Imperfect Freedom

Nine

My head is in a whirl. I can't think about anything. Days pass, and I resume a regular schedule. I haven't been to the CD since the first Day when Elle showed me. I haven't had the head to manage the reality of it. Electra has kept her distance at times, knowing that I need space.

Another teacher replaces Ms Rathe, and the class barely blinks an eye. Reality of it is, the world has moved on. I wasn't all that attached to my teacher. The thing that I'm hung up on is why, why would they kill her just for speaking her opinion? Why is it such a big deal if she tells us a conspiracy?

But mainly, the question is just that. Why? There was no need. If what she said was right, it means that everything we have ever learnt is incorrect. Everything we've ever known is wrong.

I feel empty inside. Crushed. There are moments I can barely breathe, caught up in nightmares and conspiracy theories.

The nightmares. They make me wish I was the one who was dead. Continuous pictures, all different, worse the longer they drag on.

One night I wake from one screaming, and the pictures in my head are so fresh, so vivid, I can't fall back to sleep. No one else seems troubles by my screams. They all sleep peacefully. Then again, I'm not really in a room with people who care about me.

When it is clear I am not about to fall asleep, I get out of bed and tiptoe out of the room. The hallway outside is eerily quiet as I rub my bare feet against the white carpet and make my way to the door that matron was supposed to be guarding. She was currently not there, but echoes of laughter comes from the kitchen at the other end of the long hallway. She was probably off talking to Don, the chef.

I slip out the girls dorms so I am standing in the large high room that the girls dorms and boys dorms lead into. It, like everything else in the complex, is completely white. It's walls are adorned with black and white portraits of important people and underneath are white benches that are often accommodating the groups of gossipers (including Drew and her 'posse' of followers). There is one window in the room that looks out upon the nursery grounds below. Underneath this widow is a seat, and this is exactly where I find Electra.

I shuffle over to the bench and sit next to her. She doesn't acknowledge my presence, just continues staring out the window.

"Hi." I say. She briefly looks at me, then turns back to the window.

"What are you doing here?" Electra asks, her voice filled with venom.

"I couldn't sleep." I reply, taken aback by the anger in her tone.

"So you decided to stop ignoring me?" Electra snaps back.

I am silent for a few seconds, figuring out a way to answer this.

"And so you finally felt sorry for me and decided that you might come along and be my best friend again? Hey?

I shake my head. "I'm sorry Elle, I didn't mean to-"

She throws me an evil glare. "Whatever. I don't care."

I bite my lip. "I'm really sorry Electra, I didn't realise that I was ignoring you. I just wanted space because of-"

She cuts me off. "Because of what? A teacher dying? Big whoop. People die all the time." Her voice cracks on this last sentence and she starts to cry.

Confused, I wrap an arm around her shoulder, awkwardly trying to comfort her. She stops crying and we sit in silence.

"He was my father." Electra says suddenly.

"Who?" I reply, surprised. You never knew your parents in the complex. You were taught that parents didn't matter. When you were born, your mother gave you straight to the nursery. Your guardians were the Advisors. The nursery was divided into age groups, then those age groups were divided into two groups, and then those two groups became the A and B units, then from the A and B units you were divided into groups known as classes. I was in class 8B3, my age, then my division, and my class.