Culling

Part I • Chapter IV

Any minuscule amount of hope that I had died.

"You want me to go?" I asked her in a small voice.

"It is not like you have a choice. Why don't you take responsibility for yourself for once?" At this, my mother turned to face the other direction as she moved towards the door.

Apparently she was finished with her goodbyes to me.

No, she couldn't leave! I was still her daughter, she had to care at least a little bit! "I'll die! You would send your own daughter to die?"

She stopped mid-step. I noticed over her shoulder that Maro was looking at her with what appeared to be hardly concealed disgust.

After a moment of tense silence, she slowly turned back towards me. "You are no responsibility of mine. I took you in out of the goodness of my heart, the child of some whore; and you have been nothing but a thorn in my side since your father showed up with you. A tiny, squalling nuisance, and a constant reminder of his infidelity. That's what you always have been."

For the second time in one day, my world stopped.

"What?" I breathed, stunned. What did she mean?

"Are you that stupid?" She looked away again, and pushed past Maro as she opened the door to leave. "You are not my daughter, and you have never been. Your usefulness to me has ended, so whatever happens now is no problem of mine."

The woman I had known as my mother my entire life turned her head back towards me, her body halfway out of the door.

Then she looked back at me, directly into my eyes.

It was jarring.

I felt as though I was really seeing her for the first time in my life and could see only disdain for me in her gaze.

Despite everything that we had been through together, despite me dedicating my life to try to win her affection and love, she had not an ounce of maternal affection towards me. In fact, she didn't even have any kind of affection for me at all, not even as a fellow human being.

Suddenly it dawned on me, I truly was alone; and this time I did not even know who I was anymore.

☜♡☞

I sat in a moving vehicle the next time I became aware again.

I vaguely remembered going through the motions after the woman I thought was my mother and my brother left me alone in that room. At some point Khloe had returned and I followed her instructions, which led me here.

Now Khloe, still wearing the ridiculous outfit from earlier, was muttering something to herself. She noticed me looking at her, and suddenly stopped talking before shifting her attention towards me.

"Hey there." She patted my knee, sympathy in her brown eyes. "Glad to see you are back with us."

So it had been that noticeable that my world had been shattered?

Great.

Now the entire universe could look and laugh at Sang, the abandoned child that no one wanted. The one woman unlucky enough to be chosen to play in the Culling. My entire life had come apart around me for the amusement of the masses.

As if she could read my mind, she continued. "You have been with me since your guests left. I have not let anyone else in on what happened with your family, it is none of their business. Do not worry. We are now on the way to the train station so we can go to the Capital."