Ch. 1 Stay Silent

Welcome to your worst nightmare. Exit? Doesn't exist.

  I make my face blank and emotionless, tucking my feelings away into the deepest parts of my heart. I glance around the room, taking in all of the countless bleak gray desks. The glass screens levitating above the edges of our tables, six inches away from our faces. Our dark faces. The dreary gray walls. The enormous green glass screen bolted into the northern wall. The Emotion Detector needles being pressed into students' backs by Instructors in white lab coats. The monitors showing the results on glass screens levitating over the Instructors' shoulders.

 

  The air is dry and thick with the smell of blood. I struggle to contain my stomach as another needle is pressed into another student's back.

Instructor Stevens approaches me, wheeling his cart of medical supplies along with him. A warning in his electrifying blue eyes. I know what comes next. I stand, trying to move as gracefully as possible. My long gray skirt whirling around my ankles.

 

   He walks around me and tugs the back of my shirt up, pressing a thick needle into the bottom of my spine. I force myself not to wince or scream like my nerves tell me to.

 

  The all too familiar feeling of large amounts of blood leaving my body sends pain shooting up my spine and nausea creeping through my stomach.

Threatening to send my breakfast back up my throat.

 

  The feeling only lasts a second, then he pulls the needle back out of my skin, tugging my shirt back over my bare back. The feeling sends shivers up and down my body which I struggle to withstand. Instructor Stevens turns his back to me and swypes his fingers across the glass monitor, pretending not to notice the hairs sticking up at the base of my neck. I don't need to look over at the monitor to know what he's doing. He's erasing the emotion results and entering false ones. The ones that say I am emotionless.

 

  Stevens grunts twice, a signal. Transformation of the false data complete. I remain emotionless, hiding my relief. No matter how many times I go through this procedure, anxiety racks through my body. Now there's just one more confirmation step left.

 

  "Students. Please remain standing," Instructor Kaez says in a boring, convictionless voice, "I regret to inform you all that there is a student in this Informatory that has failed their test." He pauses, making me break down inside.

 

   Oh no.

 

   Please, no.

   He stands near the front of the Informatory. His arms folded neatly across his midsection. He wears a sharp black suit and black leather shoes. His black hair and eyes along with his pale skin remind me of an old legend called Death.

 

  "You know who you are." He takes another gut-wrenching pause. He just stands there, scanning the room. I keep my eyes on him, even though I want nothing more than to hide under my desk. His eyes stop on me. I hold my breath.

 

  Please, no.

 

  Here it comes.

 

  "Miss Hezeilta, please come forward." He reaches a hand towards the girl

next to me. Relief and regret go through me in one wave of confusion. I look to my right to see a young, short blond staring up at Kaez with a blank look. Her bright green eyes suddenly fill with rage, the emotion rippling through her perfect features. Her straight freckled nose wrinkles as she bares her teeth like a wild animal. Her blood red lips curling back gruesomely. She growls.

 

  Hezeilta!?

 

  What?

 

  Of all people?

 

  She was the only other- what about her family?!

 

  Show no emotion.

 

  No emotion.

 

  She screams and screams. Threats of all sorts ringing in my ears as Instructor Kaez calls the Pinh Protector. "I will kill you if anything happens to my family! You can't do this! Kill me! Don't make me into one of them! I will crawl out of my grave and strangle you to death!"

 

  They rush towards Hezeilta and she aims a solid kick to the nearest Protector's throat. He continues trying to restrain her, not even flinching.

Hezeilta is led out of the room, being dragged by her wrists and hair. As she passes me, her screams go silent. She looks deep into my eyes, tears running down her cheeks. She leans onto my shoulder, fighting against the Protector's restraints. I remain emotionless as her lips press against my left ear. "Save yourself.", she whispers. Then, the Protector pulls her harder, not an emotion on his face, and she screams at the top of her lungs. The Protector takes her away as she kicks and shouts.

 

  I can't believe this.

 

  I should've done something.

 

  But, I would've died, and so would Stevens.

 

  Her screams ring in my ears several moments after she is dragged out.

Her screams pounding in my head. Don't touch my family. Leave my brothers alone. They are EP'less. Worthless. All of her words unscramble into small, painful messages in my head, please leave my family alone. My brothers are young, smart boys that need to live a real life. They won't cause any trouble. They're harmless.

 

  I feel like crying and weeping over the loss of Hezeilta but, I remain

standing in front of my desk, holding back my tears. I erase all traces of emotion as Stevens lets out a deep breath of relief. I want to thrash and scream, letting the world know my pain. But, my fear of death restrains my aching emotions.

 

  "Now that that's over, please recite our Unit 18 Oath before we begin our lesson.", Kaez says in his bleak voice. I instinctively spread my feet apart, each foot in line with my shoulders. A united swishing sound tickles my ears as 200 students' feet slide across the ground in unison.

 

  Kaez nods. "Begin."

 

  "Unit 18 is powerful and strong, we live freely in the safety of the Unit 18 walls. I, being a humble. ."

 

I quickly lose myself in my thoughts as the boring oath goes on:

 

  I hate this stupid oath.

 

  So did Hezeilta. .

 

  My eyes flutter at the thought. A sharp pain travels down my neck and I quickly seal my mouth shut to stifle my cry. My neck stiffens as the pain burns through my chest.

