. Only nature is forcing me to take the only form of nourishment that exists or drink the only uncontaminated water around. I could always fucking starve or die of dehydration. Weirdly, anxiety helps make me, me. If you look back at life and think about all the thoughts you ever had and all the actions that were a consequence of those thoughts, you begin to realize if just one of those thoughts were to change, your entire life would be different. You wouldn’t be the same person. One thought, even an anxious one, being altered during one’s mind cycle can make you a drastically different person. I think I’ll pass on the drugs. My brain is fucked enough as it is.
I remember that knife Kalli got her hands on years ago. Its blade’s a deep shade of midnight. About the size of my hand and razor-sharp. Its handle, wrapped tightly with blue rope, knotted, with the symbol omega engraved in the metal where it meets the handle. She doesn’t even remember how she got it or where it came from. Which isn’t unusual, really. We would forget our names if they weren’t tattooed on our arms. Inconsistency is one of the only constants here. We had only known each other for a few months then, but how could I ever forget that day? She stared at me with the most innocent yet mysterious look I’ve ever seen in probably all my lives. Her eyes burned like quasars that I found myself lost in at every opportunity. She bowed playfully, presenting me the knife like a queen. She told me she was about to blow my mind. I remember thinking she already had each and every day, but I played along.
“Close your eyes, Palin,” she smiles. “You have a beautiful mind, but you’re stubborn as hell. Think about it! If you believe you have any control over yourself, then you should have no problem not thinking about this knife right now.”
I closed my eyes and of course, the first thing that kept rushing to the front of my mind was that damn knife as she made no attempt to hide her laughter. She has the cutest laugh.
Eventually, I gave up and went with her rants. I stopped trying to control everything, I quit trying to make sense of the people’s actions. When it all felt like too much, like I was suffocating, buried under the weight of the world, she was my breath of life.
I remember lying in bed with her one night. It was one of those quiet nights where everything was eerily silent. Even the machinery at the plants seemed to rest. She lied in front of me with my arm draped over her side. My face was lost in the mystery of her brown curls. I could just hear the air softly leaving her mouth. That is the single most calming sound a
