MEMORIAM

by Rachel Broom

  Trent had me wake before dawn to go running out by the tubes. I ran around the perimeter of the base and then came back to the training center where I rotated between different machines. My training was then followed by weightlifting and boxing. Trent liked to go over the intellectual portion of training when I was at my weakest, usually at the end of the day. He’d pull out diagrams and show me maps, tips, and short-cuts in hunting situations, such as how to respond in a chase or ambush.

  We finished off every day in the fear-induced simulation box. When the sun set I was back out by the tubes, running. It was hard to believe I was coming up on my third week: emotional training. I dreaded that most of all. It was the most unknown out of the three we worked on, and the one Trent talked about the least. Nothing was preparing me for it.

  The only breaks I got were mealtimes, and even then the hunters’ eating schedules were in shifts so I ate alone most of the time. There was a drink concocted according to health guidelines that Pax got once a day. It comprised of a long list of greens, powders, and beans that were developed in the base greenhouses then mixed together in the kitchens. I knew this because I used to mix drinks when I worked in the kitchens. When I was assigned to be a hunter I was given the drink twice instead of once a day. It was not a desirable meal, but I was grateful.

  After I ate I went straight to bed. Then the process repeated itself. I had fallen into the training program like a robot: sleeping, training, eating, then more training. I talked with Sam most nights in his room until the late hours of the night, then ran back to my room to catch a few hours of sleep before my schedule repeated itself.

  When I was on my daily run the morning of my second-to-last day of physical training, I passed a group of Pax huddled by the tubes. Several of them emanated starvation and appeared to have been beaten by the skryers. One of them, a woman with a hooked nose, glared at me. A few others turned and joined her. A man next to the woman with the hooked nose spat in my direction. I tried not to seem hurt as I kept running.

  Trent was waiting for me when I reached the training center. We went straight into a round of combat in the fighting arena.

  “Focus!” His fists were up by his eyes. He side-kicked but I deflected it with my arm and spun, throwing my fist into his side. Trent blocked it and swept my leg, causing me to lose my balance and fall, but not before I linked my arms around his neck, dragging him down with me. He landed on his stomach. Turning my body so I fell on top of him, I gripped his neck tightly with one hand, the other hand on his arm that was twisted behind his back.

  “Your legs need to be stronger.”

  “My legs are fine,” I huffed.

  “Again.”

  I moaned and got up. Trent raised his fists. “Ready?”

  “Go for his upper left thigh,” a voice called out. I immediately tightened my body, absorbing Trent’s punch then thrusting my knee into his left thigh, holding his shoulders for balance. Trent groaned and fell over, cussing loudly as he clutched his leg. Over my shoulder I saw Vince, one of the hunters from my combination, wink at me.

  “Thanks.” I wiped my forehead. Vince climbed up into the ring.

  “I shouldn’t cheat, but he was giving you a hard time. I think you performed perfectly, by the way.”

  “Thanks. Trent seems to think so,” I drawled.

  “She’ll never learn if she is coddled.” Trent got back on his feet.

  “Give her a break; she has been working hard. You want to have a go?” Vince asked me.

  “Against you?”

  “Why not? Then we can shut this meathead up.”

  I pursed my lips.

  “Come on. Entertain an old man, would you? You may be surprised how strong these wrinkles make me.” He pointed at his forehead. I licked my palms and rubbed them together. Trent stepped to the side of the ring and raised his hand, signaling us to prepare our stance. I turned my body and raised my fists, crouching down. Vince just stood there. What was he doing?

  I went in, swerving in case Vince threw a punch, and came in at his jaw. He blocked it, his elbow coming around and colliding with my face. My head bobbed back and everything went blurry for a few seconds. I paused, wavering. I threw my body into Vince, digging my elbow into his side. He fell on his knees and I wrapped my arm around his neck, tilting it at an angle so he was immobile.

  “She’s trained,” Vince wheezed.

