Aumeha Chronicles: The Expedition

Chapter 4

Tears wept down her eyes. Sitting helplessly. Staring aimlessly. She was sitting in a crouched position in the second row. Hiding her face behind the person in front. She was medium in height, light coloured wearing the grey uniform everyone had to wear. The class had an individual chair for each student comfortably placed from others. And each chair was reserved with digital name tags on it.

She badly wanted to leave the class and just run away. Run far far away. Until

She heard another sobbing voice coming from the right. She couldn't turn else she would face another punishment.

Punishments of lesser scale is to keep you awake all night. And the magnitude increased with the seriousness of the crime or the rule broken. You would be put into isolation chambers as if the life was not isolated enough. Or put into heat chambers where you were stripped off your clothes and made to sit on a metal chair and experience your whole skin burning, so painful that you wish yourself to burn and die at that very instant. For more severe punishments you would be made to crawl over rocks, given extreme joint pains and electric lashes. The ultimate punishment was to torture and death in front of the masses.

She would be put into isolation chamber if she turned now. She waited and waited for the senior to come between their desks. So that she could get a peek at the sobbing person. As luck would have it, the senior came till the second row and even moved to the back of the class while teaching. Which was supposed to be only a peek at the person, their eyes met.

Favian saw Cassini through his teary glassy eyes. He could only see a silhouette as the window behind her was too bright. But, he could see her eyes. Glassy eyes which had a huge depth of sorrow in it. He could see all of her through her eyes. It conveyed so many emotions. Emotions beyond comprehension. He felt exactly what she felt.

It was a moment of subtle spark. It felt like both of them knew each other for a long time. Like two friends who were very close and suddenly lost track of each other and now meeting after a long time. They both knew that they will not be seeing each other ever again. Yet, hoped the opposite. That hope was the silence in their chaotic mind.

The next time Favian saw Cassini was when he was going for a survival training exercise one year ago when he was nineteen. Many groups were going for the training together. He could only get a glance at her and they immediately recognised each other. Soon, a military vehicle came and they lost sight of each other again.