We're running.
We're running like tidal waves, perfectly in sync. We're running like bullets from a gun, our harsh breaths ripping through the cold atmosphere. They are the hunters. We are the foxes. And we run.
As the cool air gusts past my face, that feeling of fear and utmost despair opens up, unfurling in the pit of my stomach.
The world is not as it used to be. People do not fall in love. People are devoid and full of a nothingness that stretches to their hearts until it twists and ravages them into practically nothing themselves.
I'd always been wrong. I'd always felt wrong. I'd felt wrong when I'd wanted my tall, willowy, beautiful mother to kiss me goodnight. To tell me she loved me. To pull my bed covers all the way to my ears and smile. But she didn't love me. She was as devoid of anything as everyone else.
I'd felt wrong when I'd been embarrassed to sing in front of the school as required by every child to test their talents. I had shook like a quaking leaf, stumbled onto the stage and sung with my hands clasped so tightly behind my back, I thought they'd snap from the pressure. I remember their faces. Their stark, blank faces. They had no emotion whatsoever. They had long, drawn faces pulled into no particular shape or line.
I'd grown up around people, in a community whom were all the same. They never changed. They didn't do anything. I knew I was wrong. That I was a word I'd learned when I was ten. Anomaly. It was after I'd sang. A lady, with gold rimmed glasses perched high on her nose and skin that sagged like a plum had grabbed my hand and towed me into a small room. I remember watching her white uniform and marveling at how perfectly it fit her curvaceous figure. Everyone wore white. No one ever wears anything other than white.
She had towed me to that room, sat down and perched on a pristine, white chair. Everything else was white too. It's just the way things were.
"You are an anomaly. Do you know what that means?"
"No." I'd whispered, my voice betraying how shy I was.
"It means you don't fit the pattern. You were born with something wrong with you. All of the other children and adults are emotionless. You know that don't you? They don't feel embarrassment. Not even a flighting feeling of it."
"Oh."
"Yes. It is very dangerous to be an anomaly in this world. The world that the previous have formed for us."
The "previous" hadn't done anything wrong really. They had just started having children that were devoid of emotion. It had scared them apparently. Their parents. It scared them that their children didn't smile or laugh or even like anything. They were just devoid. That's what I've always called everyone else. Devoids. I think it's very appropriate.
"You mustn't tell anyone about this. You must keep this secret to yourself or they will get rid of you. Do you understand? Keep it in." She'd said, her voice as stern as steel.
I hadn't been very good at keeping it in though. I'd let it slip sometimes. It also didn't help that there were surveillance cameras everywhere, tracking our movements. Of course I was scared people would notice but they didn't seem to. That or they just simply ignored me. They never really noticed much. Until one day.
It was a Wednesday to be specific. We were walking in two perfectly parallel lines to the assembly hall on the east side of our school, feet slapping against the ground in harmony. I had been gazing up the sky, watching the birds flit past and wondering what it would be like to fly. Would it be perilous or absolutely thrilling? I never came up with an answer because for one harrowing step, I didn't lift my left foot up enough and I stumbled over until I landed on my face.
The devoids would have just stood up automatically, brushed off their dusted, white uniforms and continued on. I, on the other hand grimaced and swore to the pits of hades. After I had stood up grudgingly and like I usually did, I craned my head around like a periscope to make sure no one had noticed my mishap. They had.
About ninety degrees to the right of me, a boy was standing as still as bone, gawking at me. My eyes widened and I took a sharp breath into my lungs.
He had the darkest brown hair I'd ever seen with deep, green eyes just to match. He was breathtaking. His eyes raked me up and down before settling on my face. Suddenly his face twitched and his flawlessly shaped full lips turned up into the mischievous grin.
I almost screamed. I'd read about smiles. I'd imagined them time and time again but I'd never seen one in all my seventeen years. I was so surprised to see him smile like that. At me. He had then quickly snapped his mouth shut, flicked his head around to make sure no one had seen him just as I had and continued into his line.
I didn't move. I didn't move for a whole hour. I missed assembly hall. He was like me. He wasn't a devoid. Eventually I was able to move a finger, an arm, a leg until I was walking again. Was he actually like me? Or was he just playing me? He can't have been. Devoids can't even comprehend smiling let alone actually be able to do it. I wondered home that day, thoughts chugging through my mind like oil, ready to burn me at a moments notice.
I went through the normal routines of nightly hours in my family's box. Apparently they used to be called homes. I think that sounds a lot better than boxes. It's warmer somehow. Boxes are sharp, cold and hollow inside. I ate my meal in silence, still thinking about that boy. The word boy would be an understatement though. He was large and built, his muscles straining against the white jumpsuit that encompasses everyone. His face was still the best feature about him. High cheekbones, straight nose, full lips and those eyes. I wondered what they would look like up close.
I imagined them being the colour of the valley at the edge. It has sweeping hills with a fence running along the barren land with barbed wire tangled around wooden beams. It's rickety and bended at almost every interval. It's not really an edge but everybody knows: to never go any farther than that fence. Never go past the edge. It's unclear why just as it is unclear why genetics warped and stained people with nothingness. There's nothing past there. Your eyes can stretch to the horizon and all you'll see is green.
It seemed that night, that all I was ever going to see was green as well. I was just about to settle into bed when a screeching came from the window. My book flew into the air. I settled down on the bed and threw the covers over my head. Like that would've protected me. It was completely irrational to do that. I should have found something to defend myself with, not just literally lay down and die.
