elimination

I walk at the edge of a pit of colors, with the drop to my right. I feel lost, unwelcome in my own subconscious mind. I desperately look around for the bird, but even it had flown away. Suddenly I see 12 walking toward me, I run forward to embrace her but just as we are about to touch, she disappears, and the vision in my right eye disappears with an explosion of pain. Unable to see, I stumble off the cliff. I look down expecting to see the ocean of colors, but it is gone. I am falling face forward into the concrete. I wake up upon impact screaming into the darkness of my station. Quickly, I dash to the door and yank it open welcoming a burst of comforting cold. Faint light escapes from the moon which is visible as a smear of light in the grey smoggy sky. I’ve seen textbook pictures of the moon from a thousand years ago when people could see it clearly. You could see its shape change through the month and if you looked closely enough, your eyes would be able to just make out the far away indentations of craters. It was beautiful, shining white against the darkness surrounded by stars. But now all you see is a faint glimmer of white light and the stars are gone, swallowed by the smog. Now the moon is all alone.

I walk through the hallway briskly avoiding eye contact. I have no interest in seeing all of the stupid still living pawns Four could have teamed up with instead of 12. Yes, I know that is despicable of me. No, I do not care. As I near Bump Nose’s room I am stopped by a hand on my arm. I turn around to see 14′s worried green eyes. Class is about to start and the hallway is empty, in a grief stricken act of stupidity I wrap my arms around him and bury my face in his chest. He seems confused for a moment before he starts to politely tap my back. I begin to realize what a stupid mistake I have made, when he gives up and wraps strong arms around me. He pulls me into him close and tight, slightly lifting my heels off the floor. Gently he rests his head on mine in a silent gesture. He smells like safety and curiosity and memories from a time when I was too young to remember. I look over at his hand to see a jagged red mark where my teeth broke his skin. I gently reach for his hand and run my finger along the mark. “Thank you,” I whisper, “for everything.”

We both begin to awkwardly walk into the classroom, the only two seats not accounted for. Well not the only two, I think sadly as my eyes search around to see 12′s empty spot. Yet it’s not empty, 12 is there sitting at her desk, her neck without a single scratch. For a moment I anxiously look around to make sure I’m not imagining things. Yet it is not just me who sees her, all eyes are transfixed on 12, the lone survivor. My eyes begin to fill with tears, real big beautiful tears of joy, the kind that I didn’t think really existed. Never in my life have I been so relieved. I shoot her a look of utter awe. She returns it with a small smile coupled with joyful, yet scared eyes, threatening tears. She mouths the words, “tell you later.” I nod quickly and sit down before Bump Nose can chastise me for lateness.

As soon as class finishes I pull 12 out the door, down the stairs and outside to where everyone else getting ready to run. I pull her in for a quick inconspicuous hug before asking her to tell me everything. She takes a shaky breath and begins, “We were just lying there in the dark bleeding out for what felt like hours. It must have only been minutes though, for me to survive. Then a government official came around with these huge plastic bags that said Bio Hazard and began collecting the bodies; if you were still alive all they would do is put you in head first and close the seal immediately.

I was the last one, but when he got to me he stopped because his wrist port began to beep and flash red. A voice came out saying “Title 12, test subject 9, needs to remain alive and in circulation for the study of beneficial cerebral growth abnormalities, Sector: Utopia Genetics, Subsection: Intelligence, Individualization: Arithmetic Processing.” He gave me a injection that knocked me out. I woke completely healed in my station with all my homework done perfectly.”

12 looks lost, far, far away as we start to briskly run through the trails in the upper middle of the pack. I have seen worried 12 quite frequently, but never lost 12. For a while we continue in silence before my mouth severs from my brain and I blurt out the words “Are you quite alright?” I start to backpedal. “I mean, of course you’re not entirely fine after what you just went through, almost dying and whatnot, and that blow to your throat probably didn’t feel too good, but what I am trying to say is.....” My trail of crude comments dies as I realize that I am rambling nowhere.

After a seemingly endless hesitation she turns to me and begins to speak, “Do you ever just sit back and wonder what’s the point?” Worry starts to rise in my chest as I respond quietly, “What do you mean 12?” After yet another epic hesitation she begins to speak, “Our entire lives are spent striving to make it to the ambiguous Level Three, to fulfill the greatly ambiguous “Greater Purpose,” yet at the end of the day we spend our entire lives torturing ourselves to reach an almost entirely unattainable goal we know nothing about.”

I desperately search her voice for emotion, anger, sarcasm, anything but the mechanical emptiness that taints her every word. I respond slowly treating each syllable as another step onto thin ice, “We strive to survive. The somethingness of now has got to be better than the nothingness of death.” For a moment the old 12 resurfaces as she ponders my words, slowly returning to my side from wherever her glassy eyes were wandering. I continue to speak, “When I thought you were gone there was a moment when I started to question things. I had my options, but I chose what I know and I chose who I am. I chose to fight for the arbitrary chance that Level Three might be a better place.”