 

  No, Torrid, you can't think about her now.

 

  I lace my fingers around my stomach casually, trying to relax my body. I continue to fight the emotions from overtaking my consciousness, while maintaining a smooth expression. The oath continues in boring, irritating voices. All in perfectly unified.

 

  Okay, but, what will take my mind off of her?

 

  What did Stevens tell me to think about when I am trying to avoid

something?

 

  Umm. . .

 

  My history!

   Okay, where to begin?

 

  Well, for starters, I wasn't born EP'less, I was born with emotions

and pain.

 

  That's what EP means: Emotions and pain.

 

  How did that all start again?

 

   I twirl my hair in my small hands casually as Kaez makes a few announcements.

 

  Oh, right, 100 years ago, there were plenty of people with their

EP's.

 

  The EP'less didn't exist back then.

 

  It all started with one brilliant idea.

 

  Scientists wanted to create a chemical that would make humans finally painless, immune to disease and the feeling of unhappiness.

 

   Living happy- perfect lives.

 

  The tests went well and what happens?

 

The EP'less spread like a plague.

 

I would've wanted to try it if I had been told such empty promises

 

Now, a hundred years later and they're in every nursery, in every hospital.

 

And there are only 9-ah- 3 people left in the Earth with their emotions and pain.

 

The EP'less don't know we're here though.

 

They can't.

 

We would be killed.

 

Accused of being unable to live without being mindless savages.

 

These people, the EP'less, don't realize what they've done because

they can't see anything wrong with the picture.

 

How could they?

 

They lack the knowledge of the past.

 

How it used to be.

 

When people like Hezeilta and I roamed the Earth.

 

But, this is the only lifestyle that they know.

 

Well, I wasn't born in a hospital with a Pinh injection.

 

I was born at home with a fake birth certificate along with a small scar on my arm made with a kitchen knife, not a Pinh shot.

 

Ma left when I was born.

 

Became EP'less I guess.

 

Father doesn't really talk about her. Just that she was born the same way as I was and just up and disappeared one day.

 

My parents had kept their EP's a secret, or else the Protectors would take them away for Extraction.

 

We have to pretend to be EP'less or our memory would be erased along with an EP Extraction.

 

We would have to receive a shot every 6 months, due to the fact that we didn't get any as babies.

 

I shudder at the thought.

 

"Are you well, Miss Torrid?", Instructor Stevens asks carefully.

 

He said one of the secret codes.

 

He knows me better than Father, of course he can tell when I am not paying attention.

 

The lesson has began and all eyes are on me. After having Hezeilta dragged out, distrust is in the air. Instructors Kaez and Tritus are leaning forward in their seats to inspect my blank face. Instructor Tritus watches me with her sharp hazel eyes, squinting either because of her opposition of me or the bright lighting.

 

"Yes Instructor Stevens, although, I cannot properly hear your marvelous lesson from this particular spot. Perhaps I can sit in the front of the classroom, to better hear your information?", I say in a deep, almost robotic, voice. He nods, "As you wish.", he replies in a similarly dreary voice.

 

His bright blue eyes carefully inspect my face as I move across the Informatory. I can feel the eyes of all the other Instructors on my back as I try to watch my step.

 

He nodded, that means he understood the code right?

 

Yeah. Yeah. . Pretty sure I am right.

 

He nods again, just once this time. Another code.

 

That means he wants to speak to me right?

 

Yes, yes.

 

Through our language.

 

Our eyes.

 

"Are you trying to get us caught? Quit zoning out! I swear
Torrid, you're gonna blow our cover one of these days.", his eyes sign, irritated. I can almost hear his gruff voice say it as his eyes form the words.

 

I imagine us in public, him saying things in his normal voice, not the irritating, boring one he uses now. In his nice voice. The one I miss. But, I know better than to think of us speaking normally in public. It would be a death wish.

 

"Sorry! I am just real out of it today.", my eyes sign back. "

 

His eyes soften a little.

 

"Okay, okay. Just don't zone out on me again Gray, got it?"

 

"Fine."

 

Our conversation lasts a couple seconds, taking place as we stare at each

other blankly while I move to the front of the room.

 

Stevens returns to his lesson on the history of Unit 18 discoveries, the other Instructors helping in the complex lesson. I shut out his words and observe his German features. He has a long bumpy nose, rough pinkish- skin, thin gray hair, brilliantly blue eyes, a tall forehead, along with a thin set of lips. A web of wrinkles surround his deep-set eyes. He stands around five and a half inches tall, only an inch taller than I am.

 

I feel someone's eyes on me. I glance around and see a new student watching me. He turns his attention back to Stevens the moment that he notices me watching him. His pale cheeks turn a soft pink. Something about him sickens me.

 The EP'less may not be able to feel emotions but, their hormones are still stronger than ever.

 

Oh brother.

 

My eyes move on to the reflective glass screen levitating in front of my desk. I see my reflection: long straight nose, soft ivory skin, thick golden waves of hair hanging down to my waist, bright gray eyes, bangs covering my tall forehead, deep dimples, and a pretty set of full lips. I try to be proud of my appearance but, how can be proud when my face it's just as perfect as everyone elses?

 

I eliminate the screen in distaste by pressing a delicate finger against the center of the screen. It goes blank and the now colorless glass lowers itself into the desk.

Author's Note

Tell me what you think!