A Song of Silence

Chapter 18

Astrid

 Sometimes it takes noise to realize how incredibly lonely you are. Sometimes you won't notice it at all until you see that everybody else has someone, but how you have no one. I didn't think about how much I missed Erinne, how much I missed the laughter and the inviting ourselves over to each other's homes for group projects and how when a teacher told us we had to do partner work, I wouldn't have to wander around and wait for someone to choose me as their partner.

At my previous school, I would sit with a large group and we would all have fun together and whisper. But then a year before I moved to Obsequor Institution, my younger brother — he was just about to turn five then — passed away from a severe fever. We did everything we could, the doctors too, but he was too weak and underdeveloped to fight it properly, and subsequently the medicine and treatments that we tried to force down him in hopes of his survival could not heal him. There was nothing more that anyone could have done.

I remember when I had gotten the call from a teacher those years ago in the middle of class.

"Astrid?" she had said, her voice gentle and filled with sympathy. I could tell that something was wrong from that alone.

My hands had gotten sticky from sweat, as I walked over tremblingly, my breath shaking. "Is it my brother?" I asked hoarsely. I shut my eyes tight, wrapping my arms around my middle as I prepared for the worse.

"I'm so sorry," she told me, placing a hand on my shoulder. Her words meant nothing, less than nothing. It was exactly what I thought, and the gesture told me what the words didn't. "I'm so sorry," she repeated.

That day at lunch, I tried to act like it was fine, like I was fine, like he was fine. I tried to keep the easy smile on my face that I've been trained to use, but it was so hard when I felt like I was breaking to pieces inside. I didn't want their sympathy, so I hadn't told them a thing about his sickness, nor did I tell them about his death. I don't think I ever did. Eleven-year-old me had always wanted to be the strongest, and afterward, I didn't want to remember.

When one of them mentioned something about their sister, it hit me too hard, and I suddenly realized that it was going to be forever. That was when I up and left, taking my plate with me as the tears finally began to fall. I was still smiling, but you can smile and feel sadness at the same time.

His name was Lucas. "Light" the name means. Meant. He was a light to me, to my parents until his light was extinguished when the fever took him. Then we were left with only black, gloomy, sorrowful darkness. In complete darkness, sometimes it's hard to find flame that will bring you light again.

Since then, I have tried to forget. And gradually, I did. It's harder now to remember the way his dimples showed when he smiled, the way his tiny voice sounded, the way he would reach up to me and hug me as soon as he saw me. It's hard to remember what it's like to not be so lonely inside.

Since then, I have tried to fill the giant empty hole left in me with the Imperium, because, after all, they are the most important and the only ones we need. Sometimes I'm almost there, nearly forgetting. It's less painful to forget than to be left with all the memories and keep wondering where he went, why it had to be him that was taken instead of someone else's brother. He would have been ten years old, turning eleven this year.

After he died, my family broke apart. It's why I'm so distant with them, my parents. I couldn't bear to see him in their faces, so I had spent the hours at home in my room, trying to find ways to cope. We all had our ways to deal with it. That was mine. My mother became obsessed with her work. And my father became a shell of himself, like me, an ashen cloud hanging above our whole household.

It was hard, at first. I would wake up every morning and his face would fill my mind first. But gradually, after much time, I would wake up and it wasn't, and instead my first thought would be of school or of the Imperium or whatever else it might've been. I stopped remembering to always be sad, and I grew into a new normal. Sometimes whole days would go by when I didn't think of him. The years healed the wound, and soon it became a scar that was only an impression.

When I transferred to Obsequor, it was a fresh start and an exciting one at that, filled with opportunities like this, to apprentice a true member of the Imperium.

Hayden Verrill. The executioner. At least there's honor in it.

I fell into a routine, and the familiarity became comforting. Though I started at the bottom, I quickly rose to the top of my classes. I always finished my work on time, and I didn't ask questions. The work gave me a fire, a passion that I had lost, the reason to live that I had been longing for.

And fast forward to today, it's still like this, trying to be the best and maintain the image I put forward to my peers. The routine has stayed the same, only that I'm older now. It's better like this. It's easier to have something to devote your whole life to, and I pity the people before the New Era who had nothing like it for themselves. The Imperium has united us, and that is something I must remember, even if I disagree with their decisions internally. It would be much worse without them.

The bell chimes, signaling the official start of class. Anyone who is not in their seat by this point, by the time it rings, will be disciplined accordingly for their lateness, as the disrespect of a member of the Imperium's time is unacceptable. Luckily, no one is. I was late once, only by a few seconds, and I had to stay after school got out for everyone else because of it. At least once it happens to you once, you'll make sure not to let it happen again.

We sit tall in our stiff, gray uniforms, pulling out our textbooks as they asked and completing the reading which they assigned, the one about the beginning of the New Era seventy-five years ago, when they first had unveiled the control. From then, a command was formed, and we became their people.

Obey. Always obey.