12 nods and to my surprise lets out a small chuckle. “Come on Seven, chances are Level Three is going to be awful too, we might as well take what we can and try to enjoy Level Two.” She shoots me a bitter-sweet grimace before turning on heel and taking off at a bounding sprint, a small smile remaining on her face. I let out a sigh of relief and follow.

12 and I sit inconspicuously drinking our sustenance while Dagger’s eyes emit a freezing regard. After her sorrily one sided fight with One she has been rather disagreeable to say the least. Yet it doesn’t bother us, nothing could, 12 is alive and that’s all that matters. 12 and I exchange sly smiles making smoke boil out of Dagger’s ears and resurrecting her trademark monkey pout. 12 and I only smile wider and Frog Mouth lets out a small, misplaced giggle. For a moment I think Dagger is going to blow, but instead she regains her composure, a devious glint in her eye. She begins to speak, each word a slowly punctured needle, “I do believe we have learned briefly about the merging point between motive for affiliation and willpower, how certain biological inclinations to weakness can cloud our judgment.”

Dagger locks her cold gaze onto mine and I do a double take, I was expecting a hit at 12. All eyes are fixed on me, the Pawns suddenly interested. She saw my reaction to 12′s stabbing, 14 holding me down, she’s calling it out as a lack of willpower. Dagger continues with a smirk, “Remind me what’s 7 times 2?” “Anyone,” she says with a quick look around, “Seven? No?” “12 you must know this, then again you were absent for a while,” Dagger’s smirk grows as 12′s face starts to boil. “No one? well perhaps I do remember, 7 times 2 is 14, right Seven?” 12 lets out a gasp of utter shock, “YOU AND 14!!” The entire table’s eyes grow to three times their normal size as the Pawns begin to laugh. People from other tables turn as I defy the restraints of my natural pigmentation and blush bright red.

Radiating smugness, Dagger begins to speak: “I’ve seen multiplication problems before, but I never thought I would see you in one Seven. I guess people must have thought you were better than that; well we learn something new everyday.” Dagger, realizing her work is done, takes the last sip of her sustenance and triumphantly leaves for the Excrement Processing Room. 12 grabs me by my arm and moves to drag me out of the Central Space, but people have started to stare, soon the officials will too. She gives up and sits back down, resolving to stare laser beam eyes at her half finished cup of sustenance until it bursts into flame. I sit quietly and regard my cuticles.

After six hours of scalding needles in Practical Training, 12 finally has the satisfaction of dragging me up to the third floor corridor for a word. Just this morning I stood in this exact same spot foolishly entangled in 14′s embrace thinking the girl fuming with anger in front of me now was dead. It feels like days ago. For a moment she simply stares at me unable to speak. I can tell that she has been running multiple versions of the speech she is about to deliver through her head all day and is struggling to find the best one. I open my mouth to explain, but she cuts me off with a frostbite glare. I don’t dare say a word, not when it comes to this. 12 doesn’t have many touchy subjects, but this is one of them.

When we were 10 she became good friends with this boy, Title 47, I always hated him because he was so close with 12, but I tolerated him for her sake. When they were 15 their relationship took a dangerous turn. One day they were running behind and stopped to kiss in the middle of the trail like complete morons. The official who flanks our runs in the back caught up and saw them. 12 and 47 ran into the woods, but it was futile. They knew that they both would be killed, at least there was no way 47 was going to make it. The only way for 12 to survive was to start screaming and blame him for assaulting her. 47 was never heard of again and 12 was let off with a harsh warning and a deep scar on her memory that clearly remains today.

She starts to speak with quiet disapproval, “You know better.” I launch in, desperate to explain. I tell her about everything from the staircase to our embrace in the hallway. For a moment she simply looks at me taking it all in. Finally she speaks, “You bit his hand?” Self consciousness, I respond, “I didn’t do it on purpose! He put his hand over my mouth to keep me from screaming and potentially dismantled on the spot. I thought you had been stabbed to death, I was hysterical.” For a moment 12′s eyebrows convene in the middle of her forehead as she remains hung up on this whole biting concept, clearly contemplating my mental health. A second later and the gears in her head have made it full circle switching her back in verbal attack mode.

“Between our conservation with Dagger during Acquisition of Sustenance and the people who saw 14 helping you repress your sudden onset hysteria, the entire final year of Level Two will think you’ve been having sex by the time running is over tomorrow.” “What!” I say in a high pitched half screech half choke. 12 continues unfazed, “You should stay away from him. If an official heard even a hint of this it would be the end of both of you.” I desperately interject, “But we’re not, I am not that, nothing, stop trying to....” As I stumble over my words 12 cuts me off, “That doesn’t matter. All that matters is what it looks like, and what people think. I am telling you to be careful.”

I awkwardly follow 12 into Bump Nose’s group avoiding eye contact and cringing at the sight of Captain Neutrality’s empty seat. I can tell that Dagger’s rumors have already started to spread as I sit down in my usual seat between 14 and 12 and feel all eyes on 14 and I. I try to deflect the attention and appear oblivious, but intrinsically I am in a state of utter panic. I have never been the target of something like this before. I do what I am supposed to do, at least when it comes to the really dangerous stuff. With the exception of Bump Nose’s group, the occasional inevitable question and foolish display of of over-competitiveness in Practical Training, my record has been pristine. Until now.

