2302. 04. 12
I didn’t have the strength to get up. Neither did I have the heart to fall asleep. So there I was, lying on the floor endlessly staring into the nothingness in our bunker. I tried not to think of anything because if I did my head would feel like it was going to blow. I couldn’t stop my brain from getting mad all over again at everybody for not helping me when I was getting beaten up. Even though I got mad, I knew, deep in my heart, that this was their routine. Seeing someone get beaten up but not being able to help because they’re afraid that they will be hit too. I wondered how many people the boy that was watching had seen getting tortured. He seemed just my age, his green eyes flashing moods of worry whenever I got kicked. And still he didn’t help me. They didn’t think of me as someone special, worth saving. I had become an anybody in the Confined.
I didn’t move a muscle that day. Only when I needed to go to the toilet did I have the opportunity to really sit up and have the energy to walk. My survival instincts had completely won over my purposes of living.
When it got time for having our daily meal, I stood up because I couldn’t die. My ambitions had been stomped upon and shredded. That didn’t mean I wanted to die. And that didn’t mean I was alive either. I was no different from an animal.
✡
I was not thinking.
I only remember bits.
Time flew.
I freaked out again.
It was about pumpkins.
I should have just eaten the stupid thing.
I was so stubborn.
I was so crazy.
I was beaten.
But I was helped.
And now I can breathe.
The boy stalked over to the fight and punched the nearest police. Everyone was surprised but there was no time for me to be distracted. I needed to keep going. I needed to fire along. Someone was siding with me now. And that gave me hope.
I kept fretting until all the other police gave up on me and started to beat the other boy who came to my assistance. He was definitely the boy I saw the other day while I was getting beaten by the policemen. His brown eyes reminded me of my pet goldfish back in the RL. It used to have beautiful brown eyes too, until it died after living for 5 years.
I screamed because I couldn’t help him. I was in awful shape. The boy didn’t look much better than me, but he had come to my help. I felt guilty because he’d helped me in difficult circumstances but I couldn’t do much to help him. I tried to attract attention toward me. I fretted even more vigorously by grabbing a policeman’s hair and shaking it. It only ripped off his wig. I threw the wig into another police’s face who yelled, “John! I told you to get rid of it!”
In seconds, we were contained. The boy seemed to be unconscious. The police without the wig seemed so distressed that I was sure his eyes were soon going to pop out. He and another police were pinning me down to the floor so I couldn’t move. Then everything was over. It was obvious that we had lost, but it made me sad.
The boy and I were soon hauled to the Confined Hospital. I had never been there before and I hadn’t expected it to be so stuffy. Everything was so humid in there. Of course I couldn’t see the vapor inside the room but there was something about it that gave me the impression that it wasn’t very clean. I felt dizzy and sick. Not just because of getting beaten, but also because of the damp air.
My wounds were much less severe than his. I took a few pills and I felt better in no time. The boy was given anesthetics so he would feel less pain. I sat next to the seat to his bed. I was determined to wait until he woke up. I was pretty sure that it would take a couple of hours, but a few minutes later, his eyes opened.
It took some time for him to realize that I was actually sitting right next to him, waiting for him to wake up. I didn’t think he could talk yet due to the anesthetics, but that was better for me. I could make my apologies without being nagged about what I’d done. I knew exactly what I had done wrong. I was sorry. But I didn’t want to be bothered and lectured about it by someone else. I didn’t like that in the RL, and neither did I like that in here. My personality hadn’t changed at all. In fact, it was worse than before. Back then, I was a spoiled girl with power. Now, I was a spoiled girl who didn’t know how bad her situation was.
“You’re awake,” I said. “Thank God.” I was relieved. I would have died of guilt if he had gotten seriously hurt because of me.
“Don’t ever do that again,” He said to me. I was surprised that the anesthetics had worn off so fast. Part of me wanted to call the nurse to inject it again so that I could apologize without any disturbances.
I sighed. “I didn’t mean to, but I hate pumpkins. Plus I was quite mad about what happened the other day.” He moved his head slightly like he was trying to break through the paralysis with his mental strength. He looked at me with his brown eyes. They suddenly made me want him to talk more.
“I’m Ego. Short for Egorbis.” His name was Ego. That was a very decent name. I immediately liked it.
“Ego. Cool name,” I smiled.
“Aren’t you going to tell me yours?” he asked. He wanted to know my name. Everyone probably knew my name here.
“No, you probably know it already,”
“I don’t,” he said. He was lying. I could read it in his face.
“Okay,” I replied. I wasn’t going to tell him. I was going to wait until he called me by my name by accident, proving he was lying.
“Why did you do it?” he asked.
Oh boy. Here it comes, I thought.
“I got flipped over,” This was embarrassing. In the RL, flipping over because of pumpkins wasn’t embarrassing at all. It was part of my temper. Nobody cared and they all adjusted to my personality. The Confined wasn’t somewhere that someone could be picky about their food.
“Well, flipping over frequently is not quite a wise move around here. Apparently you don’t know that yet.” He was starting to annoy me.
I looked straight into his eyes to try to stop myself from getting angry. His brown eyes somehow made me sooth down. “I’m sorry. I just can’t understand how you can take this place. Why don’t you fight back? You have many more people than them. You could rebel or something,”
“No,” He shot back. “No, it doesn’t work like that here, okay? Life isn’t that easy.”
“I don’t think so.” I didn’t mean to talk like that, but the words came out rather sharply.
