I close my eyes, imagining the hospital rooms before me and the cool breeze from the open window. When I open my eyes, I’m still standing in the same room with the same stagnant air and same people. Hatred begins to rise through me before I squash it down with the sole of my foot.
“I have no family,” I say, my voice slow and quiet, the way it usually is back at the hospital. I only talk when necessary. I will not give Tabitha and Gordon any more information than I have already. Telling Kasie about Mr. Lawrence was a bad idea and a bad choice. I will not make bad choices any further. Once presented with choices, I seem to be making mistakes everywhere.
“Yes you do,” Tabitha says firmly, her eyes set on mine. “Everyone does.”
Before I can contradict her, and tell her that I truly don’t have a family, she focuses her attention on the screen and the words that were at the tip of my tongue escapes me. I stare at her and wonder what the words were again. I don’t have a family. I lived in a hospital. I’ve always lived there. Always.
But the photograph that Tabitha showed me screams otherwise.
“You weren’t volunteered,” Tabitha informs me. “In fact, you were taken. But it doesn’t say it was against your will,” she says, pointing at the words on the screen. “You were on ‘their side’ according to the transcripts.” She gives me a smile, but I can already see the darkness in her eyes when she looks at me. “Maybe we should have looked further before we took you.”
I don’t understand half of what she is saying, but I don’t admit it. Instead, I just stand there and stare at her. She’s crazy. She must be.
“You were captured along with someone else,” she says, her voice catching at the end before regaining control over herself. “And then you were brought to the hospital and the doctors blocked out your memories.”
I shake my head, denying this insane story, but there’s a part of me that secretly agrees to everything she says. There’s a part of me that tells me that this is all true and the hospital is the place full of bad people.
It’s not true. It can’t be true.
It is.
But it isn’t.
It is!
It’s not true.
Yes it is!
There’s a riot inside my head, and I press my palms against my temple again, squeezing my eyes shut and trying to push all the noise and arguments away. I don’t know what to believe. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it!
Someone is screaming my name, but it’s probably inside my head, and I’m falling through the darkness, and when my hands reach out to grab hold of something I can’t feel anything, and I slip through the darkness screaming for help, but nobody can hear or see me, and I’m tangled in a cobweb of lies, and the spider cackles at me when it sees that I am helpless in its trap, and it approaches me, but then the trap of lies fall loose, and the white light is so blinding, and it hurts my eyes so much, and I realize that the truth isn’t what I wanted either and—
Hands grab my shoulders, and they shake me until I’m well in my mind again. My eyes open, and I see that Gordon is shaking me, his eyes fixed on me.
“Seven Young,” he says, but that’s not me anymore. I don’t even know who I am. “Seven Young, you listen to what she has to say right now. I know things are hard to take, but you need to listen to this.”
“It’s not my name,” I whisper, the truth almost in my grasp but yet still so far away. “I’m not Seven Young.” I pause. “Who am I?”
Tabitha points at the screen like the words there will tell her every little thing she needs to know about me. “Your name is definitely not Seven,” she says, sounding a little more than smug but also happy that I’ve realized this at the same time. “In fact, your name is—”
I don’t even give her time to finish because I know what it is. My name has always been there, lingering at the back of my mind and just waiting for me to reclaim it, but I couldn’t because the pills kept pushing them back. Now that the pills are gone, I can hear my own thoughts again and tidbits of me come flowing back easily like they must have once. The only hard part is admitting that they are true and not just false figments of my mind.
“My name is Hope,” I say. Unlike Seven, the name manages to be even a little familiar to my lips. The sound of the word is so comforting and reminds me of the times that I used to live in. Before the hospital. A life before the hospital is a dream, a paradise; something that I never thought existed and never strived through my forgotten memories for.
I still cannot believe that I ever lived outside the hospital. That phrase is still coated in foggy darkness and even that mist may never lift. I’m not sure if I want the mist to lift or not.
“Yes,” Tabitha says, looking surprised that I know the answer. “That’s true.”
I want to cry.
I can’t cry.
I won’t cry.
It’s a sign of weakness. I won’t show any signs of weaknesses here. I don’t like the way that Tabitha looks at me with so much pity like I am just a fragile toy that she accidentally broke.
