Arwa

2- Crampt

Wow, I'm not doing very well today am I? I think to myself as I hold onto the railing of the bus. There are two other people also holding the railing: this greasy, blonde haired dude who's chewing some gum and this business man wearing black tie and an earpiece in his ear.

A bit strange that there would be a random, important looking guy on the 112 bus to the main district but I digress as this is probably the most random bus you could go on.

I tried not to make eye contact with anybody, but it wasn't like I could, we were all wearing masks. The business CIA guy then turned to me and he was even more emotionless than I was,
"You'll need to fix that mask as soon as possible." I did a small nod and looked away. It still felt like he was staring at me, so I just ignored em.

Stop by stop the bus became more cramp with a little old lady standing up and a woman on a frantic phone call. Her voice was high and squeaky,
"Yeah I know DN-F4 I'll be back tomorrow I promise, yeah, yeah I'll remember to drop the bag off to AT-C3."
Wow, I think, this young woman must be friends with old people if one of them's an C3.

We don't have names, we have production numbers. Mine is AR-W4. Arwa. You go down the letters in the alphabet: A, AA, AA-A, BA-A, BB-A and etcetera. Once we ran out of letters we added numbers. I'm pretty young, I don't know my age, we don't keep track, but the newest ones I've heard have been people with fives.

I yawn as the bus trundles along like a rusty shopping trolley, the old lady hopping off at the next stop. My mask gets tight around my ears as I take a breath in. I mess around with it a little, untucking my ears and hair. It didn't make much difference, now it just feels a lot more loose.

I look back at that CIA dude, then I realise his mask isn't like the rest. It's black with silver eye holes. Everybody else's is white with black eyeholes. Now I really start to wonder why somebody important like him is on the 112. I push my mask back on my face as it tried to peel away from my ears. I'm too tired to focus, I never get any sleep anymore. I haven't had any sleep as long as I can remember. Everything's too full, too noisy, too crowded.

We live in a little bubble. All of us, it's called The Core. Our old home 'Earth' as people used to call it, was destroyed in some form of giant war. Too many bombs. With quakes and collisions happening and bits of our planet breaking away like an old biscuit we were done for. It just so happened that when we were in our greatest hour of need, the Mynx Guardians crash-landed and we're able to help us. That's why they're called 'Mynx Guardians' because they saved us. We lived together, Mynx and Humans. Then our leaders, who were already raring to leave our broken planet, made an awful decision.

Something happened and I don't know how, I don't know why, but a couple of years before I was brought into life the government began to exterminate em. From what people said, it was because the Mynx had deadly abilities that could wipe all humans out, and that they were plotting to kill us as well as standing up to the government's plans to 'Remake New Terra' whatever the heck that supposed to mean.

The Mynx do have 'powers' or whatever you wanna call em, they can turn into different animals. It isn't as cool as it sounds, it's not one swift change. It's supposedly quite painful and only used in situations that depend on it, like saving your own life.

We live in The Core because the rest of New Terra is uninhabitable. Either broken away from the war or just rock. We live in a 'perfect haven' as the President calls it and everybody's too afraid to leave The Core to find out what's really out there. Probably just more death.

I scratched my head, that was all I knew, that was all I had been told. Sometimes I wonder if that really happened or it didn't. Sometimes I wonder what life would be like without these dumb masks hiding us everyday or if we didn't have to live in our bubble. But I continued, I press my loose mask back on my face and hop off the bus.

The CIA dude has also came off, but I try not to worry as there are only two stops left. He goes away from me as I exhale. I begin to walk away down the streets and to clear my head.

And then something happens.

People turn around and stare at me, gasping and pointing.

Something clatters to the floor.

I touch my face.

"My mask- it's-"

Blackout.