The Fourth World

Chapter Three

Chapter 3

            “Tac. Tac. Tac.”

The rain splatters against the windows like paint bringing an empty canvas to life. I can feel the raindrops as if they were prickling at my skin, soothing me with their rhythmic pattern. Rain sounds like steadiness, but not necessarily calmness. The clouds have finally opened and they’ve allowed some tears to pass through. A crack forming in the grey blanket in the sky, only knowing there was rain concealed inside when it’s ready to fall.

Looking across at Skylar’s room I can tell that once again, it’s empty. He’s probably just getting ready for Lexi’s Ceremony, I reassure myself, but even though I have not heard the words out loud, I feel the uncertainty in my voice.

            “Ember! Ember get down here!”

Sometimes I wonder whether the whiteness surrounding our home makes our voices echo more than usual. My elbow, stuck against the wood of my windowsill, quickly detaches itself and I run downstairs.

            “What is it—” I stop midsentence as another, always familiar and monotone voice interrupts me from out of nowhere. Projected on the wall of our living room I see the rigid face of an Authority Member.

            “Citizens. Incompletes and Completes. I would like to congratulate citizen numbers 28, 12, 76, 94…”

I feel my heart bumping faster and faster against my ribcage, losing beat with the still-steady rain. My ears take in every little word, letter, sound the robotic lady makes, fixing my mind on the only two numbers I hope to hear her say.

“…13,…”

I slowly raise a finger to my lips to check if those words hadn’t come out of my own mouth instead of hers. By the way my mother is smiling and coming closer to me, with her hands raised in the air ready to have me wrapped inside them, I understand that it was really the Authority Member who announced them. I can’t even tell whether my heart has stopped or is beating too hard for me to even notice. The warmth from my mother seems to calm me, decreasing my beat to match once again with the rain.

Nobody says anything, apart from the rest of the two-digit numbers being called out. My brother just stares at me lovingly and curious as always, and suddenly I notice my father only walking into the room now. There is no emotion on his face, none that’s showing anyway.

“The Authority wants to congratulate them for completing the Second Stage and finally arriving to the Third. The third step to Completeness, but in truth the first to the actual start of their own, independent lives. Their job will be the beginning of their new era, one of the most crucial stages and significant not only to themselves as the previous stages were, but to their and our society. Ceremonies will be held in the Third Hall on Sunday, 1800 hours. We salute and congratulate you once again.”

The ‘click’ snaps and the projection disappears. I look around the room, the same room I’ve been in all my life, but strangely it seems distant to me now. It’s like I’m not there anymore, my mind being the only room open to me right now.

“Well, Ember. Congratulations. Not long now until you’re like your parents.” My mother’s smile brings me back into her arms, and there’s nothing I can answer.

            “Not long until you’re like everybody else you mean. A Complete.” He does not say it as a compliment, like my mother had, and something about my father’s face, the emptiness, gives me the sensation he was almost correcting my mother.