Chapter 3, Gray Thompson
From here, I can see the Gate. I want to go in, to have my own feeling of pride for once, not of my dad anymore, but of myself. I need to be proud of myself. Because it seems as much as I try, I can never stop being a coward. I need that blissful feeling of pride. And the Gate, it’s just staring at me, daring me to enter it. And I want to. I really do. But I won’t. I can’t. I’m afraid.
My name is Gray Thompson. I am sixteen, and I am adopted. My parents found me in some vehicle in the Antarctic, with my full name. And yes, we live in the Antarctic. My dad works for the Reflection Gate Program (RGP). He’s one of those scientists that examine the resources that were found by the Selectors. No Selector has ever come out of that world, but they scan any resource with potential with some little device called a Fazer, and then send it to the RGP. And I’ve always wanted to be a Selector, but my dad, Robert, and my mother, Michelle won’t allow it. They know the risks. And of course, when I say I want to go into that world, they automatically think that I’m all brave and bold. But I’m not. Because whenever I ask them to be a Selector, I silently pray they’ll say “No.”
I roll out of bed and land heavily on the floor. I grunt and stand back up. My dog, Alice, comes over and licks me full on the face. She’s a yellow lab, and a lot of the time, is my alarm clock. I put on a heavy jacket and tie up my snow boots.
And then I’m out the door. I pull my scarf up over my face so the wind doesn’t hurt as much when it slaps me in the face. I feel my cheeks going red in the freezing cold. I see the warm lights of my school up ahead. It’s a school for the Selectors, Guards, and kids of scientists who work for the RGP. The day ends six hours later, and I’m walking home with my friend Brian. Somehow, we start talking about the RGP.
“It’s a death trap,” Brian tells me. “They send us in, knowing we’ll die, and pretending we won’t. Is that fair?”
“I don’t know, Brian,” I say. “You know the world is supposed to end in a couple of years, due to lack of trees to give off oxygen and stuff?”
“Yeah, I know we need resources. But what if the Reflection World doesn’t actually have any?”
“Well, we’re just gonna hope it does,” I say. “And if it doesn’t, we’re just gonna pretend it does until the world does end, and we’re gonna keep on pretending, saying that if only we had tried harder, we would’ve found those resources. And they’re gonna say that humans didn’t actually destroy the world, just like everyone says they will. But we know that they have anyway, but we’ll just keep on pretending. Because we just can’t accept it. Because we’re humans, and we can never accept that we screwed everything over, that it’s our fault. We’ll blame it all on that bloody world, saying that we just didn’t search hard enough. And we’re gonna keep on pretending, and we’ll always have something to blame. We’ll just keep on pretending, because that’s what we do best.”
The conversation ends there. I walk into my house, and see my sister, Michaela, sitting there, doing her homework.
“Hey, Gray,” she says.
“Hi” I mutter.
“Why do you seem so sad?” she asks me.
“Do you think that searching the Reflection World is pointless?” I ask her.
“It depends,” she says. “For all we know, there might not be anything in there, and they’re sending kids in there just for the money. But I think there really is something in there, something bigger than we might have ever guessed. For all we know, there might be natives in there, waiting to come out and destroy our world, or maybe they have the same problems we do. That they’re running out of resources, and they want to search our world for them, only they won’t find them, because our world is dying, too. But then, we won’t find resources in their world, because their world is also dying, and it’ll all just be a huge mess. Or, there aren’t natives at all, and this whole thing is a wild goose hunt. It’s all just a huge ‘what if’ question, Gray.”
“I guess you’re right,” I say. And then I go up to my room. Another night of thoughts spinning in circles and no sleep is expected, again.
YOU ARE READING
Pride.
Fiksi IlmiahIt was supposed to be gone. The broken mirror, the only way into that other place, was meant to never be found. It was a portal, and it wasn't safe. But when a scientist finds the mirror, and fixes it, he reactivates the mirror, which is in fact, th...
