Your Fall

Crime and Punishment

"Okay class," chairs shift as the class turns from their conversations around them to the front of the room, "today we will be discussing the Ark policies" You hear the creak of old wood as you assume Ms. Devon pulls out her chair from her desk and sits down.

"Who can tell me the top ten commandments of the Ark?" Your fingers tap on the cold desk in front of you. You can't even tell if you're controlling them or if they are twitching, a common occurrence you are slowly getting accustomed to.

As the silent moments stick in the room, you hear the creak of Ms. Devon's chair and the unnatural squeak of high pressure of the marker on the board. "Okay, then let's try to separate it into minor infractions and capital offenses. Can someone give me an example of a capital offense?"

"Murder." You hear Dubby's voice, his smug smirk highly apparent in his answer. You can feel his smugness grow beside you as you hear the squeaking of the marker on the board once more. You feel eyes pierce from the front of the classroom through the hood you hide behind. Your eyes stay glued to the desk in front of you.

"Raven?" You hear Ms. Devon clear her throat and a clatter of noise as Raven seems to be brought out of her thoughts from her usual spot, a couple of rows up from where you sit now. "The notes are on the front of the board, not in the back."

"Sorry Ms. Devon, I was just distracted." You feel eyes on you for another second then they seem to move around the classroom.

"Raven, can you give me an example of a minor infraction?"

"We don't really have minor infractions on the Ark, that's more of a trick question brought up to say that we follow the norms of those who lived before us on Earth." The class rustles slightly. You hear a swish sound in the front of the classroom. Closing your eyes you imagine Ms. Devon erasing the minor infractions category off the board." She places the marker down on the board sill with a loud clunk before she turns back to the class.

"Anyone agree or disagree with Raven's statement?" Silence encapsulates the room. You can imagine the students looking around the classroom wondering who would answer. After a few heartbeats of quiet, Ms. Devon claps her hands.

"Well done Raven, can you give me an example of another crime punishable by floating or imprisonment based on age?" You pull a pencil out of your pocket and begin to try and sketch a cockatoo, one of yours and Cayen's favorite animals to imagine, on the desk.

"Sure, petty theft is a good one or misuse of medical resources." You scrape on the metal ignoring the small squeak that you produce.

"Good examples Raven." The squeak is heard once more at the front of the room. "Someone give me another example."

~

Two hours seem to last a decade but finally, the discussion of non-accepted actions seems to be filled as the squeaking in the front has not been heard for several minutes. You attempt to try and shade in the sloppy lines of the bird's head you were able to carve down on the table but the shaking of your hands has increased too much for you to be able to properly finish the drawing.

You finally scrawl out the wiry shape of the nostrils on the beak of the bird before your hand twitches so much that your pencil slashes into the skin of your thumb.

"Remember everyone, the moral of this list is that there needs to be order and a firm understanding of the rules and regulations that we have here on the Ark. If there is a small chance of a crack, it must be extinguished." You close your eyes tightly and hold your breath while leaning down on your desk. The pain of the cut is sudden and quick and just as it started it stopped hurting within the blink of an eye. You open your eyes and see the sickly glow of red.

"Any questions?" His blue eyes flash in your mind. Dull. Distant. Piercing right through you. His body contorted. You can feel your heartbeat rise and your breathing become shallow.

The discussion around you slips away as your eyes squeeze shut and your trembling fingertips reach into your pocket to grab the baggie of white ovals. You hold your breath as you feel your fingers unsteadily grab the shapes of three pills. Without hesitation, you lean down to have your forehead against your desk and quickly push the pills past your lips.

Slowly you raise your head up and dry swallow allowing your eyes to slowly open and see that the class around you is beginning to file out.

You cannot make out Ms. Devon, but you watch as Raven slowly gets up with her gaze flicking to you so quickly you're not sure if you imagined it before she leaves the room. You feel your heart sink deeper into your chest.

You take a deep breath and look at the mess of your desk. Blood still slightly oozes out of the cut on your thumb. It slips down the curves of your hand and accumulates until the weight of itself is too much of a burden and it drops onto your desk in front of you. You watch liquid sink into the carvings of the hashed out, pathetic cockatoo you attempted to create. The blood links the beak to the head and slices across the neck of the bird before slipping over the carvings and onto the rest of the body.

Dead.

You.

You killed it.

Squeezing your eyes tightly then opening them again, you slowly stumble out from under your desk once every one, even Ms. Devon, seems to have left. You trip over the leg of a chair and attempt to recover quickly landing directly on your knees with a thud. With another breath you lean on the chair you tripped on and cautiously stand on your feet. Cradling your hand, you make your way out of the classroom. You look back for a second and still see the red of the murder etched out in front of you at the back of the class. You shake your head trying to push out your thoughts when the calm begins to set in and warm the limbs of your body.

You make your way slowly to work with a calm breath and your eyes on the floor.