“Thank you, Sir Rider,” said Sato. His voice was eerily soothing. I immediately felt myself ease into my seat and relax entirely. The buzz generated from the applause abruptly died down and everyone seemed to float down into their seats, the look of tranquility upon everyone’s face. He gently raised his right hand to push a stubborn lock of his red hair into place. In doing so, all of the gemstone-faceted gold rings on each of his fingers reflected the light pouring in from the stained glass windows. The bedazzling affect created a rainbow that was cast upon the faces of my fellow Inductees. I had only seen pictures of such opulence on kings.
“I am truly honored to be here again. The Oculation ceremony is quite dear to my heart and is the foundation of the success of this city.” As if on cue, everyone broke into a round of head nods, myself included. “As you all know, nothing owns my heart more than this precious city. Thank you, parents, for raising such remarkable children who can now contribute to perpetuating the excellence we have all come to depend on.”
The curtains behind him slowly began to open, revealing four black stone thresholds lining center stage. A black velvet cloth hung in each archway, obscuring the view of what lay behind.
“Each Inductee will be called up in groups of four. You will proceed through the threshold and into a laboratory. A team of four scientists will begin the Oculation procedure of removing your lenses and administering the eye examinations. Once complete, you will be directed to the wings to meet your life mentor.”
Again, as if on cue, everyone gave a quick applause as he gently bowed and exited the stage. He proceeded to depart the building entirely, followed closely by his two advisors. As the door shut behind them, the air became heavy and everyone blinked in a slight state of disorientation.
“Perfect!” exclaimed Sir Rider. “Let us begin. Soleil Arch, Levi Boz, Angelica Chere and Luke Duto, please come up to the stage.”
I slowly rose from my seat, nervousness causing my entire body to tremble. I bit my bottom lip hoping that the sensation would calm me down. Although my body wouldn’t follow suit, my lips stopped twitching.
I could feel all eyes on us as we left our section and walked toward the staircase flanking the stage. As I reached for the rail, my foot missed the first step and I stumbled forward. Just as I thought my face would turn into a stair pancake, I felt an arm reach around my waist, stopping me in time.
“Whoa there,” said Luke. “I don’t think this is the kind of mark you want to leave on the world.”
“Yeah thanks,” I mumbled, terribly embarrassed. Why was I the one who these things always happened to?
“Just take a deep breath and you’ll be fine.”
“I hope so.”
We reached the apron of the stage and faced the stone thresholds. Rider came up and positioned us in front of each one. I was on the far left, with Luke at the opposite end. Like always, he gave me a wink and turned to face the black velvet cloth. Levi Boz leaned over in an attempt to peek through his curtain. He was one of the few classmates who ever spoke to me, albeit only for the occasional ‘hi’ in the school hallways. The previous autumn, Jeze DeMonica was running to a class when she noticed me in the hall. She stopped short and came over to me. She grabbed a fistful of my hair in her hand and inspected it closely, shaking her head in disapproval. I slapped her hand away. She laughed and continued running down the hall, giving me one last nasty look. She was unusually mean to only me. Levi, who had been jogging behind her, called after her, saying that what she did wasn’t right. He didn’t say anything to me, but I found him pleasant. Levi was considered one of the more popular boys at school and I had heard that he was interested in courting Jeze DeMonica after boarding school. I wished that someone was interested in me enough to court me.
Angelica Chere smiled at me, giving me a quick wave. She then made a silly face, indicating how scary the thresholds appeared. I smiled back and turned to face mine. I had never interacted with her before, so I assumed she only smiled at me because she was nervous. I noticed it was blowing, ever so slightly from whatever lay beyond. Strange, I thought. From the stage, we could see nothing on the other side of the thresholds. Must be some kind of optical illusion. As soon as this occurred to me, Rider began speaking to the parents seated in the auditorium. The four of us on stage turned to face the audience.
“Each Inductee will now enter the threshold to begin the Oculation procedure. I ask at this time that you please remain quiet and seated. You will be notified by an usher once your child is available for the life mentor session.”
He turned toward us; however he now appeared less cheery and lighthearted than earlier.
“Once you step through the threshold, you will be transported to your individual laboratories. The entryway will disappear, as there is no turning back from this procedure. Once all of your examinations are complete, your memory of this conversation and the entire procedure will be wiped. This is to protect the integrity of our state of the art methods. I, along with three independent associates, will be monitoring the entire ordeal via our screening room backstage. In the event of a true emergency, the procedure will be terminated. Or you will be exterminated. Do not fear. It has been several years since anyone has been exterminated. Once my associate gives the cue, step through.”
He turned back toward our parents for his final words.
“Thank you for your patience. Oculation has commenced!” And with that he bowed gracefully. A woman dressed in all blue, with short spiky black hair entered from the wings and approached him at the microphone.
“You may venture forward.” she said, a low, sultry voice reverberating throughout the room.
I gulped so loudly that the other Inductees onstage all turned and looked at me. I shyly turned away and took one last look at the black curtain. With a deep breath I stepped through and plummeted down a shaft, falling while surrounded by utter darkness.
