Look Closer

Again

I woke with a start and my eyes flew open. I pushed myself into a sitting position and looked all around the room. I try to move my hands but I can't, and I look down to see a metal ring binding my hands together. I don't know where I am. Blue walls and fluffy chairs surround me, and it almost looks like I'm being held hostage in a children's day care. I glanced down and started absent mindedly playing with the stuffed duck toy at my feet, waiting for the real Test to begin. I'd gone through things like this at least three times during the past few days since my foot and hand had healed. I could feel heat rushing through the room and cloaking me in a blanket of fire. Flames were dancing all around me, licking hungrily at the fabric of my long grey pants and my grey t-shirt. I roll my eyes and clench my fists, feeling the familiar sensation of ice coursing through my veins as I let my power crush the handcuffs. I see little shards fall down by my feet but pay no mind to them, instead glancing over at the lever on the far wall.

The flames part just slightly and I dash through, wanting this Test to be over with. I finally get to the lever and place my hands on the smooth surface, pushing down hard. I heard a small hissing noise as the door opened and placed one foot in front of the other before feeling my knees start to shake. I fall into someone's chest and a pair of reassuring arms hold me up. "See that wasn't so bad, you just have to pretend that you aren't afraid of anything and your power floods through you. It only took you 5 minutes to get through it this time." I hear the deep voice I have come to know all too well vibrate around the room and I lean on his strong arms for support while I pull myself back upright.

A lock of dark curly hair falls into my face and I push it away, seeing a flash of the red tips that are slowly fading away as I feel the warmth return to my body. "Why do we keep doing this Micah?" I rasp, sounding just as exhausted as I feel. "I've already done this four times." I look up in his pale blue eyes with a pleading expression and hope to change his mind, but I have no such luck.

He puts his hands on my shoulders and stares right into my eyes. "You know why Gabrielle. This is so you can-"

"Yes, yes so I can control my powers I know!" I feel the anger rising through my bones and I stare back into his eyes with such an intensity that it scares me. "I don't see why I have to do this anymore. We can just tell the country that we are all like them we're just more powerful." I turn on my heel and start walking back towards the door. I hadn't noticed it before I started this new Testing but all of the doors have little golden numbers engraved in them. I'm about to head back to room 543, where I live, when Micah's tired voice stops me.

"Gabrielle if we tried telling them that the country would go into mass panic and probably start a revolution. They would all try going back to the old ways where people voted for who they wanted to run the country and look where that got us! We can't have them knowing this." He takes large strides across the room and makes it to me within seconds, enveloping me in his arms.

I feel my shoulders fall and I lean into him, letting myself feel calm again. "I'm sorry," I whisper into his chest, "it's just getting to be a lot of pressure to have to juggle this with what everyone else here thinks about us. I don't want to live two lives anymore Micah." I listen to his steady heartbeat and feel his chin fall onto my head.

"I don't either but we have to Gabrielle. This is how we stay alive." We stay like that for a few more minutes before I break away and we walk back to room 543 in silence.

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We're back where we first started everything again. We come here a lot and just sit together. No one ever says anything but we still feel complete with our arms around each other and our heads on the other's chest. The world is warm and safe and not completely evil, even if it is for only a few moments, and we float in our warm land of freedom and peace with the beautiful bliss of ignorance.

But today instead of just sitting we open our mouths and we speak. We speak of injustice and of pain. We speak of the world as it is today and we speak of the world as it was yesterday. We speak until our throats are sore and whoever has heard us has had enough of our words. Our bubble of ignorance pops and we fall down to Earth again, seeing our ruined planet and our ruined families.

We speak of trust and confusion and we speak again until we can longer speak and fall asleep with our heads on each other's chest and our arms wrapped around each other in a tangled mess.

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When I wake up I feel good. For the first time since my mother's death, I have been able to feel okay again. Maybe it's because I let my heart bleed to Micah last night and he let his bleed to me. I know his fears and his worries and he knows mine. But the one things that I remember most are the thoughts whirring around in my head. I pull myself away from my safe haven and move to the middle of the room. I wait until I hear Micah stir and then I open my mouth and I start to speak my mind again, just like we did last night.

"The world is a pretty cruel place. We're all paid to show up and perform talents that are assigned to us during the mandatory lottery of birth, and eventually we die after performing the same trick over and over again. But some people don't get a good talent when they're assigned powers and they don't get paid as much. That's why my mother had to learn how to make art by using the tiny bit of power to control the weather that she had. People like her have to get creative if they want to make it in this kind of system; they can't just take what the world handed to them with a smile. And then there's us. No one wants to pay to watch our freak show of lightning bolts and destroying buildings. Is that why we're in charge? Are we in charge because we pretend to be normal and it seems fair that the people who 'drew the short stick' get to lead? Or is it just because no one wants to watch themselves die as I destroy the building we're all sitting in? We're freaks, all of us, and those of us who are the freakiest get to be in charge by pretending to be something we're not. What are we doing all of this for? Power? Recognition? Are we just afraid of what might happen if they learn the truth, all of the truth?"

My hands slap against my sides, finally tired from gesturing wildly in the air like a madman. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror next to Micah's drooping head, trying to ignore the hurt shining through his eyes. I'm a mess with my crazy hair running freely on top of my head and my eyes burning in anger. I can see the red in my cheeks fade as my anger flies away with it. But you have to wonder why each of us have to juggle two lives every time we take in a breath. One of my eyes melts back to its normal shade of blue, but the other stays red, bursting with anger that has long since given way to exhaustion from the night before.

I see both sides of myself; the exploding mess of a human being who wreaks everything in her path on one side and a confused girl just trying to make it through life on the other. My eyes scan the room as I turn around and they land on Micah's pale blue eyes glistening with unshed tears. I collapse and fall into him, my heads gripping his shirt as my eyes start to dampen his shirt. "I just don't understand why we're still doing this after all these years." I mutter, clinging to him and his arms drape around me protectively.

I barely hear him as his voice dies in my hair but I can just make out his words: "I don't either."