Beyond Our Control

Chapter 5

 Never has she walked so much in her life. Her first few moments under the warm sun felt wonderful, but after long minutes of walking it felt dreadful and the sun made her pant and sweat. Her self heating jacket was burning in no time.

The dorms never focused much on their physical exercises since they didn't really have the environment for that. And the government has set strict policies and rules for them on not going outside and stuff. So it was either the cottages was like super far away, or it's just the fact that Kenna's body has never handled such heavy exercise before.

After what seemed like hours of walking, the small black dots of cottages finally got bigger, and in front of her was the Adjustment Center.

Finally, she thought.

Only what seemed like a few feet away, she stood there as everything happened. It's still hard to believe that this is the Adjustment Center.

People around her age moved around quickly, their eyes filled with the need to finish everything. Not only girls are here, boys too. No separating gender like they did for the youth dorms. The smoke that was up in the air turns out to be fire. A fire started in the middle of their cottages. Each cottage isn't very big, about seven or eight of them here. The cottages each looked like a small round hut, with small glassed windows, windows that opened. One cottage stood out the most, the biggest one of all, painted all white instead of the wooden color like the rest of the cottages. That must be the place of who runs things here, she thought.

No one noticed her standing right there, everyone too busy with whatever they were working on. One boy was chopping small logs of wood in half with an axe for whatever reason. Strange. No one does these kind of rough work anymore, those works died generations ago. Everything is relied on technology. She shifts her eyes somewhere else. A girl pushing a wheelbarrow of what looked like grass and weeds. Another girl had a huge pot, half the size of her, above the fire that was started. She stood on a stool and had a huge spoon stir around the pot that's settled above the fire. Everyone was doing extremely strange things. But they were all too concentrated to realize Kenna was here.

After long minutes of observing the place, she approached the girl that pushed the wheelbarrow.

"Um hi? I'm new, I was wondering who was in charge here?" She asked, and the girl stared at her for long moments. Kenna has never felt such an awkward moment before, the girl just kept staring. And finally her look changed, as if finally remembering something.

"The newbie is here!" She yelled out so loud Kenna felt like her ears were going to explode. The girl dropped her wheelbarrow and ran around shouting: "The newbie is here! The newbie is here!"

Not nervous at all when seeing what the Adjustment Center had looked like, suddenly she wanted to dig a hole and hide away. Everyone stopped whatever they were doing and came toward where Kenna was standing. One by one, they somehow formed a small circle with her in the center of it all. Their curious eyes and gazes fixed upon her. She's never had so much attention on her before, she felt herself's steady breathing uneasy.

Finally an older woman appeared, with the wheelbarrow girl pulling her to the center to see Kenna. As if Kenna was some kind of creature that's just been discovered. The woman had wrinkles around her face, but she looked only around her thirties or forties. Her brown eyes had lines on the side, from years of smiling. Rough red hair that is let loosely in a downward ponytail.

"Hi, I'm Ms. Edmund. I run things here, as you can see we're quite welcoming." She chuckled, gesturing at about fourteen or so kids staring curiously at Kenna. "I'm guessing it's not at all of what you imagined this place was going to be like?"