I’m not just a fragile toy. I’m stronger than that. Stronger.
“Your family consisted of your mother and father,” Tabitha continues, looking away from me, giving me time away from her scrutiny. “Your mother, sadly, was caught and terminated.” She winces and gives me a worried look, but I don’t feel anything stir inside of me. Maybe it’s because I’ve never met my mother or maybe because the memories haven’t come back in full yet.
“Your father, on the other hand, is still alive.”
“I don’t have a father,” I say, but this denial is weak, and she completely ignores it.
“This is where we found out about the twenty-third sector. It’s a prison for the grand traitors and anyone who displeases the governor.” Her face scrunches up in a scowl. “They’re keeping your father there and according to the information we have, he was not executed—for his technological skills. He’s making use while he rots in his prison,” she says bitterly.
Prison. My father is in prison. The phrase is so odd that I almost laugh out loud, but I stop myself from it. I’ve never known my father or at least that is true according to my memory. When I think about that word, nothing comes up except for the father in the storybook my friend owned. He abandoned Cinders. Just like my father abandoned me. Do I even want to see him again?
“What we are to do now is find him,” she informs us. “Your father was an important figure a long time ago.” Her eyes get a faraway look, but they disappear sooner than they have come. “And his skills will be useful for us.”
“Useful how?” I ask her, wanting to know the answer. I want to see my father but the larger part of me does not. I don’t know him and seeing him will just cut open wounds that I never knew I had. It would be like throwing me at a stranger and telling me that he is related to me in every way possible.
That thought is just ridiculous and thinking about it makes me want to laugh and cry at the same time. My father exists. I have a father. If someone told me that a week ago, I would have stared at them blankly before confidently informing them that I have no father.
Tabitha doesn’t answer my question. She continues to focus on the screen in front of her, not seeing anything else. “Unfortunately, this is not up to date like the official information. We don’t know if he’s dead yet or whether they decided to revoke the law that allows him to live. On the other hand, there is a map of Seraphin.” A full coloured flat picture shows up on screen. There’s a shape like a crescent moon and a larger blob a little further away from it. Then there are lines drawn all over the map and the number of each sector. Within each sector are thinner lines and dots that indicate each city. I see the word ‘Ruse’ neatly written in the same meticulous black writing that is scrawled on my wrist band. I look down on my left wrist and tug the wrist band slightly. It complies with the pressure but does not snap like all paper.
I want to get rid of it.
The sight of the wrist band makes me feel sick, contained and weaker than anything. I pull at it with my finger, and then grab it and tug at it until it leaves red marks over my wrist.
I want to let out a frustrated scream, but I don’t. Instead, I let my hands drop to my sides, giving in and allowing myself to be claimed forever by the wrist band. Tabitha and Gordon don’t notice my struggles with the wrist band. Instead, they are both paying close attention to the map.
“We can ask the ferry to take us there,” Gordon says, pointing at the small crescent moon island. I see the number ‘23’ on it. A little island on the bottom of the larger blob says ‘22’.
My eyes are immediately drawn to that number, and I stare at it for longer than a little while. This is my home. No, it was my home. I’m not even sure if I can call it that anymore. Perhaps it’s just a nameless hospital like the one back in the first sector I visited.
So where is my home now?
The thought of not having a home sends shivers through me until I am rubbing the bumps on my flesh with my bare hands. The thought of not actually having a home at the hospital and being lied to is much too absurd.
So I do what I do best: deny it.
“It’s not possible,” I say, interrupting the middle of the conversation that Gordon and Tabitha are having. They both stop and stare at me. Tabitha stares with a little more incredulousness than Gordon, like she can’t believe I’m reverting back to my usual state after all her hard work. “It’s not possible,” I repeat slowly, afraid my words will slur together. It happens when I’m over thinking things. “It can’t be possible. I don’t have parents. I’ve always lived in the hospital. You’re lying. My doctors and nurses will never lie to me.”
But they’ve kept things from me all the time.
“You’re the liars here,” I continue, deep down knowing that I’m just babbling nonsense and pushing Tabitha and Gordon’s limits. They won’t stand around to any more of my derisive mockery anymore than I would have stood theirs. Except that I can tolerate most anything. Tabitha doesn’t look like she can do the same. In fact, she looks a little confused, but then the confusion turns into red embarrassment before settling on anger.
