Cantral The Entra

Have you ever been happy?

From the window, on the other side of the forcefield, light floods into the room as the sun breaks the horizon. Another day begins and I watch from the shadows. I sit with my back against the wall and my legs stretched out. A short rest from an intensive burst of exercise. Light finds my wriggling grey toes and creeps up my body until the entire wall is coloured yellow.

The days slip away in a place like this, exactly like they did on Prime. Each one merges into the next. I could mark the passage of time, but I don't. I'm not a driving force here, I'm just a passenger, and time has no importance to me. Because no matter what happens here, I have failed, I can never return to my previous life. Haroc will name me a waste and my Energy will be Renewed in the eye of the Universe. The star Naerris.

Love received from Haroc always came with conditions. Even for me. I've always known this unspoken rule. I witnessed it between Haroc and Fendan. When Fendan succeeded, he was loved, he was praised. When he failed, he was beaten, he was the Entara. But Fendan never failed as badly as I have now.

I shower, warm water trickles over my body and I stand under the stream longer than I've ever allowed myself. The sensation is enjoyable, pleasant, I turn the temperature up and my body blushes a darker shade of grey under the heat.

Eventually I step out from under the water. I stare at myself in the mirror. My body is strong, I'm muscular but less so than the average entra, thanks to my mixed heritage. Fendan told me that was a weakness, the same weakness he possesses too. So, like him, I became a skilled fighter, and my shortness, and slender frame became a strength. But what does strength matter here?

What does anything matter? I dress and find breakfast waiting by the hatch in the door. Outside this cell the world is revolving. Prime is orbiting Naerris. People are dying, babies are born. Life continues without me and any power I possessed was simply an illusion.

I sit at my desk and eat. The food is good, better than what the canteens in Prime provide. Buttered bread and a selection of fruit and nuts. Fresh food, with enticing smells, food that makes eating a pleasure and not simply an activity that keeps you alive.

The pen on my desk finds itself in my hand, my fingers wrap around it awkwardly, and I write on paper, for the first time. My letters are messy and the ink smudges under my hand and colours it blue, but I continue. A letter to Ramet.

Ramet,

What are you doing with your time? Do you question your very existence and the life we were born into? Do you feel hopeless and yet find small moments of joy? Joy! What a strange word to use in a place like this and yet it's true. Is it strange that here I feel a certain kind of safety that I never felt before? I haven't contacted Fendan for a few days, I think. I don't know why. There is so much I don't know.

I'm questioning everything, even us. Our relationship. Did you betray me? My heart says no, but my heart never really knew you. Our relationship was coined on anger, pain and fear. Were we ever happy together or did we find solace in agony?

I'm not certain we should be together anymore. I think in my head I have ended things. But what does it matter? What are the chances I'll ever see you again?

Cantral

And I fold the paper and slip it into my pocket.

***

"Have you ever been happy?" Zafira asks.

I don't answer straight away, the question mulls in my head. "I don't know." I roll onto my back and stare up at the grey ceiling. "There have been moments of something, I thought it was happiness, but I don't know anymore. Have you?"