Insight

Chapter Twelve: Clubs and Another Show

"It's only three fifteen," Raven commented when we arrived back at the cabins, "I thought it went until four-ish?"

I was out of breath and barely had the energy to shrug before I collapsed on the floor.

"Oh man we shouldn't have gone." Moxy managed to exhale, lying down on the floor next to me.

"Wake me up when we gotta go to the club thing." Brandon said, leaning against the wall. Moxy somehow found the energy to shoot him a dirty look for whatever reason but I was too tired to try and ask why. Before I knew it, I had fallen asleep on the floor.

"You should be sleeping peacefully." the familiar voice said, "A deep, dark sleep of exhaustion."

"What?"

"Why are you dreaming?" the voice asked.

"Am I dreaming?" I asked. Everything was dark so I couldn't see anything but the air was heavy and I felt a presence near me.

"Why are you dreaming?" the voice asked again, a sweet, lilting voice that somehow sounded ominous.

"I-I'm not," I responded, confused. Suddenly everything lit up. I was in a field, looking at a young girl with an eyebrow piercing and a bar pierced through the top of the bridge of her nose between her eyes.

"They aren't growing right again. Another field wasted." came a different voice, from far away.

"It's still edible. Just, not corn." the girl called back. She sounded familiar, though not the original voice. Her hair was auburn, like mine, and her skin was tan from working in the fields. She turned to me and smiled wide, and I was caught in her eyes. They were green, almost identical to mine-was she me? but something was dif-

"Syany, you need to wake up." Moxy's voice pulled me into consciousness. I blinked open my eyes to see her leaning over me.

"I brought wheelchairs." I looked over Moxy's shoulder to see who spoke and saw Nurse Allison. "They never learn. Kids will always overdo themselves. So they brought the wheelchairs back. I don't know how long. But they're also giving rest days at the request of Eir."

Still foggy from my nap, I nodded. "That's good. I need one of those." I managed to get up on my own and let Nurse Alison lead me into a wheelchair. In addition to all my muscles feeling as if they were on fire, there was also a crick in my neck from sleeping on the floor. The pain radiating throughout my body pushed my dream from my mind. The others were all getting into wheelchairs or being helped up and I realized Nurse Alison was the only Nurse around.

"Who's going to take us?" I asked.

"They're the programmed ones, Syany." Iggy said from his own wheelchair.

"Oh." I was still trying to push the sleep from my system.

"They'll take you to the Dining Hall and they're all set up to talk about clubs." Nurse Alison said. Moxy yawned to my left and I tried to stifle one of my own. The wheelchairs started up silently and we began toward the Dining Hall, the wheelchairs sticking solely to the paths. On the way, more and more wheelchairs joined our own and soon the mass of wheelchairs stopped in front of the Dining Hall, lining up neatly. I was situated behind Moxy and she kept looking back at me. The guy with the megaphone from before was standing in front of the doors, talking animatedly with one of the Nurses.

Once the wheelchair movement had completely stopped, the guy with the megaphone turned it on, and in the same cheerful voice as last night said, "Hello again, campers! Today was an eventful day and Eir tells me you guys have outdone yourselves, and not in a good way. Apparently, some of you pushed too hard and caused an overflow in the Infirmary between people passing out and people getting injured. So schedules have changed to have every other day as a rest day for awhile. In addition, the wheelchairs will be around for another week, then reduced to use only on rest days for awhile. You are, however, advised not to use them when you can manage on your own.