“Us?” she echoes softly. “Liars?”
I nod vigorously, trying not to let her see that I’m really just trying to convince myself. Anger forces itself onto her face, and they contort with a myriad of other emotions. “Liars?” she asks again. Gordon casts a worried look and then places his hand lightly on her shoulder. She doesn’t even notice it.
“Coming from the girl who lived in a hospital full of lies, you wouldn’t expect her to be the one making any judgements at all,” Tabitha says, trying to seem absentminded. Her cheeks are flaming and that’s a dead giveaway that she’s on the verge of screaming again.
I don’t feel the urge to be yelled at by her so I take a step away from her. Tabitha notices, and she calms down instantly. The gun has been taken away from her temple, and her hand.
“We’re heading towards the twenty-third sector,” she says, giving me a pointed look that tells me that she won’t back down from this resolve no matter what. “Even if that doesn’t go well with you, we’re going. In fact, you can stay with Wynfor if you want.” A hint of a smirk tugs on her lips at the thought of Wynfor. She must know that I don’t like him very much seeing that he was about to punch my face in the day before. But what I really care about is how she is able to switch from anger to amusement so quickly. Dr. Salazar could never do that. He takes hours to calm down, and that is why everyone stays out of his way and tries not to anger him. Not that it works very often anyway.
“We’re leaving Ruse now,” Tabitha says, closing the black machine and marching away to the door. She opens it and then leaves without even looking back to see if either of us are following her.
Gordon grins at me, and he opens the door and sweeps out his free hand, welcoming me. “Ladies first,” he says, smiling broadly, and I walk out after him.
I look down, not wanting to meet his eyes. The white slippers I wear must have once looked out of place in this decrepit house. Now that it’s worn and dirty, it doesn’t look at odds at all. In fact, it looks like it can fit right in.
We will leave the city without trouble at all, according to Tabitha. But Mallory keeps checking her watch that she wears on her wrist and telling Tabitha and Gordon that it’s not time to go.
While we wait for the ‘right time’, I fall asleep with my head on the dirty table which is something I would never do unless I am about to collapse from fatigue. Oblivion hours later, I’m awoken by the jerking of the table beneath me and my head snaps up, looking around to see if the world has finally fallen beneath my feet like it should have with the revelations of everything. That’s not true because it’s just Thorpe who has accidentally run into the table. Jakob stands over him a smirk on his face before he holds out his hand to pull him up before they go running around again playing some sort of childish game that the hospital would never allow us.
“I’m telling you, he’s on guard in a few hours,” Mallory keeps protesting. “You’re just walking into a trap if you leave now.”
“According to his time table,” Tabitha begins coolly, giving Mallory a look, “he’s on guard two minutes from now.”
I don’t understand what they are talking about so I lean back on the wooden chair, and it creaks beneath me. I wince, hoping that it won’t break. I don’t fancy the idea of falling onto the hard floor with no warning whatsoever.
“I’m saying that it’s been changed,” Mallory states, lifting her chin up and trying to look superior. “Coming from a respected resident of Ruse, you’d think I know a thing or two about this place.”
Gordon looks like he wants to laugh because an amused smile crossed his face. But it disappears, and he’s staring at Mallory with a solemn expression that doesn’t ever seem to suit him.
“Respected,” Gordon echoes, his voice very serious, but even I can tell that his eyes are flitting around the sad, feeble house. If she’s a respected citizen, surely she would have been given a nicer house.
Mallory can tell that Gordon doubts her because her cheeks begin to flame. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Mallory flustered or angry before. She’s usually calm and self-assured in a superior sort of way. She glares at Tabitha, trying to look oppressing, but Tabitha merely looks back at her like she can’t be bothered by what a younger girl has to say to her.
“I know what I’m doing,” Tabitha states. “Just because I don’t live in Ruse doesn’t mean I don’t know what’s going on and what schedule changed.” She looks at her calmly while Mallory fumes. “I have other insiders beside you.”
