Spark.

Chapter 13 - The chain and the hunter

Shaking in the darkness, I look slowly at my writing hand. Something is wrong.

I came home as soon as I could. The explanations were short, and as least graphic as possible. It was no use lying; it had to be told. She had to know. She took it well.

As soon as she was asleep, I did what I knew I had to do. I stumbled over to the windowsill, opened the ledger, and formed the words in my head. The words of the song.

And this is where I am now.

It seems insane. I know it is; there is no explanation, no practical reason for me putting these words down on paper. Every day, for as long as I have been working, I have heard these words; but it was only now, just a matter of hours ago, when I felt different about them. As though they were… ‘special’.

But something is wrong. I realised something was as soon as I sat here, as soon as I laid the pen before me. As soon as I picked it up.

Or rather, didn’t pick it up.

I stare at my fingers. Pale and luminous in the moonlight, they appear almost ethereal. Slowly, I try to open and close them. Open and close. They move, lightly. But I am unable to make a fist, or to bring my fingers together. It’s as if they are paralysed, still; a faint echo of the event which occurred only hours before.

My hand shakes. I try again, but they refuse; my fingers refuse to shut. It is as though I have lost all control.

And then my eyes travel, down, down my wrist; until they reach the glint of metal at my wrist. The scar.

Gently, alone in the darkness, I laugh. I laugh because if I don’t, I know that an outpouring of emotion, much worse, will take place. I laugh before I cry.

In this New Era, none of us have much knowledge of the past. History and statistics, events and anniversaries; all are a foreign world to us. We have enough to worry about in day-to-day survival without constantly thinking back to the past. But there is one fact that every person in this community knows, due to the everyday relevance of this fact. In the Old Era, as much as ten per cent of the population were left-handed. But now, due to some strange anomaly that no one really understands, this rate has fallen. Now as few as one in a hundred people are left-handed.

One in a hundred. One per cent. And of all the population of this city, in all of that ninety-nine per cent available to me, I had the misfortune to be in that last per cent. I am left-handed.

The hand on which, as consistent through the entire system, my chain is located.

I cannot write.

“Should I ask what the hell happened, or is it not worth it anymore?”

I wince as the bandage is wrapped around my feet. Orion doesn’t even look at me as he speaks, instead focusing with determined precision on the task in from of him. The way he concentrates is admirable, and something I can only imagine now.

“It was in Overtime. But this wasn’t an accident.” My eyes travel around the lonely office, which seems to be swimming slightly. “Sorry about this,” I add, apologetically.

“It wasn’t an accident last time, I seem to remember.” He tapes off the end of the bandage and starts on the other foot. “What the hell are you doing working in Overtime anyway?”

I shrug, with effort. “I need the spark.”

“You get spark. You’re a Super. You don’t need this.”

A man, on the balcony. A white coat. I shake my head. “I’m no Super.”

“You get an allowance. It’s better than the average wage.”