Oblivion of Memory

Chapter 2:

Never mind him and his ideas. He's wasting my time. I shake off the idea and eagerly rush to the bathroom to check if my uniform is up to par. Depending on the wrinkles, I'm gonna have to spend more time running back to my house. Thank goodness, the wrinkles are barely noticeable and hopefully unnoticeable to The Commander.

I quietly opened the door when I got back, in order to appear totally insignificant and inconspicuous. Much to my conveyance, the classroom was watching a video on the screen. I was able to get to my seat in the middle of the classroom peacefully. Annoyingly, the video had all the traits that I had been trying to achieve when I entered the room: dull, and uninteresting. The video went over all the families that were going to be officially welcoming their new child. I guess they wanted to show what our futures would look like. This honestly is nothing to look forward to. New parents have to give their child over for the day until the Labeling ceremony. I can imagine that each time this year, my mom is surrounded and in baby heaven. I tried to stay focused on the video, but my eyes drifted to Peter. Our eyes locked and he could see some of the shock from earlier. 'Nothing,' I mouth, 'I'll talk to you about it later.' The Commander pauses the video and looks past me. Soon after, I hear the door open and some shuffling near the entrance. I shift in my seat to see what all the commotion is about.

"Klara, we need your help assisting your mother," It's Khol. I got up, no questions asked about it. I'm sure my mother isn't in trouble. She's practically a saint. Still, my stomach turned with the thought. We reconvene in the hallway. He continues, "The Community Leaders asked our group if we could help since there are more babies than they can handle this year," easy enough. He takes a slight pause and then act like he is going to speak, "Um--"

Though, I interrupt, "Who's all coming with us?"

"Half of my group," he takes a second to think about it, "So.. Savan, Deina, Demetri, Rhen, and myself." Oh great, Rhen, I snicker to myself.

"So why do you need my help?" I try to ask politely, but it seems completely reasonable in the situation. Right?

"I figured the others in my group wouldn't be much help and are better off guarding,"he answered slowly and rubbed his neck afterwards. Yeah, I couldn't see Ashton with a baby either. Much less the giant twins on his team, who could probably crush a baby. We kept walking till we saw the group standing around the exit to the track.

"Let's go." Khol yelled and the team turned to follow after us. This scene was much too cool for us just to be babysitters. Good thing that we were also attack trained warriors. I wish that my group could be like them and we could all work together. I wonder if they were anything like us before they graduated.

The Child Center was past the lunch hall. Following the lunch hall was the park. Yes, an underground park. Then in the distance, we could see the Child Center. The underground park wasn't actually as bad as it seems. They had a transparent ceiling that was one way, so people couldn't see in. Supposedly, it was also incredibly hard to break. People could have stepped over it a few times and would never know. Although we could've had real trees, some departments chose to have fake ones. They even had benches and everything. Children that hadn't seen trees before, since we live in the desert, don't even know the difference.

We walk into the decorative awning of the Child Center and I see bassinets and cradles all around. I wonder how they deal with the older kids. But, I rather work here in the chaos, then in the elderly care center because I have some attachment issues. The automatic door opens as soon as we get close. Thankfully we need a code to get out, otherwise children would be running all over. I look towards one of the cradles and see her holding a sleeping baby.

"Oh, great. You're here." she whispers to Khol. She waves for us to follow her. It's a miracle that the baby she's holding is sleeping right now. She always did have a way with babies. She entered a room and then quietly motioned to the babies. Suddenly, one of them started crying. I used to help my mom in the daycare, so I directed myself to the noise. I made it too late because Savan had already picked up the baby and tried to coo it. The baby continued to cry. "How about I try. I might need something else." I establish what I think of as a nice tone. I snatch the baby away and lay it down on the diaper changing station. Just as I think I'm done, Rhen decides to try and help take out the diaper. He grabs the diaper so poop is dripping down his hand and he starts mindlessly gagging. Deina tries to hurry and grab the trash can before it falls. Khol puts his shirt up and shields his eyes. This is the best group to take care of babies? Pretty soon more of the babies start crying. How are we going to make it through the Labeling ceremony?

"You can wash up your hands, but your probably going to get more on the later." I smiled at Rhen. I grab another baby as Rhen exits the room. There were a total of six babies in the room. That means that each one of us has to take care of a baby until we give them to their parents at the ceremony. I kept the one that had pooped on Rhen, like a true gentleman. I gave the other baby that I was taking care of to Rhen when he came back from washing his hands. I walked around with my little gentleman helping the other helpers. Though, Khol didn't last long and had to leave the room due to the 'fumes'.

Later, a woman that works with my mom came in and told us that it was time for the ceremony. We were led under the stage to a separate room. Khol's baby start to cry and he starts shushing it unlike how I taught him, but the baby stops crying anyway. The first baby to go on consequently is Savan. Proudly, I watched her step onto the pedestal and as it took her away. She has definitely made improvements in her nursing skills. She now knows what it means when a baby cries.

"Redita." the area announces the baby's name. The crowd applauded and if I were watching right now, the parents would walk onto the stage brightly as they get awarded the name of their child. The group under the stage continually gets slower, as they keep calling different names. Finally the stage crew tells me to step onto the platform. Khol took the arm of his baby and waved, while mouthing, 'bye-bye'. Slowly the platform raised and I shook my head. As I saw the arena, bright lights hit my eyes. All the screens were zoomed in on my chest to look closer at the baby's face.

"Braxton," the sound hits my ear and the screen changes to the parents expressing their joy. They rushed up on stage, grabbing him out of my arms. I spot Peter in the crowd with the rest of myself and make my way off stage.

Suddenly the lights go blank and Peter yells, "Klara," from a few seats away.

My mind went black for a few minutes.

We were under attack and most of our guards were needed at baby watching duty. I knew this seemed stupid. The lights on the edge of the arena started blinking red and the speakers kept repeating, "Make your way to a safe shelter in your local area. Please move about in an orderly fashion." Orderly fashion my ass.

I couldn't see anything, but could feel people rushing around me to get out. I was being moved by people like a current, and then suddenly I got knocked out.