Looking down at my wrist port I tilt it toward my right where 14 is sitting. I try to discretely examine his demeanor in the reflection on the screen. I want to know if he has heard any rumors. Yet he is unreadable. Or perhaps not. As I look closely, I notice that he too is on edge. His right foot silently moves back and forth under the desk in an impatient manner, and his back is hunched over the desk and positioned so that it looks as though he could leap forward at any minute. I sigh. I am probably just overanalyzing what is really nothing at all.

Meanwhile the eyes have yet to stop following 12 after she “came back from the dead.” Right now Tight Rope is glaring at 12 with an impressive level of malice as she mourns Captain Neutrality’s empty seat. As the hours tick by we complete our work in silence while Bump Nose sits at his desk reading on a tablet. Eventually we all finish our work and are left awkwardly looking around the room, without the mental fortitude to reread our essays yet again. Bump Nose notices and puts down his book, “I would like all of you to check your wrist ports for questions.”

With a collective inward groan we all comply. I raise my hand to speak. “How could religion gain so much power and prevalence if it has no redeeming qualities?” Somehow, in an impossible feat the class fixes me with even even more intense glare, as Bump Nose’s features adjust to form the smirky smize he gets every time someone asks an interesting question.

He begins to answer in his usual careful, contemplating manor. “The “redeeming qualities” you speak of possess a certain level of subjectiveness. The organization that religion gave the lives of the masses was able to keep them safe and mentally stable in some scenarios, in addition to fueling practical inhibitions and standards for human behavior. However, conversely it provided cruel deception and fueled ignorance. Not to mention, it led to more loss of life than any other force throughout history due to petty differences in the intricacies of “various” religions. It set up the perfect grounds for manipulation and exploitation and justified despicable acts as holy.”

For a moment I ponder his response, carefully arranging my thoughts and prepping my articulators. “Based on your response there are a great deal more negative characteristics of religion than positive ones. I can’t help but question this. Throughout history there have been a plethora of organized systems for the exploitation of the masses, all of which were overthrown eventually by those exploited, how did religion stand for so long?” I can see in his face that he knows the answer, but he refrains from divulging any enlightenment. He again looks off into a world only he can see, carefully arranging his thoughts. “For a moment imagine two types of people: one is composed entirely of the animalistic motives for survival that you have heard so much about, the other is composed of something else entirely different, something entirely unquantifiable.”

For a moment he seems lost in his own thoughts, as the ears of the entire room perk up. He continues, “The other is the pure embodiment of humanity...the anthesis of primal simplicity. It is curiosity, freedom, achievement, the pursuit of knowledge, morals, sacrifice in the name of beliefs and aspirations....” Bump Nose looks as though he is enveloped in delicious old memories; his immortal former glory. As I listen to him speak I can’t help but feel something rise inside me, the idealism I have for so long repressed revels in his every word. My thoughts spiral foolishly toward a dark and cloudy future, grasping for some unknown grand legacy.

“It is this component that drives the addiction to religion. Because humans, once we climb out of our caves and into our castles and huts, once our currency goes from a bushel of berries to a copper coin, we need something to believe in order to survive.” As much as I long to lose myself in his seductive idealism and grandiose musings I can’t help but be grounded by my critical instincts, “If people need something to believe in, how is success possible without religion?” Bump Nose looks at me with his disapproving you should know this eyes. “Something to believe in does not necessarily mean religion, or even promise of an afterlife; it can be a philosophy, perhaps a goal.” He looks into my eyes with the mention of the word goal as I feel the entire essence of my existence fully exposed. I can’t imagine a world, or a version of my life without the impenetrable golden castle of level Level Three sitting atop the mountain I am perpetually climbing. Without it I would have slipped and fallen down the jagged cliff long ago.

I look around the room to analyze the other’s facial expressions. Tight Rope looks lost, and not in a dreamy idealistic way, 12′s mouth has curved into a small smile while she looks off into her own delusions of grandeur. I quickly glance at 14 expecting no reaction, but there is an entirely uncharacteristic grin on his face as he stares of into the distance. I can feel his determination from here, but with it is an expression of childish glee that shatters his usual brooding, giving away to an appearance that is almost endearing.

Thoughts buzz through my head as Bump Nose dismisses us for the evening. As I absent-mindedly make my way out the door in last place, I find myself standing in front of him, a question teetering of of the tip of my tongue. For a moment I hesitate. “Yes Seven, spit it out.” I consider backpedaling, but with Bump Nose it is useless. My regret already present, I ask him my question, “What do you believe in?”

He looks entirely taken aback, questions have become almost commonplace amongst us, but personal questions remain on a plane far, far away. I close my eyes and look down bracing myself for the impact of an electric shock. Yet there is no electric shock. Bump Nose is lost in thought on some other planet in some other galaxy. Finally he turns to speak, yet it’s as if he doesn’t even see me in the room with him. “I used to believe in many things, now I don’t anymore.” He stares out the window at the tundra, making me uneasy.