ASUNDER (I) : tmr newt

32: I'm Exposed

32 Ella

Now they know my fake name.

I've missed the one they say is named Zart. Obviously that isn't his name. Zart is barely part of a sound. A nickname perhaps, but a name absolutely not.

I haven't seen the one they call Zart since I passed out in the garden. Since before my violet friend reappeared. Before she disappeared as well. It seems as if it has been thirty years, but Zart still crouches over his garden, as young as he was last time I saw him. His hands are still cracked and creaking as he runs them through the dirt, bleeding in the spots where his fingers meet his nails.

You can often tell a lot about someone from their nails. A proverb that colours the periwinkle air. She was wrong in the end. Everyone in the Glade has the same nails. Ones that are short and dirty from wrangling their way through hard work and sweating. Every hand except for mine.

She was right after all.

He glances up at me as he works occasionally. I have concentrated myself on the tomatoes I ruined a few days ago. Any traces of me being amongst the plants has completely disappeared. I wonder why my impact on the world around me is so temporary.

The smoke man stifles a laugh as I speak. One that spins in his mouth from the force at which he mocks me. I would say I feel bad for him, since he seems to have nothing to do with his time except exasperate mine.

When will he leave me alone?

When I stop giving him the power to control me.

Her beautiful hands wrap around mine. We are pure opposites. She is the cleanest of whites. From her nail beds, to the soft hairs on her hands that travel up her arms, she is pure. I am dark like secrets and questions, and she is as white as the answers. Sometimes I wish I looked more like her, and other times I wish everyone had a bit of her in their skin.

I can feel her breath on my neck. Her hands trail up my arms, until one finds its way around my stomach and the other finds its way onto the back of my head.

"Hello my sunshine."

I shrug into her touch. We've been apart for years but God do I miss how her skin bleeds into mine. It was never like this before she left. Or maybe it was and I just don't remember. After all, she was 13, and I was 12. Was it like this before?

I want to remember, but I do not want to steal away from this moment. We are complimentary colours. Our joints are puzzle pieces that have longed to be put back together, because without her I can never be whole.

As soon as she is there she is gone, and so is the smoke man. Their clouds chased away but the heat of the air, and the cries of a boy standing out by the door.

I stand on my heels, spinning around to get a look at what is going on. The sun is burying itself opposite the boy who is shouting at the corner of the Glade. The Runner Boy. Not just any Runner boy, but Dawn's. Her Maze Boy is yelling by the Doors, staring out. For a second, I think he is going to run in.

There are feet pounding all around me. Boys dropping things to head to the door. They can hear whatever the boy is calling out, but I can't.

Leo exits the Homestead, her eyes in a panic before she jogs past me. Michelle is quick to follow her, but she slows her pace when she catches a glimpse of Leo running up before her. I thought after last night we would all be good again. However it doesn't seem like the case.

I get up to move closer, but I feel Zart's hand on my shoulder.

"Don't," he begins, "it's better we watch from here. Safer, especially for you."

"What's happening?"

I find it easy to talk to Zart. He is the same as I am. No memories, that's not what I mean. He is quite, and knows a lot more than he wants people to know. He doesn't recognise the boys as leaders here, despite he himself being one of them. An enigma of a boy, Zart puzzles me.

That's alright though, because I like being puzzled. I scratch the same part of his brain that he scratches of mine. If I didn't know better, I would say that we were best friends. The only problem is, I think this is one of the first times we have spoken.

"A Runner hasn't made it back," he glances down at the black watch on his wrists. "We've haven't even got a minute until the Doors shut."

"So?"

He glances at me out of the corner of his eye. He is a nearly two feet taller than me. I barely push five feet. Somehow I am even shorter than Michelle. I'd say Zart is over six feet tall. He is nearly as long as the one who talks like Dawn. Newt.

I hate using their names. It feels as if I am playing straight into the smoke man's hands.

"So, he's dead." Zart says it firmly, and I know he is right. "No one lasts a night out in the Maze with those Grievers. They'll find his body in a few days. If the Grievers are feeling nice, they'll drop his body by the Doors for some poor shank to drag in tomorrow. Monsters."

"They're not monsters." I tell him.

He shakes his head. "Doing your job doesn't mean you are doing what's right."

"People only do what they know," I reply. "Robots are the same."

"Robots?"

The smoke man put them here to keep us inside. Our adversaries make us cower in fear. Those Grievers are nothing but zeroes and ones put together in an order that make them violent. We are the same as people. We were programmed to serve an exact purpose, and we never question why we behave in the fashion we do. Why we even speak the language we do.

I should know. As far as I have counted, I speak four.

Zart is smart enough that I could explain this to him, and he would understand me. Only I do not have the time, nor the energy, nor the ability to hold off a seizure. Instead, I nod at him solemnly.

Before us, I watch Dawn reach to put a hand on the Runner boy's shoulder, as the Doors slam shut.

~~~~~~

Welp, there goes one. I had to kill somebody, it's barely my style to wait this long. Although that is all about to change soon enough.