The Artists' Palette

Chapter 3

           I stare up at the Cranium.  My hair whips around my face due to the strong gusts of wind, powering the eighteen windmills positioned at the front of the building.  I assume that the location of the Cranium is on top of a hill for this very reason.  The Administrators are practical if nothing else, and I suppose it was smart to do this.  Now they will never run out of energy to power their machines.

            I glance at the building, a blinding shade of white.  The windmills are providing a strobe effect, changing the shocking shade of white into a dark shade of gray.  It reminds me of the ticking of a clock, as if time is being counted down until our destruction.

            My first thought is that the building is a blank canvas, waiting to be decorated.  I can picture exactly how my fellow artists would’ve changed it.

            Arella would cover the walls in beautiful swirls of every color, and Corbin would cover it in maps of fantastical lands that sprung from his imagination.  Elsie’s iridescent flowers would come to life on the windmills, Kenton’s animals would peek over the edges of the generators positioned at the front of the building, and Lark’s birds would soar on the seemingly endless stretch of the blank building.  My brush would cover the huge expanse with fiery colors and patterns.

            We are taken into the building through a series of identical hallways, ripping me from my fantasy.  Each hall has a digital clock implanted inside the wall on either side.  It’s all so blank, so boring.  It goes against every fiber in my being.  I need colors and excitement and emotions, not robotic practicality.  But I guess it doesn’t matter what I want anymore.

            Lark and I are taken to a small room with nothing but two shelves.  “This is your cell, for the moment.  You will be fetched for questioning soon enough.”

            The captain leaves, and I watch him with hatred.  That is when I notice the camera above the door, watching our every move.

            Lark starts to say something, and I make a pointed look at the camera. Noticing it, he silences himself as well.  I can’t bear to not talk at all, though.  The topic of escape is just clearly off limits.

            I try to say something about how much it sucks, but I just burst out in tears.  I can’t stop, no matter how hard I try, and my knees buckle beneath me.  I sit in a ball on the floor, sobbing my eyes out.

            I can’t even begin to describe the unimaginable pain that suddenly traps me, coming in from all sides.  All this grief and pain is suffocating me, overwhelming me.  There’s just too much to mourn.  I already lost my parents in spirit when they were deactivated.  They were like robots, and after a while, Ashla became one, too.  I don’t even see her anymore.  She was shipped off to some building where she works and sleeps and eats.  I wish we at least saw her on holidays.  I wish we still had holidays.

            At least Mom and Dad were still physically present when the Administration stole their minds from being with us.

            I’m vaguely aware of Lark coming over and sitting next to me. I have no idea how long I cried, but it feels like millenniums. I don’t remember how I end up in his arms again, but that’s where I find myself when I stop the waterworks.  I look up at him, staring down at me with concern.