ADRONITIS (II) : tmr minho

20: I could be Hearing

Ella 20:

It's late when I walk into the room Alby is in. There is a chair in the corner, which I sit on. The wood scratches against my legs. There is a nail, sticking out only slightly, that nicks my leg. I brush myself away. My jeans have been ripped open. I am bleeding. I pay it no mind.

I face him as he groans in his bed. I don't think he even knows I'm in the room. If he does, he says nothing. The pain that compresses his chest causes the white sheets that surround him to almost engulf him whole.

It's weird to be awake. I can actually see everything in the room around me. There is a wooden floor beneath me, hard and splintering. Every time Alby moves, the bed frame creaks. I expect it to shatter beneath him, and for the whole world to collapse under his weight.

Everything is fragile. I only notice it now. The air is hollow and light. The sun peaks in the window, but it also avoids me. It glares at me. It is a dull yellow.

Much like the sheets stretched over the mattress, old and ratting, tinged yellow in colour. All the boys who have gone through the Changing have probably sweat through them over time. Alby is neither first nor last.

The colour yellow reminds me of something that I have forgotten. Out of instinct, my hand flies up to the red slit on the back of my neck. The skin hurts and has crusted over. My hair falls over the incision mark well enough that no one has noticed it yet. I can feel it though.

It is an odd thing to be living.

Alby pulls himself up into a sitting position. He stares me down, blinking a few times as if he was not expecting me to be camouflaged in with the shadows. Here I am, though. Waiting to speak to him, perhaps.

It hadn't occurred to me before now that I could tell Alby what Clint did. Although, he might not believe me. Clint is the Med-jack, and I am delusional. Perhaps Zart would vouch for me, as would Leo. Not that it matters.

I don't remember anymore. Though I remember that I once could.

See, that's another thing they stole from me. It's worse that I can remember that I could remember. It provides me with some sort of background for information I can't put together. For some reason, I am here. I don't know why though. I'm certain I wasn't supposed to be, and I don't like the girl who shares a room with me even though I don't know why, and I forget the Greenie's name but he annoys me too.

Solution: It must be something I learned before I got here.

"You're awake," Alby notices.

I stiffen. Maybe I wasn't expecting him to speak back to me, or maybe I wasn't expecting to hear the sound. It's so clear. I don't remember if I liked Alby, or if I disliked him. Part of me thinks I might not remember entering this room, although I do. It's hard to separate out what has been stolen and what hasn't.

"Do you remember?" He asks. His voice is low and gruff, gone hoarse from screaming. As if every word is a struggle, one he battles through to speak to me. Outside the window, I can hear boys moving outside. Laughing. There is hammering somewhere, as they deconstruct and reconstruct the building between my own feet. It is too bright, and too loud. "Do you remember before the Maze?"

I'm cautious to answer, though I don't remember why. Maybe it's something to do with Leo? It's slipping from me as we speak, until I forget why I don't trust him. I don't remember what we are talking about. I force my hands to still in my lap, since they threaten to twitch.

"That's why you're shucked," he begins, looking at me. "That's why you were going to attack Thomas."

I shrug my shoulders, aware of them. At my side. How didn't I notice them this entire time? They weigh so much, and move with me as I think. Without my telling them to do so consciously. "I think you've found out that I can't tell you anything."

Alby nods carefully. I overheard Clint telling Leo that Alby tried to strangle himself. Better that then give away their secrets. It's not confirmed, but I think Clint reattached something in my head. I don't remember what or why, but I think he did it intentionally. Anyway, if the thing that kept our memories at bay is what controls us, I'd rather not try to tell Alby. I'd rather operate within the rules than hurt myself trying to break them. They control us like that, you know.

"I'm not surprised you didn't tell us," Alby begins, sighing. His breathing adds sound to the room that I wasn't expecting. Loud. All-encompassing. "I wouldn't have said a word either. Easier that's all left unsaid."

I don't think I agree. The truth will set us free. I lift my hair up, turning around to show Alby the cut on my neck. "They fixed it."

When I turn around, Alby has his head cocked at me in an odd direction. "What's that?"

There's no point in telling him. He mustn't remember what I do. At least, not the way I do it. Or did it. I don't know what I remembered. I understand the inner workings of life beforehand. What we did, who we were, how they treated us. I never got to catch on to the why.

"It took away my memories, again." I sit back down in the chair, facing Alby. "Which is why I come to you."

He nods, though he says nothing. He leans his head back, and it softly thumps against the wall behind him. He too must know there is no point. Resistance is futile. I want to remember. It matters to know. The whole goal of the Coalition was to stop this.

Solution: Remember how to stop this.

My head shakes, back and forth, twitching, until my head rests on my shoulder. There is no point in thinking those words. All it does is bring back, through muscle memory, a tightening in my chest. We were a secret, one I will rediscover.

"Better you forget," Alby looks me dead in the eyes. I can't tell if it is his eyes or my eyes which bleed though. "No good comes from knowing that."

"Might help us get out," I argue back.

"Better we stayed," he crosses his arms over his chest.

I lean my back against the chair. As long as she is out there, it is not better. Every part of me is angry and frustrated. I can't stop this feeling. Maybe it isn't isolation, but a lacking.

In a language I speak, we do not say we miss someone, but that they are missing from us. Maybe that is what exists in my bones. It is an absence, not a feeling. There is something that should be next to me but is gone.

I don't think I am talking about my memories, but I can't remember what I am talking about. Is this what the grey people think all the time?

That makes my neck itchy. I choose to ignore. I choose to forget those words.

I leave Alby's room. He can be no help to me now. No one can.

The operation was successful. I am normal, like the rest of them. I have forgotten all that I once remembered.

She is gone.

~~~~~~

Ella is fever dream nation. Do you think what Clint did was right? Do you think Ella has a right to escape? Is she sane?

I love to hear from you, as always.

I will see you soon, in Leo and Newt.