ASUNDER (I) : tmr newt

21: I'm Representative

21 Leo

I can't breathe.

It's dark, and I am lying on the cold hard ground, and my lungs have been pressed into my chest so flat that I barely exist in the third dimension.

I am only fear. The terrified thought that pulse in the back of throat. If I wanted to speak, I couldn't. Not only am I exhausted, but I am alone. I'm in a place I don't know, surrounded by people I don't know. Even my own body is one I couldn't recognise in a mirror.

I couldn't tell you the colour of my own eyes. Nor could I discern if I have freckles or not.

"Hey, are you awake?"

I pull myself up to a sitting position, leaning on my hands in the dirt.

I have been awake for five days. Not straight, and maybe the word I am looking for isn't awake. It might be better to say I have been aware. The current situation I am in does not escape me. I am acutely aware of the Glade, and my lack of control, and my own inferiority. I am surrounded by chaos, and I can't create order to this mess, no matter how hard I try.

I can't speak, so I nod at Alby. He gestures for me to follow him, moving a few steps away.

Managing to drag myself off the ground, I follow him into the Glade. There are hammocks around and the Med-jacks offered me the bed in the Homestead, but I couldn't accept. Not while the other girls are sleeping on the ground.

Besides, the little girl is in that bed right now.

"I've been thinking." He begins as I trail along behind him. His figure is barely a silhouette in the dark of the night, only illuminated by the stars up above us. "You were right."

"About?" I mutter. Not trying to be rude, only attempting to clarify. I think I am right about everything I say to him. I was at the meeting after all; he heard my two cents on what we should do with Michelle, what I think she is actually guilty of, and who I think she is.

If I am honest, I pity her.

"About being a representative." He tells me. "You girls threw a whole new variable into the Glade. Shuck, you guys are the first Greenies since Nick died. We need the shucking rules, now more than ever with all the klunk going on. So I'm giving you a seat on the council."

What? "You're making me a Keeper?"

"Don't get ideas in your skull, slinthead." He tells me. "You ain't going to be given a vote. You'll just be a voice for the girls. You're too shucking new to get an actual say in anything, Greenbean. Though I'll let you be heard, from now on."

"You decided this yourself?" I have so many questions now.

"It was a decision we voted on when we decided what to do with Michelle, you know, after..." he trails off before looking back at me. "Whatever. It doesn't shucking matter now. What does is that we came to the consensus that you deserve a spot on the council, even if you ain't got a vote."

It makes me frustrated, though I am not about to complain. What really matters is having our voices heard. I don't know enough about this place, or the people in it to actually be able to decide the things they do. Banishments in particular, but even something as simple as curfew and who gets to move up to Runner status, and how long someone can work before they are entitled to a break. I am content simply to sit and listen, and speak.