Tinted

Chapter 1

It's cold. No. It's freezing. The tips of my fingers are numb, and I try my best to rub them together for heat. My teeth chatter as I attempt to huff warm air through my hands. And the crazy thought is, I'm inside my home. Shouldn't a home be cosy, warm, and full of heat? Well, I wouldn't know. Because I've never seen a heater, it's only a luxury the extremely rich can afford. I look outside the foggy glass window. Everything is coated in a thick layer of almost blinding white snow. I'm sick of it. I close my eyes and imagine myself on a beach, dipping my toes into the lukewarm ocean. Sounds stupid, I know.

I sigh and lay down on the remains of a bed. A thin frame, with the paint almost completely peeled off, topped off with a lumpy mattress, aged over time like a fine wine. Only, it's not pleasant. And that's it. That's the only thing in my room. That's how I spend most of my day, staring at the same view, from the same spot, on the same bed, everyday. Because it's too cold outside.The faint calls of my mother bring me running downstairs. I've always been very wary about my mother, ever since I noticed that she was ill. She's weak, and my brother and I take care of her more than she does for us. As I run down the wooden stairs, I see my mother making her way through the door. Snow pours in as I shut it and help her to a chair. She's wrapped in several worn blankets.

"What were you doing outside? I thought you were sleeping!"

"I had to get food-"

"Mother, you're not strong enough for that. We let Luka do that, he's the strongest of us. I know Luka, I know my brother. He can do it." From under her coat, her shaky hand reveals a chunk of bread.

"The man from Vasek; he's an old friend. He gave me some bread." She manages a faint smile. I kiss her on the forehead and place the bread on the middle of our table. We sit down quietly, waiting for my brother to arrive. He works at the coal factory nearby. It makes us money, but barely just enough to live. Luka bursts through the door, making me stand. His face is turned away from us. I run towards him, and cup his face in my hands. There's a throbbing red bruise on his left cheek.

"What happened?" I wait for a response. He looks at the floor and grits his teeth. "What happened, Luka!"

"He fought again. He's always had a temper just like his father." My mother whispers to herself.

He jolts his head away from my hands and walks away. For a while he's just standing, facing away from my mother and I.

"I'm sorry. " He sighs. He's always had the urge to be strong, to be the 'man of the house'. Ever since my father died, five years ago. He's also three years older than me, and incredibly protective. He could never see me hurt. For a while, we just sit quietly around the table, sharing the stale loaf of bread between us. Of course, my mother has the least. Luka tries to tell her to eat more, but she insists not to. I can't help but notice my brother coated all over in a thin layer of black dust, it slowly crumbling off him as he shoves food in his mouth. My mother and I deal with the fact that one day he might go to the coal mine and not come back. It's terrifying. And before I know it, the loaf is gone. I stare at the empty table cloth, imagining a table full of over-flowing food. And then my brother whispers something I never wanted to hear.

"I was thinking...that I join the Linke Form." For a moment, its dead silent. My heart drops to my stomach, my head feels like its being dipped into ice. I feel like I'm about to faint.

"You can't be serious. Do you know-"

"I know exactly what it is, Mina! But what other choice do I have? We are barely living! Do you consider this living?" He's now standing up, infuriated. Not because of us, but because of the situation we are in. We've lived this terrible life, pulled into a world war. And I know that my brother can't help but think, what did we do to deserve this?. I remember the first time we received the letter from Linke Form, the recruitment organisation. At first, all men over the age of eighteen had to go. At that time, my brother was only fifteen, and I was twelve. My mother cried relentlessly, knowing my father had to take part. The Linke Form; they had claimed so much. They were a new, more high-tech organisation that planned to change everything. They'd taken over the government like a disease, it had made everyone feel skeptical. The miracle micro-chip, they called it. With the input of a chip, a regular man would turn into a cold-blooded killing machine, with the speed and reflex's of a jaguar and the strategies and fighting tactics of a trained assassin. On top of that, they coated each recruit with jet-black armour that made each soldier look like an alien. And the minute they went to war, everything had changed; just like the Linke Form had promised. For each man who joined, a generous sanction of food and supplies were given, and before they knew it, men came flooding to them like a flock of bees to honey. Eventually, the recruitment became voluntary. The increase in poverty had still provided them with the numbers they needed. But the day my father stepped out the door, he never came back. I loose myself in thought; thinking about the spitting image of my father, and how much my brother resembled him; both physically and mentally.

"What if I went." I spit out. Luka stares at me like I had just punched him.

"Don't you dare joke about something like that." Nothing infuriates me more when he talks like he's in charge of me.

"I'm not." He looks at me, like a helpless child, something he's always seen me as.

"Both of you! Stop it! This is not something we should be discussing, and nor will it ever be. I don't want to hear about it. The only reason your father went was because he was forced to. I know what that is. You become soulless! You can't feel. They take away every part of you that makes you human! No sanction is worth loosing you, I've already lost your father!  With that chip, you are nothing but a robot sent to do orders." My mother never shouts. But this time, she screamed to the top of her lungs. Even though it was weak and stressed, I could see how desperate yet enraged she was. My brother jumps out of his chair and sits down near the window, staring outside. The brightness from the snow outside makes his blue eyes gleam like gems.

I go to bed hungry, but not as hungry as usual. Sometimes it's difficult to remember what it's like to have a full stomach. I sit on my bed (or whats left of it at least) and think. I imagine my brother, as a Linke Form soldier, staring back at me in his suit, soulless, his eyes tainted with a black mist. Gone. Some say that on the outside, it's the same person, but on the inside, the life has been sucked out of them. And that they never come back. The minute that chip is inputted, the person that used to be in that body is gone. Their eyes go pitch-black. For some reason, that scares me the most. My mother always tells me how 'the eyes are the windows to the soul', but I know, that when theres nothing you can see, there's nothing there anymore. There's nothing left.