by P. S. Lurie
Nathaniel turns the shower off and jumps a few times as he shakes his arms then runs a towel through his short spiky hair. “Come with me.”
I follow him back to where he left the bag. He hands it to me and I unzip the packaging and pull out shimmering fabric that spills to the floor. “You’re going to be the most beautiful girl there.”
I want to stand back and admire the dress. Because my doctor thought I should return to normality slowly Nathaniel had the good sense to reduce my clothes to basic designs and minimal vibrancy, putting all the rest in storage. I didn’t mind because I wasn’t attached to anything I owned and even the clothes in the photographs don’t feel familiar. But this dress is a gorgeous sunset orange and I know enough to see that it is crafted with expertise. It must have been expensive. I hold it up to my skin and laugh. “You picked this out?”
“With a little help.”
“I love it. And I love you.” I believe what I say and kiss Nathaniel but this time I forget everything. My eyes are closed and now I am lost in the moment because I really do love him and I’m not sure how I’d survive without him.
I glance at the digital numbers that light up on my wrist. I know we’ve already showered and I can hardly wait to put the dress on and do my hair, plus I am actually excited about going to the arena now even if I have to wear a coat over the dress, but we have some time so I lead Nathaniel to the bedroom and desperately and unconditionally give myself to him.
Ruskin
I think of Jack. I want him to hold me and tell me this is just a nightmare. I want him to curl up next to me because in the darkest moments he made me forget I was trapped and hungry and scared and hopeless.
I begin to cry but this time there is no plan or bluffing. Just genuine, helpless tears.
“What if we don’t choose?” my father asks me from the floor.
I wipe a tear and answer before one of the Upperlanders can. “Then they kill us all because we aren’t showing gratitude or whatever they’re saying we should be doing.”
“Amongst other traits,” the most portly of the men says, and I hate him for listening in on this private conversation between father and son, that shouldn’t even be happening in the first place.
“Ruskin.” I know what my father implies by his tone. I get to live. Lucky me. It’s how I imagined that conversation between Henry and his father to go, and I say the words I guessed Henry would say next. I shudder at how I’m forced to play out a scenario I have imagined in my darkest days this past year.
“No. I don’t want that on me.” That’s as far as the scene goes in my head because I don’t know what my father will say to try and convince me. I feel like an actor whose script has been stolen away from them because they know the outcome but not how it unfolds.
“I’m done,” he replies.
“Me too,” my mother says. “I’m sorry but that leaves you with no choice.”
“Please don’t.” But my parents are tired, resigned to this, and I don’t want to make this harder for them. Then I catch myself because I picture Henry’s face. I spent the last year certain that this was the same decision in the Argent household, whether or not his parents died at the hands of one another, themselves, or the police at daybreak, but only now do I experience how Henry must have felt.
Henry is strong enough to have made it through that night without his parents, and he may still be alive now. I need to make sure he is ok. And there’s also Jack to protect because if I don’t carry on then no one else will know about him or be able to rescue him.
Then another thought occurs to me and knocks the wind out of me. What if this is happening to Jack nearby? What if he and his mother are being forced to make the same decision?
I tell myself that this doesn’t mean I’m choosing him over my parents but I’m out of options apart from defying my parents and allowing one of them to live. Or all of us to die, because if I don’t pretend to show gratitude soon then the Upperlanders may kill us all.
“So what happens if we choose me?”
“Your parents will die. You’ll be welcomed into the Upperlands. Your loyalty and gratitude will then be tested as you contribute to society. We wish all of you could live but a lack of resources means we don’t have the capacity. It wouldn’t be fair to the many other Middlelanders who had to leave their families behind.”
There’s that conviction again.
I remember the apartment we sat in for those few hours as Jason returned to the Middlelands. There was plenty of space for all of us then. What’s changed?
“It’s settled,” my mother says, as if she is relieved her year of uncertainty is coming to an end. “Our son will live. Let us say goodbye and then please do it quickly. Put us all out of our miseries.”
“I’m afraid it’s not going to work that way,” the man with the gun says, as he places it back into its holder. You’ll have to wait a little longer. Your execution will take place elsewhere.”
Theia
I follow Doctor Jefferson away from the ward and into an emptier section of the hospital. He scans his watch against the panel.
“Doctor Adam Jefferson. Status: Gratitude granted, Loyalty pending.”
So Doctor Jefferson is still in the men’s barracks. I thought he’d be promoted to one of the Upperlanders’ apartments by now considering the work he does. Then again, I haven’t witnessed his promotion at any of the announcements so it’s more a case of not understanding why he hasn’t been promoted rather than surprise.
He leads me into an empty room, with lockers and benches but not much else in the way of luxury.
He explains, as if he can read my mind. “There’s a separate room for those who have been promoted.” He purses his lips. “I’ve saved so many of their damned lives but one senior officer dies of cardiac arrest during my shift and they question my loyalty. As if death doesn’t sometimes win out regardless of how much I can do with the tech around. Penny and I made do with a lot less.”
