DAMAGED.
That's what the society calls us, the prisoners, the ones who are feared and hated. We are parasites of our Intelligence Bodies, the carriers of the plague. At least, that's what the Majarlikan military forces said. Of course, it's a fabric...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
A D E N
Mom's eyes are red-rimmed from discharging so much tears, her face is now rubicund. She lose dad. Now, she'll get to lose me. I'll have to leave them to join my Intelligence Body, enhance my skill of logic and reasoning-if any. My heart starts hammering in my chest, nervous though my departure would be later, in the afternoon. It seems that the numbers in the clock are slowly peeling off one by one.
Can I survive a group-or probably an empire-of Elytorphs in a single room? Will there be tricky lies and betrayals among us? Will my head contain all the mathematical formulas? Will my brain explode? Will I become insane? Will I be brainwashed by my fellows? Hopefully not, because I can't stand forgetting my family, from where I truly belong.
We silently take our breakfast. Spoons and forks faintly singing against our plates. Mom remains isolated, her thoughts somewhere in the void, probably with Dad in it. Jersan occasionally glances at mom, concerned, as if planning to start a conversation, but he doesn't speak. I avert my attention from them and try to focus on my food, slicing an omelette. The yolk bleeds and flows to the bread and cheese, staining it yellow until...
"Who's she?"
I tilt my head up. It's Jersan. I thought he's talking to Mom but his eyes are targeted to me.
"Excuse me?"
"The lady yesterday," he says while pointing me with his spoon. "I saw you two talking. Who is she?"
"She's Dad's fan," I answer, storing the bread in my mouth. "She likes Dad's photography."
"And her name?"
"I don't know. She just left unnoticed." I reach for a tumbler of warm non-Youngster choco milk (as what the advertisement said) and gulp half of the content in.
Jersan squints his eyes dubiously, looking for a hint of lie in my face.
"I understand that a lady of such beauty cannot be shared among men, but I'm only asking her name. I don't intend to steal your future wife." He grins. "Such bounty."
Pervert! A memory of her cleavage allows the blood to flush up my cheeks.
"Our conversation was short-lived," I say, almost deadpan. I wish I had the chance to ask her name.
"If it wasn't, you would have asked her VideoCom code, so you two could secretly communicate." Jersan wiggles his brows, then chuckles. "Finally, you're in love. I was beginning to think that you're a gay."
I imagine my nose blowing out smoke in irritation. My hand aches to fork his eye out when I notice mom taking a napkin. She wipes her lips, but I think she's only hiding her grin. So I decide to stab a part of omelette and eat it.
"She's a Fresciar, so uncanny for a lady like her," Jersan says thoughtfully, unconsciously twirling a few strands of hair, as he is wont to do when he's thinking.
Because of that, I contemplate. Most of the Fresciars I see are confined at National Fresciars Hospital and Medical Center (NFHMC) or stay behind doors of their house with their relatives, caregivers, and/or guardians. We seldomly see them outside their houses. Many are mentally and/or physically challenged individuals, some are those who are Phyrivoxes who refuse to get transmuted or those who has no chance of mutating due to the severity of their loss.
"What kind of Fresciar could she possibly be?" Jersan echoes the question building up in me.
"I don't know," I murmur. "She didn't look like she's challenged."
After a few ticks of a clock, our eyes go wide when realization dawned upon us.
"Could it be that she's old?" I say before he could speak.
"I don't know. Maybe she got herself a-"
Our conversation pauses when the copper kettle shrieks, alarming us that the water has reached the final boiling stage.
"I'll get it," Mom says. She hastily stands up from her seat and scurries towards the kitchen. She almost looks irritated by the disruption of the kettle to our discussion.
"I see no other possible reason why she's a Fresciar," Jersan continues. "I think that she got herself a plastic surgery."
I nod. Do I have to feel disappointed? I may not know her entirely, but I'm sure that she got in her a personal story buried in her soul.
"It's not bad, is it?" I say to Jersan.
"Of course, it isn't," Jersan says as if the matter shouldn't be put into question. "If I get old and I didn't enjoy my youth, I'd like a life extension, so I'll build a time machine for myself."
He lets out a chuckle and quickly wipes it away. "What I mean is that everyone would have expressed their despair differently. Remember the Psychosexual Theory? But as much as possible they want to get rid of the despair before it would consume them."
"Yeah," I say, dazed, not believing myself of the theory that she could be an aged woman. Basing on what I can still remember, she has no sign of plastic surgery in her features. There must be something else, something deep under what is commonly known.