Tabitha turns to look at me and smiles. “Hello, Seven,” she says, not using my real name but the false name that I have been given at the hospital. I almost squirm at the sound of it, but I force my lips to curl upwards. It must look like a grimace. “It’s about time to take our leave. Are you ready?”
I nod, not feeling ready at all. If she’s right, I am going to meet my father now. My father—the man I never believed existed.
While those feelings rage around in my head, Mallory makes a disapproving noise before marching away with her head held high, and Gordon and Tabitha follows after her.
Necha tells us she’ll take care of Thorpe while we’re gone and within minutes, we’re leaving the city of Ruse.
The single guard on duty does a little bow when we pass him and opens the gates without hesitation. Under his hat, I can see the youthfulness in his face, and another shudder runs through me. I know enough to know that youths should not be working in these positions.
And it’s not until the city fades away do I ask the question. “Why are the guards in the sectors so young?”
Mallory, who had accompanied us, gives me a withering look like she can’t believe that I’d be stupid enough to ask a question like that. I avert my eyes, not wanting to meet those blue irises with my own brown ones. I’ve already felt enough disappointment pointed towards me to last a lifetime. I certainly don’t need any more.
Tabitha answers my question. “Because they’re chosen or they volunteered.”
The words remind me of what she used to describe the patients. They are volunteered just like I was. “Is it against their will?”
Mallory speaks up before Tabitha can kindly correct me. “Obviously not,” she scoffs. “Didn’t you just hear what she said? They volunteered for it themselves. It’s most definitely not against their will but some of them have decided to take the risk and sided with us. The officials don’t know. Yet.”
The signature grin crosses Gordon’s face. “And you think that they’re close to finding out?”
Mallory gives him a dirty look. It’s a look that says she cannot believe how absolutely uneducated he is. “That’s sedition. If you don’t think they’ll find out, you’re the crazy one. You’re just lucky that you have some guards on your side. Otherwise, you’d be trapped in plain sight. Let’s see how you would like that. They would shoot you down with no conscience at all.”
The way that she says the words with no emotion behind it at all makes me shiver. She catches it and looks at me oddly like I’m caught in a bad act. I immediately drop my arms from my sides and stare upon the ground like I’ve seen something interesting.
The land around us is the same barren landscape, but there isn’t much dirt on the ground below my feet. I can see cracked grey beneath it, and I once make the mistake to stop and examine it. Gordon turned back to pull me away so I wouldn’t slow them down.
I don’t know where we’re going because this road looks different than the one I had taken at night. It must be the same road because Tabitha had told me we were going back to the safe-house which I had run away from. The moonlight must have made everything look so much more different. It must be the same path I had taken, but the sun makes it unfamiliar.
It is silent between the four of us the rest of the way. My slippers are dirtier than they had been before due to the excessive use of it on places that I’m not supposed to use it on. I stare at the slippers, wondering if I can have new slippers. It’s making me feel dirty and disgusting. My eyes skim to Tabitha’s boots. They look more comfortable than my slippers. And more studier.
My clothes are also feeling too thin now. There are already holes in the material. I usually change them every day. Not every week. It isn’t made to last that long, and I can already tell that it’s falling apart by the looks of it.
I want warmer clothes like the fuzzy jacket that Mallory is wearing. When she had caught me looking at the fur, she assured me that it wasn’t from an animal. I don’t even know what a real animal looks like. I only know them from my hallucinations. We’ve studied them in Learning but we’re never shown pictures of them. I wonder what animal the fur comes from, but the question never finds its way out of my mouth. Instead, something else that I’ve sworn I’d keep shut and to myself bursts free.
“I want new clothes.”
My cheeks are warm now at my sudden outburst. I must sound very rude. I don’t want to sound like that, but what’s been said has been said. That’s what Dr. Salazar would tell me every time I tried to backtrack on my words. Then he would make good on his threat to give me more pills, something I highly despised then until they were yanked from my grasp. Now that the visions are gone, I still have an aching hunger for the pills, but it is no longer so substantial that I’d scavenge for it.
Mallory gives me a once over and does that half-smirk. I avert my eyes, feeling a fresh wave of heat rush to my face. It must be very red by now.
