The Network ( Book One of the Grounders Series )

1

Dedicated to so1tgoes the author of the Runner Series. Keep up the great work!

Anger boils in my veins, filling every crevice of my body with white-hot fury. This is how it is every night. My sleep is restless and fitful, not allowing me to dream. I desperately need to dream.

I roll over on my mattress, ripping my pillow out from under my head and chuck it blindly across my bedchamber. It thumps softly against to wooden door.

I mutter a string of vile curses and flail around in my bed. I'm getting fed up with this insomnia, why can't I just sleep.

I am so consumed in my bitter thoughts that I don't realize how close I've come to the edge of my bed until I'm flying off of it. I hit the stone floor hard, cushioned only by my thin blankets, knocking the air out o my lungs.

I groan and roll over on my back, heaving a choked sigh of defeat.

I stay on the floor for a moment, until my lungs can breathe again. I will never have The Dream. I'm destined to be shunned by my own people just because I can't get some damn shuteye.

I roll onto my knees and lift myself bodily off the ground, hoping to death my fall didn't wake Mother up. She's already disappointed as it is that her son can't be normal like the rest of the Grounders.

I lay down on my mattress and wrap myself in my small blankets, still fuming with a scabbed anger.

Only two more hours. Two more hours until the Hearth sputters to life and I'll be able to wander the Network before I have to report to the schoolroom, where my life will commence on this path of utter, living hell.

I feel slightly swaddled, and that brings hope that I'll get a lick of sleep.

My mind wanders to something. Now I'm daydreaming. This is how I sleep. I daydream at random intervals during the day and the. I feel energized afterwards. But it always gets me in trouble with Educator Alexia, no matter how much I try to tell her I can't control it, she still raps me across the knuckles with her ominous steel rod.

I reach over to my beside table and grope around until I grab hold of the tiny cardboard box. I open and pull out a match. I strike the match against the rough, sandpapery side of the box. A small circle of light casts, just enough for me to light the oil lamp on my table.

My room is bathed in firelight and I blow out the match, taking in the delicious smell of burnt wood that comes with the stream of smoke.

In the light, I look down at my knuckles. They are strung with thin white scars. My pinkie on my left hand has grown slightly tilted right at the knuckle from when Mother swung her wooden rod at me and I used my hands to defend myself. Afterwards she'd halfheartedly apologized, and then told me that she didn't want to waste our rations for the month of medical supplies to heal my broken knuckle. My friend Cicada had loaned me ten of her ration coins, with was enough for a small package of gauze, which I taped together. I'd wrapped my makeshift bandage around my ring finger and my pinkie and secured it tight, but a few months later when I was told I could take it off, my pinkie was crooked. I didn't complain much because the swelling and the pain were gone.

My knuckles are an abject sight to look at, but my slender arms are worse, riddled with swollen purple bruises and scars from the affliction I get from Carter at school.

Carter was the first of our generation to experience The Dream, which instantly made him somewhat famous amongst the kids in our schoolroom. He says, well, he does more than just speaks, that I am unworthy of bearing pure skin because I'm not a true Grounder. Sometimes I appreciate when he's in a punchy mood, because then I don't have to here his voice. He may have been the first to dream the Dream, but he was definitely not the first to hit puberty.

The smell of cooking oil kicks me out of grogginess. While lost in my thoughts I almost fell asleep but this cursed world just can't have that happen.

I stand and cross my bedchamber to the old, rickety dresser on the other side of the stone room, next to the door. I strip off my nightclothes, moist from cold-sweat, and pull out a fresh tunic and trousers. Pull on the clothes and then grasp the brass door handle. I open it slowly, cautiously, hoping it won't wake Mother. It creaks slightly but is otherwise mercifully silent. Once the doors open I remember the light and blow it out before I go.

I cross our living chamber to the front door, which is built much more solidly than my bedroom door, so it hardly makes a sound as a pull it open and shut it behind me.

I stand in front of my closed door, mentally clicking on my echolocation skills. They don't work unless I take the time to imagine turning them on. Another trait that dubs me as different, as unworthy to live amongst a courageous people as the Grounders. That one is still a secret, luckily.

The wide corridor, the main artery of our clan chamber, rises into view before me as I absently begin to click my tongue against the roof of my mouth.

I walk down the main corridor, passing many closed door of living chambers. Behind those doors are people sleeping soundly, maybe even some who are dreaming The Dream. I feel a twinge of envy towards them. They don't know what it's like to be different, to be outcasted by your own people, by your mother.

In some ways I feel superior, they have no idea who I am. They couldn't figure me out. But that good feeling ends usually when Carter tell me I'm nothing more than a speck of dust in this world, while everyone else has amounted to things I've never dreamed of. It's a cheap shot but Carter doesn't care, considering that he throws it in my face everyday.

The main corridor ends in a massive stone drawbridge style door, with the cage pulled down in front of it. Outside the door is the rest of the Network, the Artery, and the other clans.

I take a left turn and head towards the bathhouse near the door.

Mercifully, it's empty. I light the oil lamp next to the stall I choose and pull my clothes off, stacking them in a neat pile, safely placed away from the lamp.

It takes a while for the stall to fill with steaming water. Once it's a inch or two away from the rim of the porcelain tub, I close the tab and sink into the scalding water.

My tense muscles relax as I sit in the tub. I remain idle for a few moments, waiting for the stiffness to leave my body. Then I duck beneath the water and run my fingers through my hair. Once of loosened the locks up and washed away any remaining sweat, I grab some soap off the shelf and run the bar over my hair. I rinse my hair and then scrub the slick feeling of dried sweat off my body.

Once I'm satisfied, I step out of the tub and towel off with one of the clothes stacked on the shelf outside the stall. I brush my hair out of my eyes and then dress myself. Once I'm entirely done bathing, I pull the plug at the bottom of the tub and water as the used water drains to nowhere.

After my bath, I bring the lamp with me to the mirror at the back of the room, where I spend a good deal of time studying myself.

My face is slender, with defined feature. High cheekbones, slightly pointed nose, narrow chin. My eyes are the only particularly round item on my face, with long lashes and thin brows. My eyes glisten a surreal orange color in the light. They are normally as silver and shiny as a blade, but they are easily changed by the light.

Then I notice more. One of my eyes is purple around the lids and slightly swollen. My nose as a bump along the bridge where I was broken a few years back. My left temple has a scabbed scratch over it, all thanks to Carter. Mother wouldn't be stupid enough to hit my face. And Educator Alexi is only aloud to rap our knuckles our our backsides.

I set the lamp down on the stone countertop and blow it out, relishing the smell of fire.

My face looks eerie in echolocation, so I turn away from the mirror. I walk toward my living chambers, not ready to face another day in the Network.