“Look. You don’t get it. I understand that you haven’t been here long. You just came down here yesterday. I want to tell you, as a much more trained Confined citizen, that things don’t work like that. The human principle goes like this. Everyone who takes action faces results. And those results for us are always horrifying. We are beaten, starved, tortured, and killed. We got people? They got machines. And machines don’t die. We got teamwork? They got a whole army just to protect themselves from nothing. And they don’t die. See? Even though they can think of us as a threat, we can’t even lift a finger near the RL without risking our lives. It’s not only that we’re too frightened of them. It’s also that we actually can’t make that bargain. We can’t win with them shooting us down one bullet per person. That’s how things go in the Confined. That’s why we don’t rebel. Rebellion, is too much of a sacrifice to worth taking a risk for.” Ego’s little speech snapped me shut like a clam.
I was fascinated by this human being. His feelings overflowed from inside himself and into me like I was going through all the harsh moments in his life in a few seconds. I couldn’t breathe. No one had moved me so much before. Something about Ego was special. Not only to me, but to my eyes, he seemed special to the world.
My eyes were getting teary. I knew that it wasn’t the right thing to say to someone who had lived every day of his life trapped inside a cage but I wished to show him that he was meant to do more in the world. “You know what? Life isn’t much. Life is sadness. The fact that humans run towards death every moment of our lives after we are born is sadness, and its life itself. The small bits of happiness, those small bits that make us forget our sad ending for at least a moment, are what we call being alive. It’s the only reason we continue in life. And if you can’t even get that, if you can’t even live a life alive, why do you live? Don’t you think it’s weird?” I wiped a tear off of my cheek. My lips were swelling from biting on them so hard to keep my feelings contained inside myself. I stood up from my chair. I was getting too sensitive to stay. “What do you think life would be worth if we’re only painful and scared about dying? Wouldn’t it be better to just die and be peaceful instead of living a life full of dread? I think it’s better to be alive while you live instead of being haunted every night by nightmares about what horrible thing will happen tomorrow. And if you can’t have that, I say you should at least try.” I walked out of the tight hospital room.
It was a good speech I’d say, but my heart wasn’t comfortable in the least bit. Because, just as I walked out the door, I’d seen it. I’d turned around and seen it. The face of every Confined’s unhappiness melted into one boy. And that boy’s brown eyes drowning themselves in green depression.
✡
I washed the best I could with the sink provided. Tomorrow I was going to go and try out the public showers. I’ve already imagined the worst so I hope I won’t be disappointed. I’m probably wrong again. It’ll be worse that I could ever imagine.
Eva came up to me when I was already in bed. Her orange hair dangled as she climbed up to my top bunk cheerfully. “Are you OK?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said.
“You don’t look OK,” she pointed out. I had to admit it. I looked horrible.
“It’s fine. I was ready for it.”
“Well, you didn’t look very ready. You looked like you suddenly panicked.” She was criticizing me for not reacting correctly. It used to be enough for me to get angry, but she was too cute to be.
I ruffled her hair. “I get it.” She smiled at me widely.
“Is Ego okay?” she asked.
“You know Ego?”
“Of course I do. He’s Finn’s best friend,” she explained.
“I’ve been wondering, who is this Finn?”
“My Brother.”
“Oh.” So that’s who he was. I thought he was her boyfriend or something.
“Is Ego okay?” she repeated.
“Yeah. I think so.” I smiled and patted her on the head. She was so cute.
“That’s good. He promised me that he would make me a toy next time I see him.” She laughed playfully.
My eyebrows twitched up. “He’s good at that kind of stuff?”
“He’s brilliant. Wait till you see his straw helicopters,” she giggled. “He’s really good at fixing stuff too.”
I fell silent. I dug inside my pocket and fished out my music box. Eva’s eyes grew wide.
“What’s that pretty thing?” She tried to take it from me and I panicked. I swatted her hand away. She looked startled.
“I’m sorry, Eva.” I gave it to her carefully. “It’s special to me. Treat it with care will you?”
She nodded slowly. She opened it, looked at the ballerina in awe, and gave it back to me.
“Are you going to go out to find a job tomorrow? You need to start earning money.” She asked like she hadn’t seen anything. She knew how to live better than me. And I respect that.
“Sure.”
“You’ll be disappointed when you find out that you’re not useful at all,” she teased. She was just being playful, I knew that. But those words somehow ran through me and pierced my lungs. The Confined was a place that I couldn’t understand.
“Have you gotten many jobs?” It might have sounded like I was teasing her back, but I asked her out of pure curiosity. She knew it.
“Yeah. But whenever they reject me it makes me mad. Whenever I get rejected I don’t go out the next day to go look for jobs.” Eva slumped forward.
“Why not?”
Her eyes started tearing up. “I don’t like it when they judge me when I haven’t actually tried out the job yet. Because of the people who think I’ve already given up, my goals are crumpled to dust.”
I’d heard what it’s like in the confined to go around trying to find jobs. And I wasn’t eager to go. But I’d become one of them. I came to accept that. I had to start living again.
I hugged her tightly. And hoped that tomorrow, we’ll at least be given a chance to try.
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Okay, so Violet is sharing a room with Eva.
What do you think about Eva? I picture her as a really cute little girl, eating candy!
Tell me your thoughts on this chapter, leave comments, and vote!
Also, tell me whether you like Violet's POV or Ego's! Which do you like more?
Thanks for reading!!♡♡