I remember hearing my ragged breathing, pulsing through my ears and praying to lord Jesus himself that I came to no harm. Of course I shouldn't have believed that would help me. I'm not religious in the slightest. Another screeching, a bang and a loud "OW! Shit!" fills the horrid atmosphere.
I kept my head under the covers, still praying. A dark, unfurling fear gripped me, trying to pull me under. I remember being frightened that if I do die, no one will really mourn me. No one will be upset or even happy that I'm gone. No one will feel anything about it. A symphony of footsteps started getting louder and louder and eventually reached a crescendo. The covers were ripped off me but before I could scream, a hand clamped down on my mouth and I muffled into it.
"Don't scream." A pair of striking, green eyes were boring into mine. I stopped screaming. It was him.
"What are you doing here?" I screeched.
"I was curious about you." He shrugged.
"Curious? If you get caught outside of your family box during the nightly hours, they will eliminate you!"
He grinned again like a cockish tyrant.
"So you are like me." I didn't think it possible but he seemed to grin even more.
"W-w-what are you talking about?" I stammered.
"You know exactly what I'm talking about."
"No I don't."
"The fact that you're getting flustered proves my point that you know entirely what I'm talking about."
He then perched his bottom to sit just on the edge of my bed and smiled again. It was sweet this time, his lips just lifting at the corners slightly.
"You're not devoid." I state.
"Huh?"
"Oh. Devoid. That's just what I call everyone else. You know because they're devoid of... of... everything I guess." I shrug.
"Devoid? That's a pretty good nickname."
"Not really."
He glared at me for an awfully long time. I realised that his eyes weren't like the valley at the edge. They were more subtle, like the murky waters of a creek perhaps. I could lose myself in the depths of them, could fall into an entirely different universe and be glad to be there, even if just for a fleeting second.
We talked for an endless amount of time, our words filling up the space in my small, white room. For a moment I thought the room might just spiral out with colour from all of our words filling it up, giving it a light and warmth that it had never ever seen before.
Eventually we got to the heavy stuff.
"There's so much more you know? A whole spectrum of feelings and emotions that no one else is capable of feeling. You've always fought it haven't you? You've fought it because you told yourself it was wrong. That you shouldn't feel that. Don't fight it. Let it fill you up." He said.
"I can't do that. They'll eliminate me if I do that. I have to keep it inside. I have to keep it locked up. So do you."
"I know that but that doesn't mean that you have to lock it up from yourself too."
"I don't understand."
"You try to stop yourself from feeling because you think it's bad. It's not. It's bad to let them see it but that doesn't mean that you need to ignore it when you feel it. You can feel something and you can let it possess you and you should."
"No I shouldn't. I'm an anomaly. So are you. Anomalies are bad."
"Why?"
"They... They just are." I state.
"Whatever. You have to learn to let go." He smiled.
And I did.
After that night, we spent more time together. Almost all our time together. I started to notice more things. Feel more things. After I'd met him, I hadn't felt so wrong. I'd felt right. I smiled. I'd never smiled before. I laughed. I'd never laughed before either but I enjoyed the complete enjoyment it brought me. It filled me up inside, blowing me up like a balloon and when I couldn't contain it inside myself anymore, it bubbled up and out of my lips in a fit of what I learned where called giggles.
He would come into my bedroom each night and we'd talk about the day, what I felt. He kept trying to open me up, crack me open like a walnut, break the shell and see what was really inside. I was afraid that when he did, he'd see it wasn't very glorious. It was just dull.
We would sit together at school. The devoids whispered about it so we relocated to the library. I didn't mind this. I love books. I always have. The smell, the weight of them, the realness and if I'm being honest - the feelings I would illicit from them. It was like nothing else. Learning about how people used to see this world, with love and passion and reverence. With something.
He would ask me a million and one questions about myself, never failing to be inquisitive.
"What's your favourite colour?"
"Green." I replied. This was mostly due to looking into his eyes as I answered.
"Do you like flowers?"
"Of course I do."
"Which kind?"
"Tulips."
"You like books?"
"Yes."
"What about movies?"
"Um, not as much." I admitted coyly.
He had grinned at that which in turn made my heart flutter.
It was Tuesday when I cracked. When I let go. When I spewed into the world. We were at the library as we usually were and we were talking. Actually we were arguing.
"Why won't you let go? You'll see, you will, you'll see that life is so much better when you can feel things. Feel emotions."
"I can't! I can't! You don't understand! If I don't keep it inside, I will be eliminated. And you will too. Do you want that?! It's wrong. I'm wrong! I am an anomaly. I'm not supposed to feel. I don't want to feel. That's why I won't let go. I don't want to be this way. I don't want to be a-"
And then he grabbed my face and pressed his lips to mine. I was surprised. I knew what he was doing, I'd read about kissing in books but that didn't stop me from feeling surprised. And then I realised. I realised that I felt surprised, that being surprised is a feeling, one you can't stop or force out of your mind. It's involuntary. I then realised that I have never really forced myself not to feel. I just ignored it when I did. Feelings are involuntary. You can't force them away. You can't just ignore them and you shouldn't.
It's not bad being an anomaly. Feeling when everyone else can't. But that's not true. There's him. He's here, feeling with me. He's an anomaly too. A beautiful, perfect anomaly. And with this, realising this:
I let myself go.
I didn't crack like he'd wanted me to though. I blossomed. I winded my fingers through his hair and moulded my slight frame to fit against his. I also drowned. That feeling of lust and a kind of joy I'd never known filled me up and swallowed me whole. I drowned in it. I revelled in it. We devoured each other, lips against lips, a tangle of hands, limbs and staggered breaths.
In a world where I would hide, I found the place to be found.