My Keeper

One

That was the last time she felt any of the sort.

She unconsciously raised the cup to her chapped mouth and swallowed the pebbles that trickled onto her tongue. Her throat burned as it tasted like poison. She saw her work partners come to her side and nod to the doors. Today she had work to do. She had to trim the leaves of the bushes outside with the instructors. She did this every other day with 1704 and 14. 14 had been here for a while. She had wrinkles around her eyes and the some gray streaks in her brown hair. Sometimes, 2301 would see 14 fall to the ground and start to convulse. The instructors called it a "seizure." 14 would be brought into a room and walk out the next day with no memory of it. Every time someone was brought into that room, they walked out with no memories of their injury. The instructors didn't want the people to remember their pain, but 2301 never further investigated as to why they did that. Sometimes the people who went into that room, never walked back out.

Where did they go, 2301 wondered as she walked outside with her partners. Did they get released from this building to join the happy people outside? If so, she wanted to do that too. She wanted to feel happy, but every time she asked the instructors about it, she was reprimanded. Painfully. 

Right as they started to work on the bush, 1704 backed away from the bush.

"What's that?" 1704 asked as she looked at a certain slimy moving thing in the dirt. "Is it alive?"

14 crouched down at looked at the squirming creature. "I've seen one of these before. 11 once told me that if you refuse to trim the bushes, it's what the instructors will turn you into." 2301 and 1704 looked at each other in unison as they both quickly started to trim the bushes with extra enthusiasm.

"It looks weird," 1704 commented to herself. 2301 looked down at the slimy thing, but made no comment on the matter.

The watchdog instructor seemed to notice the unusual commentary and walked over to the three. She was also an older woman with heavy eye bags accenting her stormy gray eyes. "What is going on over here?"

1704 pointed to it. "It's one of your conquests."

The instructor crouched down next to 14 and examined the creature. "Girls, this is a worm."

"What's a worm?" 2301 asked as she started to clip the bush again, not wanting to be turned into this "worm" by the instructor.

"It doesn't matter, child. Finish your work." The instructor walked away and 14 stood up and grabbed her clippers.

The three of them worked silently for what felt like hours until the instructor finally brought them inside.

As she did every day after work, 2301 painted on a canvas that one of the younger instructors provided. Painting was her second favorite thing to do. She painted the worm that she found that day in the dirt. She used an old sponge to make texture in the brown paint to make it look more like dirt and less like mud. She swerved a line of rustic pink with the paintbrush for the body and took the end of the paintbrush to add the little line indentions she saw on the creature earlier that day.

Right as she started to paint a leaf next to the worm, she looked out the window and set her paintbrush down. It was ready.

Here, was her favorite thing to do.

She bit her lip as she rushed through the hallways and locked the door of her room. Locking your door is against the rules, unless you're dressing, but the punishment for locking your door was a better than the punishment of what she was about to do.