A Song of Silence

Chapter 8

Callisto

They pull her away carelessly. Her eyes are red and frozen with shock, and it's so lifelike, so lifelike. Perhaps she is still alive. But one jerk of her body where she hangs from their arms tells me that she certainly isn't. It's only one less to them. Like numbers. Nothing more than that. We don't feel bad for numbers if you subtract one from them. One is a mere fraction of a billion. We don't mean anything to them. They just like to tell us that we do.

What's worse is that it only takes three words for everyone else to forget Graece.

"You are dismissed."

And then that's it. That's all it took for the heavy weight that is now purely on my shoulders to lift and dissipate. It has become a mist that surrounds me. Me, and only me. No one else cares.

This tiny little girl has been murdered by her own hands, by another's choice, simply because she was the victim of a slip in control. It's not fair. None of it is. Forced to her own death. How brutal is that? How much worse will it get before we can fix it? Surely there must be some way to go back to how it was before the Imperium decided that they were supreme. We were not flawless, definitely not, but we were better. We weren't perfect, but we did the best with what we had. We had hearts. We had minds. We cared. Now we don't have any of those. We are less than animals, wild and ferocious. So am I. Only concerned by my own survival. I can't deny the relief I felt that it wasn't me, a nightmare that has so often plagued my sleep.

The usual chatter of the halls begins again, and all I can wonder the whole time is how they can possibly be so cheerful. They have destroyed our emotions. Graece was about to die, yet she still had to smile. I have witnessed her death and many more on TV and have somehow still managed to keep smiling through them all. How? What would we have been if we were still ourselves?

They have taken from us our humanity.

***

I sit alone today. Again. Astrid has clearly forgotten about me in the light of today's Pouring. That's okay. I don't need her. I don't need any of those shells. But a part of me aches for the connection I have so long lacked. For the unspoken understanding that I have never felt. For the kindness, the warmth, that I do not know. That I fear feeling, for it may be the emotion that destroys me in the end. One step out of line, and my self-destruction is assured.

And the apprenticeship we were offered today...Not even offered, more selected for our dutifulness to the Imperium. This is where it gets real. Before, I had been pretending, following, acting like one of them. This is where I will have to choose. How far down the path of hiding will I go? They could make me do terrible things, and I would have to obey. Obey or die. That should be their motto instead.

My stomach turns, and I have to force the thick, tasteless food down my throat. I feel like I need to vomit it up, but I try my best to keep it down. Discomfort is minimal to those who are being controlled. Nerves are making my breath tight and quick, and I have to will myself to suck in slow, calming ones. Naturally, it doesn't do anything to help. Of course, who would have expected that they might, after witnessing such a thing like Graece's death? After learning that you would have to assist the very people you are hiding from in the very deeds you wished never to have to do yourself? No, slow breathing will do nothing to help me.

It's worse in my second period. Everyone is laughing and smiling and chatting about who they think they'll be assigned to help. If they even remember this morning's execution, they bring it up only to tarnish her memory and make derogatory remarks about how she deserved it and how it served her right and giggle about who will be next. What awful people they have turned us into. What a corrupted mindset for them to truly believe that the way out was for one to take control of the population.

By the end of the day, I'm drained and exhausted, sick of being the only one that I know of that actually cares and trying not to show it. Sick of the whole "we must obey the Imperium because they are our saviors" thing that makes no sense – if only they were able to come to their senses and realize how moronic the whole thing is. Why are we obeying people who forced us to? They have no credibility. They have only manipulated and lied and falsely enticed us to get here. There is no honor, no true power in that. And yet they still have it. A united people under their rule, their law, their self-imposed reign.

I throw my small bag onto my apartment floor, not even bothering to clear it off to the side. It glides across the smooth, ashen tiles that reflect the light of the burning sun. Sighing, I cross over to the woven rug and lie down, staring at the ceiling, the muscles of my face twitching from overuse. An ache of loss is all I feel now. There is not a thing that can be done about the past.

I am not aware that sleep comes when it does, but it is a blissful reprieve from the nonstop hiding that I must seek every minute of my day. Green meadows that go on endlessly, speckled with colorful wildflowers that sway with the grass in the gentle breeze. Misty air and a full silver moon above me as I dangle my feet from the terracotta shingles lining the rooftop. Rushing streams where foaming water splashes teasingly at the jagged rocks, the coolness so refreshing on such a hot day. And then it shifts once more.

I am in a wide, open room. No one but me is in sight. There are no windows, no doors. I have no recollection of how I got here. Of who I am.

My feet shuffle as I feel for some ridge or crack in the wall, but there are no imperfections. I am trapped. But when I turn around, I notice something else. The room seems to be much smaller than it was before. Squinting my eyes, I can see a bit more clearly that it was not, in fact, my mind playing tricks on me. No, the walls are closing in on me.

Suddenly, I am thrust into a frenzy, banging on the white plaster, hollering for someone to get me out of this place. I am hyperventilating, trying to make that rational part of my brain work and think logically about how I would get out. I am still breathing, so there must be a source of air somewhere. But the fear is winning out, and I am resigned to my fate.

Falling, tumbling with no end.

Is this death? Is this what death feels like? If this is it, perhaps it is not so bad after all. A sensation of leaving something behind to begin anew. A fresh start.

Darkness. Darkness surrounds the bottom. Blackness. Emptiness.

I was wrong. It is something that words cannot describe, something that you cannot know unless you experience it yourself.

A crash. Blinding pain. Quiet follows. Rhythmic tapping. A song of silence.

Tip, tip tip, it seems to say.

Tap, tap, comes the echo, the reply. Like they are in conversation.

It comes again, but this time, more hauntingly. Tip, tip, tip. Tap, tap. A message in code for which I do not have the reference.

Cold claws of shadow shut around my middle, but there is little I can do to resist the pulling, the pulling, into the brightness of the room with the snowy walls. Tip, tip, tip. Tap, tap.

My eyes snap open to find the white above me. I scramble back, shivering. There is nothing holding me. Only a dream. Only a dream.

Or a prediction, a tiny voice says. No. I do not believe that. It's another lie. But it might not be. Stop. The Imperium wouldn't like you if they knew. That's true. They wouldn't.

One day, I will pivot and look at them with the fire of years of mistreatment and raise my voice against them. But that day is not today.