CHAPTER 4
I was in free fall for what felt like three solid minutes. Eyes squeezed shut, I told myself repeatedly that it would all be over with soon. I soon began losing sensation, first in my fingers and toes. As the descent continued, my entire limbs became numb. Just when I thought I was going to pass out, the falling sensation disappeared. I slowly opened my eyes and realized that I was now standing in a bright white room. In the middle of the room stood a white surgical bed. Next to it rested a table with various foreign instruments and an attached lamp. On the opposite side was another table on which sat a clear glass bowl, filled halfway with a clear, bubbling liquid. The ceiling seemed extraordinarily high, surpassing ten feet. Several recessed fixtures provided light in the room. The walls were a sterile white, matching the floor and providing no way to tell where the wall ended and the floor began. The wall behind the surgical bed wobbled momentarily before disappearing altogether. Four laboratory technicians walked forward and took a position surrounding the bed. The wall wobbled back into place as soon as they turned to look at me.
“Hello,” they all said in unison. “Please sit.”
I followed their order and approached the bed. As I climbed onto it, I realized that the lab technicians were quadruplets. Each stood at about five feet tall, bald, and wearing white lab coats. Every move they made, every word they uttered was in complete unison. I settled into the bed and took a deep breath.
“This injection will sedate you, but not fully,” they again said in unison. “You will be conscious; however you will not feel any pain and your muscles will be completely relaxed. This injection will also release a chemical within you to begin the process of the memory wipe within three minutes of the procedure. The entire process will last exactly two minutes and fifty-four seconds. You will regain you senses and motor skills at two minutes and fifty-five seconds exactly. Once fully functional, you will then proceed to the Ocular Examinations.”
Overwhelmed and trembling, I simply nodded in response.
“Finally, this procedure is performed in the dark using only a black light. This wi
ll ensure that once your lenses are removed, the recessed lighting will not harm your retinas.”
At this they all turned and began pulling a few of the instruments from the side table. I closed my eyes and briefly pictured my mother, seated in the auditorium. I then imagined what my father must have encountered when attempting to subdue the patient who took his life. My eyes immediately flashed open when a throat-clearing sound pierced my thoughts.
“Try to count how many tiles are in the room,” said the technicians simultaneously.
“But there are no…” My voice faded out as the serum injected into my arm by one of the technicians quickly took over my awareness. While I could no longer speak or blink, my eyes remained open and I could still see and hear. I could not turn my eyes to see peripherally; they only focused directly ahead. The recessed lights in the ceiling slowly dimmed out to complete darkness. The technician to my left then turned on the black light lamp attached to the table.
The technician to my right leaned over my face, with white metallic over-sized tweezers in hand. He brought the tweezers to my right eye and began slowly peeling back the edge of the implanted lens. I could feel the film lifting off of my cornea, however there was no pain. The sensation simply alerted my brain to the fact that something was being removed from my eyeball.
“Right cornea clear,” announced all of the technicians.
Something above my head flew across the ceiling. There and gone in an instant, I wanted to say something, but could not speak. Maybe it was my imagination. I heard the technician drop the lens into the bowl with the bubbling liquid.
The technicians rotated clockwise around me. The one with the tweezers was now on my left. Again, he came close to my face and began peeling off the left lens. Almost done, I thought to myself. Hang in there, Sol.
“Left cornea clear,” they all announced. “We are now at two minutes and fifty-five seconds.” I immediately blinked and could feel sensation return to my face, arms and legs. I heard the lens begin to sizzle in the bubbling liquid. The black light was flicked off and we were momentarily in the dark. I heard another whoosh above my head. Then the lights turned on. I screamed and broke every glass object in the room.
CHAPTER 5
Standing in the corner of the lab was what can best be described as a winged beast. At over seven feet tall, covered in black fur, this was not an ordinary animal. It was staring straight at me, baring its teeth and growling while its wings were at full span. It was crouched low as if ready to take flight.
“What do you see?” asked all of the technicians, eerily calm.
“What do you mean ‘What do I see?!’” I screamed. “There’s a BEAST in this room!!!”
The technicians calmly placed all of their instruments on the table. They then walked without concern to stand in a huddle by the disappearing wall. One pulled a headset from his lab coat pocket and spoke calmly into the microphone.
“We have an Espial.”
“What are you doing?!” I asked, incredulous. “Why are you all so calm? That thing is going to attack us!”
The beast snarled and snapped in my direction and sat down on its hind legs.
I slid off of the surgical bed and slowly backed away from it, toward the technicians.
“Yes. I understand. She will be sent to the termination chamber,” said the technician into the headset. The beast in the corner immediately vanished into thin air.
“What?! What happened? What did I do wrong? What’s going on?!” I blurted.
Suddenly, the wall wobbled and in floated Rider, along with the woman in blue. However they looked like nothing I had ever seen before. I stared, astonished and my mouth dangling open, slowly sinking to the floor. Rider was glowing, an orange hue around him and he had bright yellow wings opening behind him. The woman in blue also emitted an aura, royal blue in color with sky blue wings. The tips of her spiky black hair were blue as well. Attached to both of their hips were long swords, Rider’s sheathed in brown leather and hers in a long red scabbard.
