There now exists a world where the colour of your blood defines you; and there certainly isn't much room for different in the year 2138.
Suki Kione has known for a long time now that there's a clock on her life, one that runs a lot quicker than that...
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When I woke up again I was in hysterics, gasping for air and ripping the hand rocking me awake off of me.
"Calm down, it's only me," a man I don't recognize says soothingly.
I lift myself onto my elbows; regarding the state my body is in.
"Who are you?" I ask hoarsely, wiping the sheen of sweat on my brow.
"Dytto," he begins, greeting me with kind eyes.
I take him in, appreciating his extravagant sense of style. He's by far the most interesting person I've looked at in a while. Between his baby blue hair and quite obviously surgically altered face it's hard not to be a little taken back. It's like every feature on his face was prepped, primed and sharpened to look a little too perfect to pass as natural.
"What are you doing here?" I ask reaching my hand over my left shoulder where a slight stinging plagues the general state of calm the rest of me is in.
"I need to get you ready for the ceremony and we need to hurry. We've lost valuable time here ... you've been passed out for four hours my love and I hate being rushed. You just can't rush art!" he goes on, eyes now wider than when he began, making his amber orbs glow.
"Art?"
"Yes art, who do you think makes all the poor dying kids pretty on their death day? People like me! That's your answer."
It dawns on me that there's still a world of pain and prepping ahead when I remember just how big a deal the Ring Ceremony is. I may not even make it to tomorrow if the makeover doesn't kill me first.
Not that tomorrow ever comes.
I find myself being pulled up in a flash as my mind swims to the other side of my head, "Come, come, the longer you just lay there the uglier you'll look," he chirps.
He leads the way, making sure I'm not too far behind him as we leave my sleeping quarters and I can't help being annoyed by how fast he's walking.
"Slow down," I gripe.
"Speed up! You don't want to be remembered as the worst dressed Pukka at the ceremony now do you? If you're going to die, do it in style."
'I don't like him,' Aspen chimes.
Me neither, I think.
As we walk (fly) memories of what I've just been through return to me.
Personally I think her tranquilizing me as well was a little unnecessary. The least Juniper could have done is let my mother hold me after all she put me through – all I put me through.
She strung me up and played me like a puppet, all to satisfy some twisted urge to prove that she and I are one and the same.
I wish I could be as sure of our differences as I was before I walked into that room, but now every time I close my eyes I see him crumple to the ground. I feel shreds of dread and potent regret as soon as my eyelids open, then I see my mother get dragged away from me when I close them again.
