I Know Places

1. The Scene and the Sight

We're running.

We're running like tidal waves, perfectly in sync. We're running like bullets from a gun, our harsh breaths ripping through the cold atmosphere. They are the hunters. We are the foxes. And we run.

As the cool air gusts past my face, that feeling of fear and utmost despair opens up, unfurling in the pit of my stomach.

The world is not as it used to be. People do not fall in love. People are devoid and full of a nothingness that stretches to their hearts until it twists and ravages them into practically nothing themselves.

I'd always been wrong. I'd always felt wrong. I'd felt wrong when I'd wanted my tall, willowy, beautiful mother to kiss me goodnight. To tell me she loved me. To pull my bed covers all the way to my ears and smile. But she didn't love me. She was as devoid of anything as everyone else.

I'd felt wrong when I'd been embarrassed to sing in front of the school as required by every child to test their talents. I had shook like a quaking leaf, stumbled onto the stage and sung with my hands clasped so tightly behind my back, I thought they'd snap from the pressure. I remember their faces. Their stark, blank faces. They had no emotion whatsoever. They had long, drawn faces pulled into no particular shape or line.

I'd grown up around people, in a community whom were all the same. They never changed. They didn't do anything. I knew I was wrong. That I was a word I'd learned when I was ten. Anomaly. It was after I'd sang. A lady, with gold rimmed glasses perched high on her nose and skin that sagged like a plum had grabbed my hand and towed me into a small room. I remember watching her white uniform and marveling at how perfectly it fit her curvaceous figure. Everyone wore white. No one ever wears anything other than white. 

She had towed me to that room, sat down and perched on a pristine, white chair. Everything else was white too. It's just the way things were.
"You are an anomaly. Do you know what that means?"
"No." I'd whispered, my voice betraying how shy I was.
"It means you don't fit the pattern. You were born with something wrong with you. All of the other children and adults are emotionless. You know that don't you? They don't feel embarrassment. Not even a flighting feeling of it."
"Oh."
"Yes. It is very dangerous to be an anomaly in this world. The world that the previous have formed for us."

The "previous" hadn't done anything wrong really. They had just started having children that were devoid of emotion. It had scared them apparently. Their parents. It scared them that their children didn't smile or laugh or even like anything. They were just devoid. That's what I've always called everyone else. Devoids. I think it's very appropriate.

"You mustn't tell anyone about this. You must keep this secret to yourself or they will get rid of you. Do you understand? Keep it in." She'd said, her voice as stern as steel.

I hadn't been very good at keeping it in though. I'd let it slip sometimes. It also didn't help that there were surveillance cameras everywhere, tracking our movements. Of course I was scared people would notice but they didn't seem to. That or they just simply ignored me. They never really noticed much. Until one day.

It was a Wednesday to be specific. We were walking in two perfectly parallel lines to the assembly hall on the east side of our school, feet slapping against the ground in harmony. I had been gazing up the sky, watching the birds flit past and wondering what it would be like to fly. Would it be perilous or absolutely thrilling? I never came up with an answer because for one harrowing step, I didn't lift my left foot up enough and I stumbled over until I landed on my face.

The devoids would have just stood up automatically, brushed off their dusted, white uniforms and continued on. I, on the other hand grimaced and swore to the pits of hades. After I had stood up grudgingly and like I usually did, I craned my head around like a periscope to make sure no one had noticed my mishap. They had.