The Twins

Chapter 4: the Change

Part three: Purple

    The morning came but the sun did not. The eerie darkness that had greeted the twins on their arrival to the surface stayed and never faltered. The only signal that everyone was supposed to be awake was the sudden hum of the electricity turning on, causing the streetlights, attached to the huts, to slowly glow. People began bustling about quietly. It was easy to tell who was new and who wasn't by how groggy they seemed. People got used to waking up in almost complete darkness. Eventually.

   The twins however were so new that they didn't even wake up. Condensation from their breath during the night coated the walls and ceiling in a thin dew that dripped and rolled down the walls onto the floor. The soft silence of the room was soon interrupted by Ms. Mortal opening the door and banging a stick against a scrap piece of metal, right in front of Matthew's face. He fell onto the floor in a tangle of limbs and blankets.

  Marie sat bolt upright immideatly, her breaths short and panicked until she realized what happened,"Good morning Ms. Mortal." Marie said sweetly. Matthew scoffed from his undignified position on the floor. Marie hated people waking her up and the few times that he had gotten up before her and had to wake her up were terrifying and slightly traumatic. Yet here she was, sitting calmly and smiling at Ms. Mortal after she had woken them up in the most inhumane way possible, besides stabbing them.

     Matthew unraveled himslef from the blankets and looked up at his previous teacher. He struggled to keep his mind blank, not wanting her to plant a truth bomb and tell anyone about his thoughts. She was a lot more dangerous than she looked.

   "Alright kiddos time to get to work on maintaining the pillars! Up and at 'em!" Ms. Mortal exclaimed with a bright attitude.

   "Alright. Are we getting trained today?" Marie asked curiously.

  "Training?" Ms. Mortal laughed heartily, her head thrown back. The sound was deep and ended with a flurry of snorts and knee slaps. Matthew tried his best not to think judgemental thoughts.

   "Nobody gets training here! That's way less fun! Besides, we're expendable because we're going to die soon anyways!" Ms. Mortal continued.

   "Great. Thanks for the pep talk." Matthew muttered.

    "You're welcome!"

   Matthew had to try not to attempt strangling her.

    Soon the three headed over to a pillar and were strapped into harnesses by other Saru Tokai. Matthew hoped that they had at least gotten some training on what to do. The chances seemed unlikely though because the person helping him did the buckle up backwards three times before getting it right.

   "I'm going to die today. This is it." Matthew thought fully expecting Ms. Mortal to answer his inner monologue. She did not, to his surprise.

  Each person was hoisted up into the air, one by one, with a bag of tools in their arms. Matthew checked inside his finding some kind of concrete-type substance in a tube, a paint spreader, and a magnifying glass. He examined each item then called out to Ms. Mortal,"Hey! What do we use the magnifying glass for?"

   "Checking for hairline cracks...I think." She replied with a shrug.

   "Well at least she gave me a straight answer." Matthew thought begining to examine the stone in front of him with the magnifying glass. He saw no cracks and moved on to another section checking it as well. He glanced upward and saw Marie was doing the same technique. Rubbing his hand through his hair he suddenly froze. The moved the hand in front of his face and saw a white chalky substance on it,"Ah," He thought,"that's why she told us to have a shower after working on the pillars."

   A loud crack split across Matthew's senses with a boom. He turned his head sharply just in time to see a large chunk of the pillar next to them remove itself from the rest of the pillar with a labored groan. The pillar shook and broke with a tearing sound that seemed to come from everywhere. It was so loud. A scream pierced the air immideatly after and Matthew saw a young boy free falling underneath the falling chunk. In an instant Marie wizzed past his line of sight.

   Matthew's eyes followed his sister as she brought herself down to the bottom of the pillar with unnatural speed. She was out of her harness and rushing to the scene right away. From another pillar someone used their token to stop the chunks from falling and another sent some kind of soft goo underneath the boy to break his fall. Marie got to him but not before a few stray rocks collided with his body.

   Matthew began descending as well, though not at fast as Marie had. He ran over to his sister who was checking the vitals of the boy.

  "He's almost dead." She said to him, almost no emotion in her voice. All her attention was devoted to the boy and while Matthew didn't want to get in her way, he placed his hands on him like they had before, when convincing the official he was a Saru Tokai.

  Marie nodded understanding and she closed her eyes. Blue light shone brilliantly between her fingers and seemed to seep into the boy.

  "He's still not breathing." Matthew muttered to her. She nodded and increased her output of power. Small beads of sweat gathered at her brow as she seemed to be using an immense amount of force to heal him. Matthew could only wait, compleatly in awe.

  After what seemed like forever the boy gasped and sat up, looking completely healthy. Marie, on the other hand, collapsed, taking in breaths shakily. Matthew rubbed her back to comfort her and to see if she was ok, though something told him that she would be perfectly fine. His sister coughed up blood then sighed and began standing up, her legs wobbly but still sturdy enough to carry her back to their hut.

  Matthew stood to follow his twin when Ms. Mortal stopped him.

  "That was really incredible. You two are quite impressive for only being at stage purple. And your eyes changed really fast too!"

Matthew nodded, trying to appease her so he could leave. She stepped back and he headed off quickly to catch up to his sister. He reached her just as the realization hit him.

  "She said that my eyes changed really fast. Have my eyes changed colour since I got here?"

He paused.

"Am I an actual Saru Tokai?"