Through Metallic Gold Eyes (On Hiatus)

Chapter Six

Chapter Six*

                                               TWO WEEKS LATER

Every wink of sleep I've gotten since I arrived here has been overpowered by nightmares. The only sensation of comfort I recieve in these dreams occur for two seconds when Whilemina first appears. She looks so innocent, so graceful, standing in front of the sunrise, green eyes twinkling.

These two seconds carry all the joy that used to exist in both our lives, and I wish they could last longer. Immediately after follows the horrifying and detailed scene of her being ripped away from my sight; her eyes pleading, the loud shrieks. . . That part only gets worse every time.

Only when I'm lucky do I wake up after that, lying on my mattress soaked in sweat. More often than not, the nightmares continue. And at that point, they're solely filled with the very creatures that have been torturing me for the past two weeks. Marphibates.

They're the reason I'm still here, they're my barrier. They aim to teach us, to maintain us at a level of life they consider healthy, with every class we're forced to go to. We can try to skip, to avoid the abusive superiors, but it's never worth the consequences. There are two sections that the undeveloped Marphibates can go in: strongest and weakest. There is no in between. I, with no muscle and the vulnerability of an ant, squarely fit into the latter category.

Naturally, they prefer the strongest section, small as it may be. But overall, they hate each and every one of us. They think they're doing us a favor by keeping us here; they think, by us being so undeveloped, we are strangers to our own nature. Since it seems that the less developed you are, the greater their fury against you, you'd think that I'd be one of their favorites. On the contrary..

"You're the worst of them all, 1.921.644U," Zaide Halenar had told me with disgust in his voice, "You pronounce countless disrespect towards our kind by possessing every one of our visible characteristics, yet lacking every trait that matters. You are a fake and undeserving creature."

Halenar is the cruelest superior I've come upon, even putting aside the fact that he hates me with a passion. He appears most often in my dreams. Even the way he pronounces 1.921.644U --- my identifying number --- with such repugnance frightens me. And Halenar, along with most of our other supervisors, uses those words often to describe me: fake and undeserving. Imagine him knowing how accurate those words really are.

I shudder on my sticky mattress as I consider this. Everyday I fear what would happen if anybody were to find out I'm a sham. I'm surprised to have come this far without any suspicious looks; only confused ones.

Careful not to disturb the several others sleeping around me in similar, thin mattresses, I sit up in mine. I have no idea what time it is as I turn my head in the large, dark room. There's no way of telling right now; we haven't seen sunlight in weeks and we can only know when the horn blares, indicating for us to get up and retrieve immediately to the showers, then straight to the commissary.

We have exactly forty five minutes to shower and eat, then we are to go straight to our lessons. If you finish showering and eating quickly, though, you are allowed to wait in your sleeping room until the lessons begin officially.

During this time, however, I prefer to search, something I haven't given up. From the facts I've gathered, I know Whilemina has to be here somewhere. What I don't know is how much time I have left to find her.

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The commissary is a somber place. Most of it is quiet, as it is divided by the undeveloped Marphibates, the developed Marphibates, and the Superiors, in the very middle, creating a barrier between the groups. The developed and Superiors, especially the latter, tend to eat in silence. Casual communication between them is rare.