Lavender Snow

Prologue

Pain.

Pain is a blessing.

Without pain, you serve no purpose.

If you run from pain, if you yell or scream at its touch, you are weak. Pain is good. Pain lets you live another day.

Just don't scream.

It was a simple rule, really, not that hard to follow. It was typed out on signs and posters, carved into bedposts, and scrawled in red across the walls of the apartments.

Pain is good.

Every child knew the silent nursery rhymes, the tapped phrases, the rhythmic stories. It was the first thing taught to those that were brought to the Essempí. The smart ones remembered it and took the pain willingly.

Anyone that dared to fight or shout at the first flash of pain was discarded.

This was the way things were. It was the way things had been for years, or maybe millennia. It was a strict system, and it wasn't going to be broken anytime soon. Life was good here. Everything was perfect. Everything was fine.

That's what they told Tommy when he first arrived at the apartment.

Tommy and three other kids had been shoved into the hall, silent save for tapping sounds coming from a few of the rooms. Tommy's legs buckled beneath him, stiff and sore from the cramped journey here. The other kids began murmuring, confused and frightened, and a girl quickly came over to them from one of the apartment rooms to whisper the rules to them.

Rule one: Pain is good.

Rule two: Talking is a privilege.

Rule three: Don't make eye contact with the Elytrians.

None of them had time to ask any questions before the girl had scurried back to her room. She launched herself onto her bed, resuming a game of fibbles with her roommate. One of the other kids tried asking her something, but she just put a finger to her lips and turned back to her game.

A walk through the apartment quickly established some of the other unspoken rules. There were no doors anywhere, nor were there windows. The apartment rooms were small, and only held two people each, silently watching Tommy from their beds.

Eventually, exhausted and confused, he found an unoccupied bed and heaved himself onto the soft mattress. His roommate didn't glance up from his book as Tommy buried himself under the covers and began to cry.

The next day, he discovered the reason for the rules.