  I smiled and let go, helping Vince to his feet.

  “Sorry about that.”

  “No worries. I’m sorry about your eye.” He gestured to my eye. I waved him off.

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “No offense Vince, but you are older than the rest of us, making it easier for Violet to win,” Trent argued.

  “What are you implying?”

  “Your reaction time is slower, giving your opponent the upper hand.”

  “If I am not mistaken, you were demoted for having a weak stomach around blood.” Vince sounded like he was joking but there was a tone of harshness behind it, something that surprised me.

  Trent’s nostrils flared. “That is none of your business.”

  My face fell. I’d never seen Trent this annoyed before.

  “At least I have a conscience not to kill innocent people,” Trent said through gritted teeth.

  “Yes, because that’s why people like me were born. To kill without conscience. Violet, have you eaten?”

  “No.”

  “Then come with me.” Vince took my elbow and pushed me out of the fighting arena. I glanced back at Trent as we left the training center and headed out into the hallway where other hunters were shuffling to the eating facilities. It was odd to see this many hunters heading to eating facilities since my shift never lined up with other hunters.

  “Do you mind me asking what that was about?” I asked.

  “We all have our secrets. There is no point in knowing someone else’s unless you can use it to your advantage.”

  “You mean blackmail.”

  “Of sorts. You take what you can get.”

  “That seems wrong.”

  Vince pulled me aside and held me up against the wall. People stared as he blocked me.

  “You may have your morals, the ones that you believe are right and that everyone else should follow, but life is different here. There are no morals. There is only survival. This isn’t about seeing who has the purest heart, but who has the strongest mentality. Please don’t lecture me about that.”

  “Sorry.”

  “I know that sounds harsh, but being a hunter is no act. Not for me, not for anyone.” Vince let go of me then kept walking. I jogged to keep up with him as he turned down the hall to a smaller hallway. The hunters’ eating division was at the end.

  “How did you know about Trent’s leg?”

  “I used to train with him.”

  “He was your trainer?”

  “No. He was a hunter.”

  “Wait, Trent was a hunter? What happened?”

  “What always happens. They go crazy or back out before they reach insanity.”

  “And he backed out?”

  “He was forced to back out.”

  We reached the eating facility. We got in line behind other hunters to get to the bar where the drinks were. Vince grabbed his drink and I followed him, choosing a seat in the corner of the room away from two belching hunters.

  “Where are you on the level of insanity?”

  Vince smiled. His honey brown eyes and dark wavy hair with grey stripes were so comforting in that moment. It was hard to believe that he’d ever killed someone.

  “Give me a few months and I’ll be there.” He took a sip of his drink. “You learn to numb yourself from the pain of taking someone’s life the longer you hunt. The beginning of a hunter’s life is the worst, though. No matter how hard you try you never forget that moment - the split second when you see what your victim’s life could have been like. It’s like a story flashing before your eyes. You never forget that moment
, and that’s when you hate yourself. You want to die, as well. That kind of suicide is a form of insanity.”

  I took a sip of my drink and swallowed. “I don’t think I can do it.”

  Vince eyed me. I continued. “All of this…it’s not me.”

  “Is it anybody?”

  Vince finished the rest of his drink. “I’m sorry how your life turned out. In all my years I think what I’ve learned the most is that life has a way of mocking you, offering you chances then taking them away when you need them the most.”

  Vince cleared his throat. “Have you seen me before, Violet?”

  “What do you mean? If you mean before now then that’s an obvious- ”

  “Before you met me on your first day as a hunter.”

  Was he one of the people I knew before my accident out by the tubes who I couldn’t remember?

  “Should I?”

  Vince could have replied to that. He could have told me he was teasing me or was trying to find answers to his own questions, but he didn’t. He squeezed my shoulder and gazed into my hazel eyes, then kissed my forehead.