“New clothes,” she says slowly like I’m idiotic, and I feel even more ashamed at my outburst. “It makes sense. You aren’t very well-dressed to begin with.”
I don’t know if it’s a compliment or an insult so I feign indifference.
Tabitha, on the other hand, smiles at me like I’m an obedient child who’s just done what she’s been told. Something about that expression makes me scrunch up my nose. “We’ll get you something warmer,” she tells me, and I nod my head. “Right now we’re going to find the safe-house that you left.”
The safe-house that I left. It sounds like anything but a safe-house to me, but I continue to nod like I’m agreeing to all of this.
Meanwhile, the photograph of the smiling girl reappears, and I shudder, rubbing my arms.
That was me.
I still can’t believe it.
The rest of the walk is silent and before I know it, the figure of the square block rises up from the distance, bathing in the golden sunlight. The barren landscape wraps its hands closer around the safe-house, and it gives off the pretense of deserted house about to collapse. I know it’s not true.
Before we even reach the ecru doors, someone is already stepping out and shutting the door behind them. When I get closer, I see lustrous brown hair shining in the sunlight and the figure of a teenage girl.
The figure waves to us, making large movements in the air with her hands. “Hello!” I hear her call loudly and enthusiastically.
Mallory rolls her eyes like Kasie is just an annoying factor in her life which I suppose is true. When we are finally close enough to see Kasie’s face, I can see her squint at Mallory with distaste. “What’s she doing here?” she asks, her voice accusatory and curious at the same time.
“It’s not of your business,” Mallory simply replies. They must be around the same age, and they are the same height. For some reason, it seems that Mallory easily towers over Kasie and her blue eyes are calculating, finding the best way to intimidate Kasie.
Kasie stands her ground and stares back at Mallory. “I wasn’t asking you.”
Mallory takes a step away, but it’s not out of fear but more a mixture of resignation and haughtiness. “Same difference,” Mallory says simply and then turns away from her. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that it is the end of the conversation. Kasie gives Mallory a pointed look before averting her eyes.
“We’re going to the abandoned bases,” Tabitha informs Kasie. “We found some information that could help us, from her.” Tabitha nods at me, not mentioning my name at all. I suppose she doesn’t know whether to call me Hope or Seven. Either way, both names are truly unfamiliar like the landscape around me no matter how much I try to convince myself.
“Why?” Kasie asks, still shooting glares in Mallory’s direction. “What are you going to do?”
Tabitha hesitates, and Gordon shakes his head slightly. Kasie doesn’t notice it. “I can’t tell you,” Tabitha says at last. She’s about to say something else before Kasie interrupts her.
“Take me with you,” Kasie says blandly. Noticing the sharp look that Mallory shoots at her, she clarifies more confidently. “You can’t just leave me here. I can take care of myself. I’m seventeen.”
“A year too young,” Mallory intervenes, not even giving Kasie a second look which ostensibly irks her even more. “You can’t go.”
Kasie shoots her another look. “You can’t possibly think of leaving me here.” She looks at me and then nods. “Not when Seven knows something about my brother.”
She must be talking about my Teacher, Mr. Lawrence. I don’t know what to say to her about it. How would I know that they are family when I’ve never truly known what family is all my life?
Not all your life, a voice whispers, and my mind rushes back to pull out the photograph of a smiling little girl in the field of wheat.
“My name is not—,” I cut myself off and then I stare at the ground again. Though Hope was a name I used in memories that have blown away with my mind, it doesn’t sound like a calling any more than Seven does. I’ve only kept Seven because it ties me with my home—the hospital. Now because of everything Tabitha has mentioned, I don’t even know my own say about the hospital.
The image of Ana smiles down at me.
Dr. Salazar’s scowling face appears over me, his mouth moving, but I can never hear the words he says. All I know that it is something insulting.
The image of Bryler’s gun looming of the dead nurses’ body burns in my mind.
Then he swings the cold barrel of the gun to my head while he sneers at me.
“I’m going whether you like it or not,” Kasie says obstinately, crossing her arms and narrowing her eyes. “I’ll give anything for my brother.”
A half-smile tugs Mallory’s lips, but it’s not a smile at all. It’s more of a derisive sneer.
“We all know that. It’s just that you don’t have anything to give.”