Painless

Painless

       It’s white. All of it. The color refreshment, the color of renewal. That’s what they are soliciting it as now, aren’t they? That it’s just a new beginning. But it’s empty, meaningless, if you can’t feel the emotions that drive you, leaving you out into the opens that want to kill you. Will I die? No. But in a way, I am guaranteed absolute and certain death.

       Nervous, I bite my freshly manicured nails, and gag at the metallic taste of the polish. The room I rest in is small, but the only room I am positive doesn’t have a camera that monitors us at all times. My stomach is twisting, writhing, and I feel core shakes. What if he’s already done? What if they already took him from me? I couldn’t live without him.

       Not yet, I pray, digging my nails into my palm, trying to drive away the thought. Oh God, please not yet.

       Two minutes pass in silence before the door at the storage room clicks open, and I leap up from my seat on a makeshift chair. I launch at Asher, arms seizing his waist, pulling his body against mine. He gasps at the sudden pull, but doesn’t retreat. Instead, he melts into me, and I feel as our hearts beat together as they have too often before.

       I feel the cool touch of his skin on mine as he whispers, “You look beautiful, Siena.” He finishes his word by letting his lips brush over my cheek, making a giddy heartbeat rise in my ears. I try to hide the blush, but I know I already can’t. I can never hide the excitement his compliments leave me with.

       “I look fake,” I say, my voice muffled into his shirt. I look too happy, too prim, and too proper. I am not who I want so badly to become. I want to become free, but I am pulled back in restraints that can never be broken. Restraints that have always held me tight, bound me to some higher force.

       “Bryon would be proud of you,” Asher says softly, but his body automatically tenses at the comment. Maybe on another day, I would’ve taken the words, held them close to my chest, and maybe even treasured them. But today, they seem like a white hot pain, reminding me so sharply of everything that I have lost and everything I will similarly loose.

       I can’t stop the memory from coming. I was younger, only thirteen, with my legs coiled up close to my chest. My face was hot with fever, my eyes blurred with tears. The room smelled sour with vomit and harsh chemical cleansers.  I couldn’t speak, my body writhing with pain whenever I made a movement. There’d been a sickness developing through Maysle’s Compound for Unprivileged Children, and it’d been killing. Suddenly, I was afraid I will die from it too.

       A boy walked in, only sixteen,his blonde hair buzzed short for the first time. He wore a beautiful suite,pure white, much like the one Asher wears today. His eyes were rimmed with

fatigue, and drenched in sadness as his eyes found mine. I struggled to smile,

but even that caused pain. He sat on the edge of my bed, and brushes back a strand of brown hair, drenched in sweat.

       “Siena, I love you,” he said, his eyes wild, looking at a small camera that beeped in the corner of this cold room. “Don’t forget. I’m always going to be right here with you.”

       And at that moment, the Monitors broke through the doors, and gripped Byron's arms. He struggled against them,shouting, “Please! She’s my sister! Don’t do this!”

       But they dug a tranquilizer into his side, and he collapsed limply. They pulled him away, not caring whether or not he got scraped and bruised. With a start, I realized the last of my family is gone, and I begun to weep.