  Back in my room I went over to the sink and rested my hand on the rim. I reached up and ran a hand along the tracker in my neck. One day I’d escape this hell and leave it all behind me. My tracker would be removed and I’d be free. I ran a finger along the light scar at the nape of my neck. This wasn’t the same scar from my tracker implant. I was curious, now. My finger traced the pattern, following the line as the scar continued. The top of my jumpsuit fell past my shoulders and rested on my hips as I unbuttoned it so I was bare and exposed. My mouth fell when I saw my reflection in the mirror.

  Scars upon scars covered my back, stripes overlapping one another and snaking their way around my sides. All of them were the same width and length, crisscrossed and diagonal. I reached back and touched one of the lines. They were too thin to be caused by a whip. Goosebumps rose up my arms and I shivered, shoving my arms back through my suit. It seemed wrong to wonder how I got those scars. If I got them while I was here in this base I would have remembered. Something like that should have been remembered. It was like Vince said. You learn to numb yourself from the pain of taking someone’s life the longer you hunt. What if, after a few months, I forgot that I was a murderer? What if I blocked it out like I had the cause of these scars on my back?

  ***

  “You don’t have to actually kill anyone once you’re a hunter,” Sam said. We were out past the tubes, sitting against the twenty-foot wall and staring out at the fog that curled around our ankles like weeds.

  “You don’t know that.”

  “There probably aren’t a lot of Pax left in hiding anyway. There are too many bases.”

  “Even if I found someone...what would I do?” I asked.

  “Don’t think about it. Everything will work out.”

  It seemed like a lifetime since I had seen Sam even though it’d only been two days. The past nights when I tried to sneak over to Sam’s room I ran into skryers patrolling the halls. I was excited when I got to see Sam again, to my surprise. His presence made me feel more whole.

  I scooted closer and buried my head in his shoulder. He chuckled and reached up, running his fingers along my scalp until they found their way to the nape of my neck where the beginning of my scars lay. I reached up and pulled his hand away from my head.

  Sam cleared his throat. “How was training today?”

  “Same old, same old. He showed me a new weapon that apparently the Head himself designed. It’s called a klave. Apparently it can shoot distances up to forty feet. Trent says the poison is slow-moving and can sometimes take an hour or more to kill its victim. I knew the needles poisoned their victims but I didn’t know it took so long. If you ask me that’s worse than being shot.”

  A small group of men huddled in the distance, their heads together. Their uniforms were ragged and they were underdressed. It reminded me of the group I passed this morning when I was on my run - the ones who spat at my feet because I was a hunter.

  Something moved in the fog. “Did you see that?”

  “What?” Sam asked.

  “I thought I saw someone.”

  Sam looked, too.

  “Sam!” a high-pitched voice called out. A small young woman emerged from the fog. She had rusty red hair cropped around her sallow face and I could tell from her uniform band that she worked in the laundry division. You could smell the musty clothes. I wondered how she had snuck out at this time of night. Hunters and healers were given leeway compared to everyone else in the base.

  “You brought a friend?” the girl asked, one of her eyebrows raised.

  “Mary, this is Violet. She’s a- ”

  “Hunter. I can see her red band,” Mary finished.

  “Vi, this is Mary. She works in the laundry division.”

  “Does she know how dangerous it is to be out here at this time of night?” I asked.

  She glared at me. “Little Miss Priss trying to follow the rules, huh? You gonna report me to the skryers?”

  “No, I-”

  “Mary,” Sam said harshly. “She’s not like the others.”

  “I thought you said we were going to meet alone.”

  “We were, I was just talking with Vi. Go to the healing center; I will meet you there.”

  “If I wait too long the skryers will notice.”

  “Five minutes then.”

  Mary pursed her lips. “Five, then I’m gone.”

  “I promise,” Sam said.

  Mary turned and disappeared into the fog again.

  I frowned at Sam. “What was all that about?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You’ve never mentioned her before.”

  “She’s just a friend.”

  “I won’t rat her out if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “I wasn’t.”

