The constant hum of delicate quick fingers against black keyboards, like a million little moths flapping their wings all at once, fills the heavy, eerie silence in the classroom of the Brain Development Institution (B.D.I) of Connecticut, School for the Young and Undamaged, in the year 3000. Emotionless, expressionless children of all different ages, sit in rows of four at metal desks, staring at a floating screen in front of them, surrounded by dull, grey walls. Numbers and equations pop up on their screens then quickly disappear, creating a blur of numbers and letters. Connected to their right arms through an IV are long clear tubes with white liquid running through them attached to little bags resting on the surface of the desks. There is a thick gloom in the still air, like a black cloud on a stormy day. The room glows with an artificial yellow, except for some lonesome strands of light falling through the small square skylight above them.
Directly underneath the skylight sits a tall, pale teenage girl, with a sharp nose that rests above small, terse lips. She has long, tangly brown hair falling down her back and dark wistful eyes that seem as though they've gazed at the moon and wept at its loneliness. This girl's name is Sinder. Her thick brow tenses into a tight line as she types, and her head pounds in her ears. The distant tapping of keyboards seems to be getting louder with every second she sits there. It fills her head, drowning out all her thoughts, and she can't think, she can't breathe, all she wants to do is scream. But she can't stop working, she is saving the world from destruction, her new, undamaged brain must be nurtured and challenged so that it doesn't loose its potential. So she has to sit and work, day after day, doing math and science, algebra and economics, storing it all in her young, unmanipulated mind, only sleeping so that she can get back to school in the morning, the only time to truly live being in her dreams. It was what all children had to do.
The incessant tapping of typing suddenly is interrupted by an almost inaudible sniffling.
"I can't do this...I can't solve this!" a petite, young girl, around nine begins to mumble to herself. She grows louder and more hysterical. "I cant do this! What am I going to do!" Everyone stays focused on their screen, paying no mind to this girl, they'd seen this before, and knew how it ended. "Oh god, oh god!" As she says this, large, tall men in black suits march into the room through an automatic door that slides open and closed. They seize her by the arms and begin to drag her to the exit. She screams and cries, kicking and thrashing, pleading with them. But it is no use. She isn't qualified anymore to continue there, she couldn't do her work, and had broken the rules by speaking and looking away from her screen. Now she would be taken away. To where, no one knew, because everyone who had gone, never returned.
Sinder's heart begins to speed up, and she nervously listens as the girls cries grow quieter and quieter until they are smothered by the silence. She knows that that girl is never coming back, and she finds herself feeling the slightest pang of jealousy, because that girl, was finally free.
***
The sun shines down on Sinder's pale skin, and she throws her head back to laugh, a soft sweet sound, like the quiet tinkling of a bell around the neck of a cat. She runs and gamboles through a field of yellow Daisy's, smiling children in quick persist behind her. She feels wind's gentle touch on her face, and smells the beautiful scent of the daisies around her. She comes to a stop under the shade of a willow tree, and lies down on her back underneath it. A small, young girl joins her, the girl from earlier, and they talk in until sunset. The quiet melody of a bird fills their ears and they listen in awe. It grows louder and louder, loosing its soft tone, sounding more like a screech, until it molds into the endless tapping, and turns into a pounding.
Sinder sits straight up in her bed. A pang of sadness fills her body for she can feel the remnants of her dream already fading away. The pounding, however does not stop, and she realizes it is coming from her alarm clock. 6:45 AM. The same time she has woken up every single morning since infancy. She gets out of her bed, slips into the newly washed clothes she had worn for the past month, and steps into her Transporter. It is a small platform within a little room with glass walls and sliding doors. Immediately she feels a jolt of energy, and the glass doors slide open. At exactly 6:46 AM, she arrives in the hallway of her school. Time to begin her work.
