MORTAL ⇴ DYSTOPIAN

Ch. 5

[ CHAPTER 5: VENNA AND TOBY ]

Now, there are no more individual spirits.
Each one of us, all around us, every spirit and light and soul we were born with, was mutilated. Abolished. Eliminated.
Our eyes used to hold so much stories. So much life, so much existence, so much depth that reflected us down to the darkest corners of our hearts. Our smiles, showing so much emotion, so much richness that was held in each of us.

Now, that light is gone.
Now, our eyes are dulled and faded; stony walls of absence that can no longer be broken. Faces that hold nothing but expressions that aren't genuine, features that are no longer our own.
Everywhere I turn, I am greeted with what seems like dead lightbulbs, each and every one of us. No longer holding any essence, any substance, any spirit to show how human we truly are.
Now, I feel as if I am the only spark left; a feeble candle's flame that struggles to burn and glow and illuminate what truly lays in front of our very eyes, but we are blind to by the darkness.

But this girl was not like others.
Her eyes were not dulled, or faded, or armored to the outside world. Her face was not one of holding no emotion, her smile not one of fake depth within her.
This girl was unlike anything I've ever seen.
No, no.
This girl's eyes were dead.
Pools of eternal darkness, spheres of glass, reflecting everything she witnessed away from herself.
Orbs unable to register, unable to experience, unable to see anymore.
This girl's face was twisted into eternal despair, shaded from her hair hanging so limply to her shoulders. Her lips were pressed tightly together, as if sewn to one another with a string and needle. Her shoulders, curled in on themselves, hunched over as if she was trying to shield her very existence from the outside world.

It was when she looked at me, with those darkened glass orbs reflecting my own face, that I noticed that she had ever so pale freckles sprinkled across her nose.
For a while, we simply stared at one another, breathing.
The only sound that hummed through the strangling silence that echoed within the walls of the white, white room we were in.
I stared at this empty shell of a girl, this dead being that walked on two legs, my lips slightly parted in awe.

And then, another sound.
It's metallic hue ricocheted off of the otherwise echoing silent room; a single sentence.
"Welcome, Venna Gennerelli. Please step inside."
The short message had a twinge of irony within it, just because this girl had already stepped inside.

For one small eternity that seemed to stretch beyond our comprehension, the girl known as Venna and I stared what seemed to be into each other's souls, hidden so far down.
This girl fascinated me. The way she stared at me, eyes shaded, face hooded; it was as if I was staring into a mirror of my own, intelligent face. A small, darkened corner of my frozen over spirit was scared of the girl who looked at me like a reflection - never in my life have I ever found myself staring headfirst at a living, breathing human being, exactly like me.

She opened her mouth; I could practically see the the strings that held her lips so tightly together, straining as they stretched, as if they would snap in half and her words trapped for so long would finally be freed.
"What is your date?"
It took me a solid five seconds to realize that she was moving her sewn lips to speak.
Her voice was like a wisp; like a breath of a breeze. I could hardly hear it, floating across the room like a gentle feather.
It was then when I realized she had spoken not only to make sound, but to speak to me.