It was a perfect night. Ironic really, as perfect is the last word I would use to describe the world I lived in. My skin became paler and paler as the hours dragged by, a pungent stench crawled up my nostrils; burning bodies. Struggling for air I demanded my brain to remember how to inhale and exhale, but then I remembered there was no air to inhale. I was in The Chambers.
I never really feared The Chambers until yesterday, until my name was called, and then fear took over. I felt it surge through my veins. I lost all hope. I say that as though I had any hope to begin with. When you are born with pale skin all concepts of hope and freedom disappear. Pale skin means nothing. I remember once I tried to escape from it; I tried to become like them; I wanted to be perfect. My fingernails dug in so deep they allowed escape for a crimson red liquid to trickle down my arm. I realised then that my theory wouldn't work. I was deemed to fail as soon as I begun.
You are probably wondering why I am so afraid of The Chambers. I've heard stories, you see. Stories of the white rooms they trap you in. People say they have no bed, no food, no nothing. The white walls are said to drive you insane; they control you, restrict you from walking more than ten yards in any given direction. All these stories I now know to be true, as I am trapped within the white walls. The funny thing is the outside of The Chambers looks ideal, the walls are a shiny black, glistening in the sunlight. The black walls stand tall, impenetrable; they have lots of friends too, which join them on either side. They stand like an army which has one sole purpose in life: to keep the insignificant chamber rooms concealed.
The sunlight terrifies me, I wake up to a beautiful day every morning and it kills me that I can't feel the warm beams making my skin darker, making my skin more like the colour of their skin. I don't sleep during the day, I don't sleep during the night, I don't sleep much at all. The concrete numbs my body. I spend the night staring pointlessly out of the slit in the wall, the moonlight calms me down, almost sets me free. Not literally, of course. I do think about trying to break out of this place, running away, but that wouldn't make this end. Who would I be running from? The monsters that guard these halls have allies outside, they both think alike. Both gain pleasure from someone else's pain. My pain. It’s sick really. Makes me want to vomit, but there's nothing inside me to come out. I haven't been given a proper meal in my whole life. I've always lived on scraps, but I don't even get them in here.
I don't want pity. That's not why I write. I want change. A revolution almost. Optimistic, I know. I suppose that's what you can call me, I'm going to change my name from Aeron to Optimism. Am I being foolish? I can feel that pungent stench crawling up my nostrils again; more burning bodies. Of course I'm being foolish. If anyone even thought of trying to rebel against them they'd be killed, murdered for even contemplating the thought. Burnt to death if I'm being precise. I hope I don't smell that bad, I hope I don't smell at all. I feel demoralized for having to hope for something so sinister, the thought of the flames eating my flesh sends shivers through my body. I will be able to feel the excruciating ache of losing each limb to the smouldering inferno. I never really feared death itself, it was this wait in the white-walled room that I feared, being trapped within a cage with no possible escape. Truly terrifying. I can hear a row outside, I think it's time, I think it's my time.
''Aeron. Go and get Aeron! We're going to get rid of him today. He's wasted enough oxygen.''
I wonder what sort of sadistic pleasure they gain out of this, their grouping of us like a herd of animals. At last a bit of company. Someone to talk to. I'm finally reunited with my own kind.
I don't understand.
Why aren't they acknowledging me? They won't even make eye contact.
I've been rejected yet again, but this time it mattered. For the first time in my short, pointless life I thought I would be accepted. I was wrong. Rejection is my only fate.
Charming really, how much no one cares about you, I guess pale skins really are born alone to die alone.
