Flashf0rward

Chapter 6: Windows to the Soul

Connor

I wake up at the same time I do every morning. Without fail, always when the sun first crests over the horizon. It's like my body still knows, still abides by the rules that they gave me. I lived and breathed inside of a glorified test tube for most of my life. It's something that's hard to shake off.

Sitting up in my bed, I'm greeted by the familiar blackness in the right side of my vision that I have been forced to live with for almost a decade now. Moving out from beneath the covers, I step up from the cot and over to my bedside table. Reaching out, I grasp the cloth and wrap it around my eye in the motion that I've trained myself to. Tightening it, I wince slightly at the achy pain that comes with the injury.

Looking out the window, I can see the rays of the orange sun peeking out over the valley. Most people aren't up around this time, and I don't mind that. It gives me time to be alone. Time to think. Living in this place is like being constantly surrounded by a crowd of people you don't know and understand, and they always seem to stare at you.

Walking over to my bucket of water, I kneel down in front of it, dipping my hands inside of it and splashing some onto my face. I sigh as the liquid touches my skin, trying to cool myself down. I see the ripples inside the bucket clear and give me a small reflection of myself. A man just out of his late teens, his dark brown hair hanging around his head, his face half-obscured by a piece of cloth wrapped around his right eye.

Living with one half of my vision gone has taken some getting used to, but I find it doesn't matter as much as I thought it would. A lot of things can still be done with just one eye. It's just a lot of correcting and adjusting the way you look at things, no pun intended. Sighing, I knew that I wouldn't be getting back to sleep, so I decided to get some food.

Walking over to the small cupboard that wasn't too far away from my bed, I remembered how small my cabin was. It was one of the first that had been built here, and I'd specifically requested to live in it, since it was like a form of solitary for me. The isolation was something I honestly didn't mind, and I also felt like it was something I needed. A way for me to take inventory, as well as go about my business without having to deal with people.

Looking at all of the small vegetables, baked goods, and chunks of meat that were still somewhat fresh, I picked out some jerky as well as some oranges I'd picked up from Katrina last week. Taking out a wooden cup, I squeezed some of the fruit into the cup, taking out as much as I could, leaving me with just a pulpy, juicy liquid. You couldn't get more freshly squeezed than that.

Tearing off a piece of the jerky in my mouth and chewing it, I sat at the table and thought to myself. I would most likely stay inside again. After what happened the last time I went out in public, it didn't end up going so well. Sipping some of the orange juice, I felt my eye hurting again. I clutched the side of my face and groaned, bending over onto the table. "Son of a-!" I groaned out loud in the small cabin.

The pulsing, beating pain that rests behind my right eye always hurts the worst in the morning. It's like the pain is resting with me, and when it wakes up, it wakes up angry. Clutching my eye and staggering towards the bedside table, I accidentally knock it over, making several items fall to the ground. I hear a familiar rattling along with them. My pills.

When the other people who lived here went to the city, they gathered some medical supplies from a pharmacy. Some of them make my eye stop hurting, and those are the only things that do. I take them every day. Once I took too much and I passed out, but I just wanted to make it stop hurting. Because it always does. It never stops.

My hand fumbles outwards, scrambling across the floor as tears brim in my left eye, blurring my vision even more. I'm panting, and my heart feels like it's about to explode out of my chest. My eye feels like a knife is being driven into it and dug in deeper and deeper. I feel the scream rising in my throat, but I keep it down, push it back. This is no time for pain. I need to focus.

Finally, I spot it. The small, plastic orange cylinder with the white cap, full of the pills I need. I push myself across the floor, unable to stand as I finally grab the bottle. I try to twist the cap off, but my heart almost stops when I can't. Then I remember to push it down, then twist. I do so, and a few pills spill out into my hand. Shoving them down my throat, I swallow them dry, not even needing liquid, and I cough and try to slow down my breathing.

As I curl up on the floor, I feel my muscles start to relax, and the sharp, aching pain in my eye start to slowly fade away to a dull one. My breathing evens out, and I lay back on the floor, staring up at the ceiling and sighing. Looking at the bottle in my hands, I wonder if I'm getting addicted to these things, like what they used to feed me in the lab. I know that can't be true. I need them. It's not my fault if I need them, right?

The high starts to fade away, and it's always at these points when my sister flashes into my memory. I hate seeing these images over and over again, but I know I can't make them go away. I close my eye and simply let it happen. Watching her in the tank next to mine. Both of us being taught to kill. Thinking we're both free, then...

Then it's gone. Like it always is. Like the afterimage in a flash of lighting. But it's always burned into my brain, into my memory. I don't know if my sister is upset with me, sad for me, or happy to see me. Whenever I see her face, I can never tell. I don't know if I ever will. But I know that however she feels, I have to keep living. For her.

A knock interrupts my train of thought, and I lean my head up. Looking at my front door, I frown as to why anyone would want to see me, let alone at this hour. Getting up from off the ground, I walked over to the door and opened it. On the other end was someone I recognized. A girl, slightly shorter and younger than me, with copper red hair. "Ivy?" I asked as stared down at her.