“You? You? You both are…” I stammered, unable to comprehend what I was witnessing.
“The Espial is ours,” said Rider to the technicians. “We’ve watched for too long as you worked for Sato, exterminating them.”
“We’ll see about that,” the technicians snarled in unison. They all began to simultaneously remove their lab coats. Revealed for the first time, they too had wings, yet they all emitted a dark gray aura. Their wings were a dirty, unkempt black. Their skin began to flicker and wrinkle, turning a dark gray. Their hands and feet transformed into claws with their nails becoming thick yellow talons.
Both Rider and the woman in blue unsheathed their swords. The woman took a defensive stance, holding the sword above her head with her right hand, her left arm extended forward, palm up facing the technicians. Rider rushed forward, wielding his sword as if he was born with it. The technicians screeched in unison as they began flapping around the room. Rider jumped and impaled the first technician with his sword, his wings keeping him suspended in the air as he did so. The others screamed in agony when the first was killed. The one with the headset ran toward him, growling like a rabid dog. Rider spun midflight and with a backwards swipe, decapitated this beast. Again, the remaining two screamed in pain. Rider landed softly and faced the last technicians. They both jumped up and took flight toward him. Right as they extended their claws to grab him, he knelt down. The woman in blue leaped over his head, and with a diagonal slice, severed both technicians from one’s head straight through to the other’s torso. They landed with a thud, dead on the floor. The woman floated gracefully to the ground, wiping her sword clean as she did so.
She glanced at me and winked. “Nothing like fighting with a clean blade.”
I sat in silence. Shock had taken over my entire being. I tried my best to find words, any word at all. But my mouth just opened and closed like a flapping gate.
CHAPTER 6
“Sol. We must leave now.” Rider stood in front of where I had collapsed to.
“I’m…I’m so…I don’t know…” I slurred, still in shock. My shoulder blades were beginning to ache terribly.
“Don’t worry. Everything will be explained. But we must leave quickly.”
“Why? What is going on? Why do you have wings and why are you so…so…orange?”
“This has all been captured on security cameras. I’m sure the Capitol Excellency Building is sending reinforcements as we speak. Hurry!”
Rider and the woman in blue pulled me to my feet and led me through the disappearing wall. We entered a long bright white passageway. It seemed to go on endlessly, with no doors on either side.
“Where are we going?”
“We’re heading to the ARC,” responded the woman in blue. “By the way, my name is Sacra.”
“What’s the ARC?” I asked as Rider slowed.
“You’ll see,” he answered. “In due time.” He stopped in front of a blank wall. He reached out his right arm and made a quick, swirly motion with his index finger. The wall wobbled and disappeared like the one in the laboratory.
“How did you do that?” I asked, curious.
“Again, in due time,” he replied.
We were in an underground brick tunnel space, with a ladder in front of us leading up to the surface. Sacra began to climb up. Rider motioned for me to follow. I grabbed the rungs and headed up, Rider following after me. Sacra removed the grate above us and fluttered to the sidewalk, her wings rippling gently. I pulled myself out and immediately had to shield my eyes. Everything was too bright. I also began to feel immense pain in between my shoulder blades again. My muscles felt as if they were ripping apart, my skin itching terribly, and I thought I felt bones shifting. I crouched down moaning in pain.
“I know,” said Rider as he floated out of the manhole, leaning toward me. “The serum is fully wearing off. You are using your eyes for the first time. You are truly seeing. The memory wipe was unable to take hold in your system.
And your physical transformation was not reversed in the process.”
I did not fully understand what he meant. I tried to remove my hands from my face to look around, yet everything was too vibrant and colorful. The pain in my back began to subside, a dull ache taking its place unlike before, when it would wane entirely. I could tell that no one was outside and it was strangely quiet. I turned to ask Rider where everyone was when we heard the sirens go off.
“That’s the alert from the Capitol Excellency Building. They know what has occurred and everyone is being placed on lockdown. We must get off the street and make our way to the ARC before the military heads this way.” Rider grabbed my left elbow while I continued to shield my eyes with my right arm. Sacra placed her hand on my right shoulder and they guided me toward an alley.
“Here,” said Sacra. She gently removed my arm from my face and handed me a pair of sunglasses. They were round and oversized, with jewels decorating the frames. “These were once a fashion statement. But I think you could really benefit from them now.”
I put them on and looked up. I could still see Rider and Sacra with their wings and auras, yet the vibrancy of everything around me was slightly muted.
“Thank you.” I said softly, still in a daze.
She gave me a bright smile and nodded. “You’re welcome.”
“Perfect,” said Rider. “Now we must head to the Airbus. Glinda is awaiting our arrival for takeoff.”
“Who’s Glinda?” I asked, at a loss for who he was referring to.
“She’s one of my three associates I mentioned at the ceremony. We sent her to prepare the Airbus when we watched what happened to you in the laboratory.”
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