I may have my thoughts about Doctor Jefferson working alongside my mother, and what happened between them over time, not forgetting what he did to be with her again that night, but in this moment I can see past that and accept that he’s a great surgeon. Deaths do happen regardless; I know this because people died under my mother’s watch and she was the greatest doctor of any of them. It’s unfair that he lost his loyalty status for an unstoppable death but, then again, it’s the Upperlanders so I’m hardly bowled over by their harshness.
“Apparently, he was a great man and I should be grateful that I wasn’t punished.” His lip curls in disgust and I find myself appreciating his honesty; we all spend so long pretending to agree with the Upperlanders’ rules that even the most private of conversations became a chore, checking who could be listening in, so I’m actually happy to hear someone curse openly about the Upperlanders. “Do I want to know how it came to be that you and your sister are both here?”
I kick on, the shore in sight. “It doesn’t matter. We survived.”
“No one else?”
“No one.”
He means my mother. I mean Ronan. He has no idea.
“So what can I do for you?”
I look at my baby sister. Her eyes are cracked open but she’s focusing on nothing. I remember how I felt with the illness that hit me a few months back before I was given the injection, and that was before the virus peaked so she must be suffering more than I can imagine. “She’s ill. The epidemic.”
“And you want me to risk treating her? I assume I’m your last hope.” He speaks my thought process out loud. “You were always resourceful so you know that access to the medication is impossible and you hoped I could help. I’m sorry Theia but the answer is no.” He moves towards the door, finished with this conversation.
I take a deep breath. Getting Leda to the hospital wasn’t the scary part that has been building up to this in my mind over the last few weeks. Neither was it confronting Doctor Jefferson and having to deal with the man who kil
led to be with my mother. Those were easy in comparison to the personal risk that I’ve feared. The scary part is what I have to say next, because as I’ve watched Leda grow I’ve realised that revealing her existence to Doctor Jefferson isn’t just a plea but it’s what I have to say to convince him to help that I’ve been afraid of for months. It’s something I’ve come to realise, and accept, as I’ve watched Leda grow.
This moment has caught up to me. Sink or swim, I tell myself, as I struggle to stop the riptide from pulling me under.
“You will help her,” I say with conviction.
He stops and turns to me. “Really? Because you’ll what? Cry and flutter your eyelids?”
“Look at her face.”
“Theia, enough of...”
“Look at her face,” I demand.
He looks down at my younger sister then back up to me. “You think I’ll help because she’s a child?”
“No. You’ll help because she’s your child.”
Selene
I stare at my reflection in the mirror and for the first time in as long as I can remember I see why Nathaniel finds me attractive. We plan to marry and I have never paid much thought to how I’d look on that day but I now want my dress to be exactly like this one, but white of course. I’m not even sure that supposed friends who haven’t been to visit would bother to attend but I don’t mind if it’s a low-key affair. No date has been fixed, not just because I am unwell, but the main reason we’re waiting is that Nathaniel has the grand idea that we should marry when we board the Utopia. He wants us to be the first couple to marry on its maiden, and sole, voyage. I don’t particularly want the attention that will come with a public event but Nathaniel is insistent we wait until then. He wants some good to come of leaving the Upperlands behind and I guess he’s right because once we let go of solid ground we’ll need everything in our arsenal to find reason to celebrate.
I pull my hair back and think about make-up, one of those other things I have no recollection of ever doing. That’s not entirely true because I tried a few weeks ago. I don’t know what inspired me that day but I found a bag of accessories in the bottom of a drawer and thought I’d try to look good for Nathaniel. I held a miniature brush covered in some powder in one hand and thought about pictures I had mindlessly flicked through in magazines of models elsewhere in the Upperlands. Still, I had no idea what to do next. It was as if I had never put colour on my face before even though the photographs in the apartment show me with make-up on. Nathaniel walked in on me and instantly took the brush from my hand and said something about doctor’s orders and that I was naturally beautiful. He binned the make-up and said I didn’t need to bother with it. Later that day I found a canister that said ‘lipstick’ that had rolled to the back of the same drawer, a deep dark red hue, and clenched my fist around it. I put it back.
I think about using it today but change my mind because I worry that people will laugh at me in the arena. I wonder if I’ll recognise anyone or they’ll recognise me. None of Nathaniel’s friends has visited in the past couple of months either, only Doctor Graft, so my world has been limited. Restricting my social world has been Nathaniel’s way of keeping me sedate but it means today I will go from almost nothing to the whole population without much in between.
I think about the woman at the door. My family is one of the many aspects of my life I don’t remember but I don’t want to bother Nathaniel with that now.
At that moment he breaks my chain of thought. “Wow. Just wow.” He leans in the doorway, admiring me. There’s been a lot of standing around this morning, like every day but this one has been more frustrating than most because I am now itching to go; as nervous as I am, I want to leave immediately or I’m afraid I’ll chicken out.
