When I step through the door, it feels like being swept up and brashly thrown back into reality. The same corridor — overly clean and impersonal, the same scrubbing sounds from the kitchen, the same grumbling from the living room.
In the woods, Runner has unceremoniously touched his fingers to his hat and marched off. I don't even know if, or when, he'll return.
As soon as my mother notices I'm back, reality seems to vanish once more. My parents — who rarely express any other feelings but regret — now behave like two hens who've just laid abnormally large eggs. I let myself be wrapped up by their happiness while my doubts keep niggling in the back of my mind. Even after a week in the woods, I still cannot believe what has happened, and what might be happening to the rest of my life. Or how short this rest might be.
But I don't run around chicken-like, making noise and repeating the same information over and over again. Micka (the loser) has done well! Micka (the loser) starts her probation time as a Sequencer's apprentice without screwing up! Micka (the loser) returns home dirty, stinky, and unable to utter a peep.
Once the day comes to an end and my parents retreat to their bedroom, my mind uses the silence to produce its own noise. The uncertainty is unbearable. The change from hope and adventure, from feeling alive and respected to...being back home, tears me apart. My chest is aching. Hope — the hungry beast — is prowling inside. I'm prowling, too. From door to window, window to door, door to window, and back and forth. It doesn't help. I unclasp my knife and my hands grow calm. The pain inside my chest lessens with every line I carve into it.
YOU ARE READING
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Adventure★★★★★ "right up there with Hunger Games" I've reached my expiration date. Not that it matters. We're all going to die. To sixteen-year-old Micka, all words have flavours. Her emotions come with such force that she can't help but carve them into her...