  “Oh.” I wanted the truth from Sam but was afraid to push him too hard.

  “Mary is an old friend. You might have met her before but don’t remember.”

  That stung. I don’t know why it hurt so much. The mysterious scars on my back crossed my mind along my apparent memory loss after my accident, and I thought of Sam. Did he know how I got those scars on my back? Were there more things that I didn’t remember than I realized? I did not want to be mad at Sam, but I was. He and Vince had now both confirmed my theory that they knew more than they were letting on. Why were they hiding the truth?

  “What do you mean, I might have met her before?”

  “I need to get going.” Sam got to his feet. I glared at him.

  “Sam, why are you avoiding the question? You said I’ve met Mary before but I only met you a few weeks ago. Do you know something I don’t?”

  Sam ran a hand through his hair.

  “Sam?”

  “They messed with your head!” Sam exclaimed. He took a step back and sighed. “I’m sorry…”

  My mouth went dry. I closed my eyes and thought back to that morning when I woke in the healing center. Sam had been mad.

  “Bronte said it was an accident out by the tubes.”

  “They lied to you, Violet. Even I don’t know what happened to you. No one does. Bronte was forced to write a fake injury report.”

  “Why would someone cover up my injury like that?” I asked.

  Sam said nothing. Could I ask Vince for the truth? I knew Vince had asked me if I remembered him before that first day when I met him, but I was unsure if I could trust Vince to tell the truth about what he meant by ‘before.’ Did he know if and why my memories were tampered with? What if he didn’t? What if no one did?

  “I need to go.” Sam took off, leaving me standing against the wall, my heart in shambles as tears streamed down my face. The unknown was a scary place.

  CHAPTER THREE

  It had been days since I had seen Sam. He made me doubt what we were; if we were even friends at this point, or if we were just two prisoners thrown together, hanging on to whatever we ha
d left so we didn’t go insane. Emotionally, I was losing it. After my conversation with Sam about my tampered memories I felt exposed and vulnerable; like everyone knew my secrets except me. On top of that my emotional/mental training was more than I bargained for. Running into a pair of skryers was what topped my list.

  I was on my nightly run when it happened. Beams of the weak sun strung over the dome and hit my face as I ran along the wall. Sam was on my mind, to my displeasure, along with the fact that we hadn’t spoken in days. I missed him.

  I passed the tubes, rows upon rows of them. People gawked at me as I passed. I felt like a traitor in my hunter uniform with a red band around my arm. My stomach lurched when I came around the end of the tube and saw a large man hunched over.

  Two skryers stood over him, one holding a whip. The skryer raised his arm and snapped it back down, licking the man’s back with a loud crack! I winced and looked away. His moans grew louder and louder.

  “I’m sorry, please no! NO!”

  There was another crack. I found myself moving closer even though I wanted to flee the scene. I was only ten feet away now. A small crowd formed around the beating. The man was crying, tears creating rivers through his dirt stained face. His uniform was shredded and blood oozed out of the large gashes in his back, turning the mud around him red.

  A young woman burst through the crowd, shoving them aside and running forward to the man’s aid. She grabbed the skryer who stood by the side watching and clawed his neck. The skryer panicked, his arms flailing as he tried to pull her off his back. The other skryer who had the whip must have seen the spectacle. He lashed out at the woman, cracking his whip over her back.

  She fell to the ground crying out in pain. “Run, Jerem! RUN!”

  The man tried to get up but his knees gave out. I wanted to help but I was cemented where I stood, horrorstruck. The woman reached for the man to help him up. The skryer reached in his holster for his klave and fired it. The man was dead.

  I left after that. I ran as fast I could back through the dome to my quarters. The dead man’s eyes kept looking at me. My heart burned with shame. I should have helped the man, but I was afraid of what would happen to me if I did. In that moment of selfishness I let a man die. It could or could not have been my fault, but it was easier to say it was than to claim nothing could be done.