The Masked Beginner

No such thing as Mortal

I was once a girl who was Normal. 

Once a girl who had a life.

A girl who did not turn abnormal.

Feeling as if I am stabbed with a knife.

Everything has turned

Everything had burned

You are just a little subhuman

Your form and life is now inhuman.

I crouched over the wooden floor.The creaks were still there. And so were the little holes and black smudges.

I felt a twinge in my stomach. I looked at my hands.They were covered with the polish. My whole black dress was stained with umber polish.

The worst time to get messy.

And the worst time to cry.

The door slightly opened. I could see the silhouette towering above me.The shadow blocked the faint illumination from the casement. I didn't need the light anyways.

"Hey. You okay?"

I didn't respond. The voice was familiar. Too familiar.

"Aubrey?" His voice rung. "Look at me. Please."

I raised my head slowly, pushing the matted locks of raven hairs away from my eyes.

Xade smiled at me. Not a pure blissful curve of his lips, but a saddened one, depicting the rue that he had managed to conceal within his jade eyes.

He propped himself next to me. My ragged inhalation ricocheted through out the room.

An unnerving silence fell across both of us. He laughed lightly in a attempt to break it. "Isn't it peculiar that none of us has anything to say –  optimal or appalling?"

I smoothed the folds of my dress. "What do you expect?"

"It's just that – you don't need to worry." He sighed exasperatedly. "You always fit in."

The cracked mirror on the sidewall showed my unacceptable reflection. Mother's plain dress hugged my concave shoulders. My hairs were tousled in every direction, greasing smeared across my sunken cheeks. The white moccasins looked nearly charcoal.

Someone rapped the door.

I blinked.

Xade smirked apprehensively. He looked better than me. But the bags under his eyes were vivid. The door knob turned.

Even in the faint light, I could make out the tall posture of my brother. I got up hurriedly. He couldn't see me like this. I tried brushing past him but he lightly grasped my arm and pulled me into one his heart-warming embraces.

"Come on, Bree." He said. "Smile and you get to ride my shoulders."

I sobbed against him, tearing running down my face. Aiden's shoulders were the best place. They could be light and weak but at times, they could be sturdy. The door bell brought me back to the fateful reality.

"It's time." Aiden told me. I ran my fingers though my hairs. Xade stood up and walked past me, slipping something into my hand.

I clenched my fist instantly, shoving them into my pockets.

***

The people started to crowd. Aiden followed me down. He picked me up and I clung onto him as he lifted me up.

Xade walked next to us. His usual impish features were wiped out, replaced by anxious ones.

The distance from the Bridge and our home is not far. Before my parents' death, Aiden and I used to stop by the metal gates that surrounded it. Peering inside raucously, comforting each other that we were too little.

Time passed.

And little by little, those comforts seemed meaningless.

The substantiate hour had arrived for me. Our Government believed that the best thing about Word War III was the nuclear bomb – or the Mutation Trigger as we call it. It enabled the future generation to be stronger and resistant. But even then, there are a few of us to whom the effects didn't reach. The genetic-freaks. Mortals.

Mortals didn't deserve to live. They were the feeble part of the society.

Each year, the substantiate hour occurs. Mortals are sorted and executed on the Bridge. The others are given a life.

Aiden stopped. The gates seemed greyer and muckier. Increasing the degree of fright with each glance at it.

The sentries stopped us. One them walked towards us. He took out his pen-torch and light flashed at us.

"State your name, age and parents." He barked at me.

"Aubrey Higgins. Fourteen. Daughter of Lucy and George Higgins. " I replied dully.

The sentry removed his black sunglasses and looked at us. "Aubrey Higgins. Proceed."

I stumbled and Aiden fell to the ground.Inside the gates, the room was more than frightful. It was really dark. Only few moon beams washed through the room.

It was an awkward silence. People stared at me and Aiden. Even if it was dark, the eyes were glaring at us.

The loud horn rung.

The sound that represented the death awaiting me.