Radioactive

Part 5: The new, "improved" me and my past

     I wake up with the nurse staring at me, two inches away from my face. I gasp, and she smirks.

    "Feel any different?" she asks, and I frown at the taunting tone in her voice. She wants to see me admit I don't have a clue. "Your arm," she hints, and gestures for me to lift up the short sleeve of the gown, and hands me a mirror. I tug up the sleeve of my gown and close my eyes against the tattoo on my arm.The face is distinct with the rows upon rows of razors for teeth. "You do know who this is, right?" asks the woman, grinning.

     I nod, and say "It's that girl I fought."

    "Killed," corrects the woman, still smiling. I touch my teeth with my tongue, and sigh in relief when I confirm that they didn't give me her razor teeth. The nurse catches my relieved look. "You're the rare exception, Five. The key trademark of a Five is almost always passed on to their killer. I guess they just felt you are already too overpowered for your opponents. They'll probably pass her teeth and hands on to some Four. But that's nothing to be so overjoyed about. It's a great advantage in fights," she laughs, a cruel joy flickering in her eyes when the smile drops off my face.

     "What was "improved"?" I asked.

     "Safety measures," she replied slyly. What safety measures? Is my power gone? I glance down at my arms and legs, and realize I'm healed. I see several circular shapes in the shape of a hand as scars on my leg, face, and arm. "Want to see your new cage?"she asks, pulling me out the door. We walk down the hall, and through a door to my left, which must lead to the cage of the Fives. The steel door screams against the floor, and I see little more than seventy or eighty figures watching me. I step in, and the nurse says "This is the new Five, Radioactive."  So that's my new name. Gee, how original. I glance at her face and guess that despite the cool, somewhat cheerful demeanor with which she'd dealt with me, she is very glad, and very relieved to be rid of the unstable hypocenter freak I am.

     The door slams shut, and my eyes scan the crowd. I don't recognize any from the group of Fours I'd been with, except for the boy who had slammed me against the wall....who knows how long ago? His whitish-blue eyes meet mine, and he comes over to me. "You ready for that fight?" he laughs.

     I shrug, and warn "I'm not called 'Radioactive' because it sounds interesting." He punches me hard in the face, knocking a tooth out. I stagger, then spit the blood in his face. I watch him, waiting for keloids (those black lumps) to erupt from his face. But nothing happens. He aims another punch at my face, cursing under his breath as he wipes the blood off his face with the other hand. I duck and claw his face. Blood drips down his face, but he doesn't wince. I don't even think he felt it.

     "Do you know the name they have decided to call me?" he asks, smirking. I shake my head, glaring at him and rubbing my jaw. "I'm the Callous Resistance," he says, "Do you know what that means?"

     "I don't care," I growl.

    "Callous means "insensitive", although, that's really an underexaggeration in my case. As you just saw, I don't feel any pain. Ever. I have no reaction to things, except that when my skin breaks, I bleed. And with no reaction to pain, I have a huge advantage over anyone else," he boasts. A shiver runs through me. He notices and laughs. "You look scared, Radioactive," he chuckles, sneering my name.

     The nurse's words run through my head. Safety measures. Is this "Callous Resistance" the safety measure taken to make sure that they can kill me when they're done with me? "You want to fight still?" asks Callous. I walk away, knowing I won't sink low enough to reply to that.

     "Are you really radioactive?" asks a girl. I turn and look at her, and remember she's the girl that almost ate the corpse in the Four cage.

     "Yeah," I answer. There's nothing else to say. I almost want to ask her how she survived her fight, but it seems like a pointless question. "What's your name?" I ask after a few minutes of waiting for something to happen.

     "I don't have one," she says, averting her eyes away from me and rolling on the tips of her feet.

     "What? Well, what do you do?" I ask. How can she not have a name? She shrugs and doesn't say anything. "So you won a fight, right?" I ask.

     "I don't want to talk about it," she mutters, and she walks away.

    I lean against the wall and stare at all the eyes, so many different shades, all hostile and unapproachable. I wish things were different, that we were normal kids. That we hadn't been in the wrong place at the wrong time. I wish history was altered, so that the world hadn't dissolved into murder, hate, crime, complete and utter pandemonium, and biological warfare. I longed for us to be whatever version of "normal" in that place, that perfect world. But I need to stop thinking this. It's hard to, since it comes from the life I used to have. It's from the time back when I was just a young girl discussing life with my family. Listing all the different things we could change one day, me and my generation. As if things are ever that easy. I try to forget that life, because it will never be mine again. I've never known much, even before the Tattoo took me, but I've known about history. My dad had always told me about history.

    I asked him why he told me about something that we couldn't change; it seemed so pointless. "Because if we don't learn from our mistakes, history repeats itself," he'd replied so sternly. Oh, history will always repeat itself, Dad. We don't learn from mistakes. These mistakes have repeated themselves, in different times and technologies and variations and places, and we know our past but we don't care. I always wanted to change that, to fix the remains of the broken world, this mockery of a gift our ancestors passed down. Now, if I'm lucky, I might survive my next fight. No, I probably can't change anything, so there's no point to my musings. I must be ready for my next fight-and hope that I will never have to fight Callous Resistance.

This part is different from the others, I know. Do you like it or hate it? Thanks for comments and votes. :)