MisPrints

•Chapter 7•

We were returned back to our dorms in silence, lead by an Overseer, who demanded that we weren't even allowed to glance at the other girls.

We spent the next three hours sat around in our room waiting for lunch. No one said much. Even Pri couldn't bring herself to spite anyone. Assembly doesn't usually finish this early, normally we sing the 'anthem', say the code of conduct and have a few speeches read to us by the deputy governor, a tall man with his hair all slicked over on one side of his head. It looks ridiculous, but obviously we're not going to around telling him that.

Before the end of the assembly Edine had sent out two other members of the populous. The first one was a boy who had fallen asleep, and the other was a little girl who had begun to cry because she was afraid of Edine's shouting.

But what was it that had made her so angry? Something that Zak said?nMy mind began to wonder about Zak, shut up in his cavity. I feel a bit sorry for him to be honest. I've been sent to cavity before, and believe me it's no fun at all.

Because we aren't all just clones....

After a while, the lunch siren rang and we were hoarded off to the dining hall. It's on the 19th floor, two floors below the Assembly room. Apparently the meal today is pasta cheese bake, but just looks like mush to me. They arn't fooling anyone, except Lea maybe.

"Thanks!" She whispers as we swap the bowls around. "are you sure you don't want it? It's nice today!" Kat rolls her eyes before eating another spoonful. She doesn't like the slime either, but unlike me, she can't stand being hungry so she just eats it.

"I don't know how you manage to not die from hunger!" She told me once, "and you always get away with it too! Swapping bowls almost every meal, how do they not notice?!"

I shrug my shoulders. "At least Lea enjoys it?"

Kat is the closest thing I've had to a friend since Mia. Pri used to make fun of how curly her hair was, so we found we had something in common. A common enemy that is. Soot and Curly. We make a good team.

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Lea's more of a little sister to me than a friend. Since she was made to sit next to me at meals, I've always felt like its my duty to ensure she's happy. When I was younger, no one ever spoke to me or tried to make friends with me. I won't let another MisPrint feel as unloved as I did. With her big brown eyes, it's almost impossible not to want to take care of her. She's shorter than the rest of the 'Z' generation, probably another one of her faults. She gets her full diagnosis done in a few years, when she turns 15.

"The diagnosis" is where they do a full examination on you and work out all of your MisPrints. Even though some are really obvious, like hair and eye colour, there are also more subtle ones such as you body proportions.

They wait until you're 15 because by then you've usually grown and developed enough for them to make an accurate profile on you. And you have diagnosis every year until you reach the age of 18.

Then you get let out, I think. It's the only explanation to as why the oldest people in Xplic are 17.  

Either that or they get taken somewhere else.

Mia would've been 19 this year. I hope wherever she is now is better than here. Not that that would be very difficult, any place must be better than here. But Mia disappeared when she was 15. She had only just had her diagnosis, if you just get sent away at 18, why didn't she just wait? Unless...

I'm brought abruptly out of my thoughts and freeze as the panel to my cavity activates and slides open. I glance at the projected clock and it reads 3.45pm.