Hell of Earth

Chapter TWO

Still no memories. Opal hoped sleeping might somehow fix everything. Five sunsets later she had no improvement on that front. She was able to retain everything being taught to her, remembering more words as long as they were about a topic someone else had brought up, but actual events eluded her. Opal turned over under her thin blanket. She was sweating again. Apparently, cots were only for the infirm.

Everyone else slept in 'bunks' of flat metal beds, four up. Every time she turned her shoulder brushed the bottom of the one above her. The two communal areas Gray and Ermine had shown her were much more interesting although like everything else they were falling into disarray. When the trio walked in the building had lit up with a grating hum and a metallic voice welcomed them to the 'rec room'. They could watch 'movies' on a floating screen that you had to change with your fingers or there were personal games that people could sit alone and tap away at. There were also books, but as Ermine pointed out, very few of the kids here could read.

"Do you want to watch a movie later?" Gray asked.

Ermine made a face. "No thanks. I could recite each one by heart at this point."

"Why?"

"The wardens only change the movie selections every 2 or 3 months. We run through them pretty fast. Do you remember your favorite movie, Opal?"

Opal gave her an apologetic shake of her head. They were taking a break. The loud noise- a whistle it turned out- was what ruled everyone's lives. 1 whistle to start work, 2 to stop and 3 to return to bed. In between they did everything else. She tried to sip her water instead of gulp it. She wanted it to last and if yesterday was any indication it would need to last a long time.

"Hey!" Ermine smiled at her. "Maybe that's a good thing then! You'll be the only one here who will actually enjoy watching them since they won't be repeats for you after what happened."

"Yeah what did happen?"

The trio turned. A lanky boy with tired eyes was watching them.

"None of your business, Packer."

"I heard your head squished. How is it you're alive?"

"Well it obviously didn't squish. She's standing right here after all."

Packer narrowed his eyes and pointed. "Maybe they need to give you another collar. Make you Upgrade"

"Upgrade?" Gray snorted. "No one upgrades. You come in as one or you don't."

"Maybe she'll be the first. This is what... your 5th escape attempt?"

Opal looked between the two girls. Their scowls seemed to confirm this. She didn't respond. He seemed about to say something else when the whistle blew again. Back to digging. She wasn't surprised she'd tried to escape. She'd already started to feel itchy with the urge to do anything else. No one here seemed particularly happy with their situation and yet none of them sounded like they intended to do something about it. And what had he meant by upgrades? Did he mean the kids she'd seen with the heavier collars or jewelry? If so- maybe she needed to be asking them more of these questions. She decided to ask one the next chance she got.

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This turned out to be harder than expected. For some reason outside of digging, the kids with the reinforced collars didn't seem to be very involved with the rest of the activities. In fact some of them didn't even seem to dig. Gray and Ermine dodged her requests for information, mostly just noting they were 'particularly bad' borderline dangerous. It wasn't hard to imagine Spark as a threat. She hadn't seen him since that first day. She'd tried to sneak back to the infirmary under the guise of a worsening headache but Ermine and Gray had insisted on taking her. And when she got there neither he nor Kait wasn't even around. Some other girl with only a necklace give her some sweet liquid to drink and sent her on her way.