FHR

Chapter 2

“Although FHR is demonic and uncivilized, much like the males of our species, it is the only agreement we could come to with the males. Males are not prone to using words to resolve conflict, but violence. Both women and men were dying because of the fighting and we were forced to find a way to continue the female portion of the race. This not being possible without the help of males and without furthering the male portion of our race.

“That can’t be right,” Oswin muttered.

“Do you have a question, Oswin?” The mechanical prefect whizzed over to her desk, shocking her into dropping her tablet.

“Well, well yeah.” She paused, pulling on a strand of her long dark hair. “How could women and men have lived together for so long if men were so awful? They couldn’t have all just changed like that.”

“Because women were pawns.” The voice remained steady, unwavering, “The men kept them from educating themselves properly, they gave them the illusion that what they had was ideal and to be happy all you needed was a man.” Oswin nodded, pretending to agree with the voice so she didn’t have to argue with a robot. She could feel Ileana’s blue eyes boring into the back of head and pretended to take notes.

“How else did men use women?” Ileana leaned forward, placing her chin on her hands and resting both of her elbows on the desk, listening intently to the robot.

“Women were used. And women were used against each other. Man lead on multiple women at a time, making the women love him making them feel as though they needed him. Men discarded love, turning love into their toy.”

“What makes you think love exists?” Oswin challenged, standing up.

“I can not think, I merely tell you the facts.”

“What makes you think you have the facts?” Oswin threw up her arms, the girls in her rank staring at her, annoyed that she was making their class run longer than it needed to. Ileana giggled, always finding Oswin’s outbursts hilarious.

“I can not think, I merely tell you the facts.”

“Stupid prefs. Gawd, I hate prefs.” She shrank back into her seat just as the pref shut itself down and the lights in the classroom grew brighter, the door to the room flying open and signaling the end of class.

“Do you have to challenge the pref’s authority every class?” Adina laughed, pulling Ileana from the classroom.

“The prefs can’t even answer simple questions.” Ileana answered for Oswin, already knowing her answer.

“I feel like you’re mocking me.” Oswin placed a hand on her chest, acting as though Ileana’s words had hurt her. Adina opened the dorm’s door, rolling her eyes.

“Anyway, I wanna see how nasty they are. I wanna see if the live in their own filth, crawling through feces to get to the pristine girl’s fence and hanging on the the wire, trying to get in.” Oswin elaborated, acting out the scene playing out in her head by crawling across the floor and hanging onto Adina as if she were the fence.