“Ready princess?” Nathaniel’s wearing an un-tucked shirt over slim trousers and looks stylish without trying. Then he notices me looking at his clothes and plays it down. “I didn’t want to show you up. Coats and let’s head out.”
A rush of fear, but then he swiftly calms me, as he has a knack of doing. “Hold my hand and don’t let go and you’ll be safe. Me and you, we’re linked forever.” He always knows the right thing to say.
Ruskin
Helmeted officers come into the room and drag my parents away before I have the chance to say goodbye. I scream out “Mum” and “Dad” and try to thrash against men who have sneaked up on me and are holding me back but I’m easily overpowered. The last things I see is my father’s wounded leg dragging behind him, leaving a dotted trail of blood, and my mother, her head turned backwards towards me, not allowed to say whatever it is that she thinks could comfort me. The last glimpse I have is of her face; the expression makes me stop trying to wrestle free. It would be easier if she showed fear or a face full of regret that somehow she has failed me, but instead it is just a hopeful smile, as if she has succeeded in giving at least one of her children the opportunity to survive. In a way I’m comforted that she can go into death with some reassurance but doesn’t she understand that I’m left to deal with the devastation, as if she’s convinced herself that living is a blessing in this circumstance. I guess she decided it was better to offer me hope than reveal how scared she is, both for her and for me.
I don’t have time to figure out whether I’ve done right or wrong because my attention is drawn back to the men on the chairs.
“Welcome to the Upperlands,” the one who read the script says to me, in the most unwelcoming tone I have ever heard.
“What about Jack and his family?”
“Your cellmate is still there,” one of the men says, and I am amazed they actually know who he is and his situation. “His brother died during the Great Cull as well.”
“His mother?”
“Ungrateful.”
I don’t know what that means but don’t have a chance for clarification as a guard grabs my wrist and snaps something around it. Cold metal with a digital face. It’s tight and pinches but it’s fixed solidly. It’s been a year but I recognise it immediately as the same type of watch Jason wore the morning we left the Middlelands.
Without another word, the three men make their way out of the room. Then the guards push me in the same direction my parents went but, even with my father’s injury, they have a head-start and I know I won’t be given the opportunity to catch up to them. I am led back through corridors but it is impossible to know if I am retracing my steps because I was blindfolded the first time. I cannot get my head around the grandiosity of the rooms through which we pass and how much unused space exists inside this building.
Apart from the echoes of our footsteps I hear nothing until children’s voices fill my ears, faint at first then louder as we draw near, but never in sight. There are lots of them but I can’t figure out what they are saying, only that they sound happy.
Eventually I am met with an arctic gust of air. I am outside, on a large landing pad. There is nothing in front or above us but I am granted no time to see past the edge and what lies beneath this place before a helicopter takes off, maybe with my parents inside, and then I am blindfolded once more. I feel myself being shepherded into a second vehicle.
The journey might be in reverse, straight back to the prison cell, and I can’t work out if incarceration would at least be acceptable if it means that I can be with Jack. The alternative is being taken to another foreign location. I don’t know which is scarier. For the past year my world has been limited. In the last hour I have seen more people, travelled more space, and experienced more heightened emotions than the rest of my time in the Upperlands combined. I never thought I’d be sad to leave the cell but I wish today had never happened. I’d give anything to wake up and live the day as the past three hundred and sixty-four. I wouldn’t even groan at Jack for scratching into the wall. But I can’t undo this morning and I am miserably confident that there is worse to come.
And on top of all of this I feel a prolonged nausea at the idea that my parents could have been killed at any point. But
this is the Upperlanders and I know the governing body well enough that if they wanted my parents dead quickly they would’ve shot them in front of me. They must have worse in store for them.
I can’t believe I have to sit with the thought that if my parents have been forced to die I wish they could be dead already. Perhaps my father has been fortunate and bled out before they could torture him further but what does that leave my mother with?
After a while longer we descend and touch ground, and I am guided away from the racket of the engine until I am well out of the way of the rotating blades. Then I hear footsteps move away from me and the helicopter takes off once more.
I wait until silence prevails. My world is black, empty, absent of anything but even with my sensory deprivation I am confident that I am alone.
I slide the blindfold off, which comes away without difficulty, and as my eyes adjust I find myself in the middle of a field. I look all around me and there is just space. Flat, endless space. The complete opposite to life in a cell.
I recognise this golden field because it is the last bout of vibrant colour I saw before my world became shades of grey. It is the field where the announcement was filmed one year ago, from where the woman dictated my friends’ deaths and what Jason had to be involved in to protect us.
Jason failed us whilst saving someone else, and now he and my parents are dead and I have no way of finding Jack. I am alone, exposed to the world, and no idea what to do next. It’s all too much and I can barely breathe.
I crumble to my knees, shield my head in my lap, wishing to numb my senses once more, frantic for walls to shelter me from the outside and Jack’s arms around me protecting me from fear, and desperate for anything to stop the expanse growing larger and reducing me to insignificance.
Theia