Flaw

Chapter 3: E

"Kindness is something we cannot afford to have. If you are kind you are weak." Leader Clyde barked at us. His slender posture drowned in his oversized jeans and button-up shirt, but still, he tried to enforce fear within us. His voice didn't match his exterior, for his exterior was slim and scrawny, but his voice was rough and hard. I tried to picture him before the end of our world, but no matter how much I squinted and tilted my head to fit in his missing puzzle pieces, I couldn't.

I could feel someone nudge me by the side, and when I looked over my best friend Azaria widened her eyes at me, signaling that I must stop staring at our teacher like a freak. I smiled under my sleeve and concentrated back on our teacher. I never understood why we still needed to go to school during the middle of a war. A war that we were losing, nevertheless. According to every adult in our society, we needed math's and science to keep ourselves aware and able to know how to handle certain situations. Except, in our biology we didn't test or operate on dead rats or frogs, no we experimented and learnt how to work on those bodies of our own kind. This meant that if we were ever at war, we youngsters would be able to help in the battlefield. When we died, we had the option of donating our bodies to the school, which a lot of people did, surprisingly. And in physics and chemistry we were taught how to make poisons and how to identify elements that could kill and cure.

History and geography, they said we needed to learn so that we are aware of our past and so that we can navigate our way through the world. This was so that we know how cruel our enemies are. In geography, our final exam was to be left in the middle of the woods alone, and we would have to use our skills that we learnt to navigate our way back to the village.

For physical education, we were taught self-defense instead of sports. At the age of fourteen we were each put into our groups. We had five groups: farmers; researchers; medical engineers; soldiers and our builders. The farmers were the kids who usually excelled in botany, and geography. They were responsible for the cultivation and prosperity of our food, both animal and vegetable.

Our researchers were the kids that excelled in math, history, and chemistry. They were responsible for the planning and organizing of our society and to experiment on the unknown whilst inventing things we needed. So basically, they were our scientist.

Our medical engineers were the kids who excelled in algebra, biology, chemistry, and physics. They were responsible for the general healthcare and wellbeing of the people in our society. They acted as doctors and field medics.

Our soldiers consisted of those who show great strength and perseverance and who excelled in physical education. They had to work alongside the remainder of the groups to be excellent. Most of the kids who didn't really fit into any if the above-mentioned groups or who didn't excel in anything fell into the builder's group – which I considered the most important aspect of our society.

I fell into the researchers. My teachers often said that the only reason I was so good at it was because I still had the ability to wonder – an ability that too often got me in trouble. The last time I got in trouble for asking too many questions I got sent to the woods for a week. I was alone and scared, but I survived on my own. Ever since then I stopped asking so many questions out loud. I kept it all in my head. I kept my wondering to myself.

"If you stare into the eyes of the dead and show kindness or empathy your mind would falter, and you would fail." The teacher continued.

"Or it just means that we're human." I whispered underneath my breath and the whole class turned around and stared straight at me. Leader Clyde folded his arms and gave me a deadpan look. I forgot how small these tented classes were. The mud beneath my feet snuck up my shoe as I could feel the stares of my peers push me down into my own grave. I could hear the cold breeze flap the outer linings of the tent.