When the alarm goes off, I lie on my back, eyes open, staring into the dark. I tell my holo to silence the ringing tone. It is quiet, but my slow and calm heart beat carries me through my semiconsciousness. I listen to my blood streaming through my ears. I have lost any track of time and I can't even tell if I have been asleep or not. In the end it doesn't even matter.
I get up. One foot, the other. After a sharp and snapping command towards the holo of the quarter it slowly turns on the light. I breathe in and smell the absence of anything familiar. This room is even colder and more impersonal than my room in my father's quarter had been. My feet are cold on the ground. Shuddering I miss the adjusting floor temperature of that particular room that had been my home and my prison for so long time. Why are you missing it? You never had a home, Rayen. Home is where your haert belongs, where you are wanted and loved. That room stopped being your home when your mother died. You do certainly not miss it, you just miss the technical luxury of a temperature adjusting floor. I lift myself up and head over to the bathroom. I take a cold shower, washing the dizziness, emotion and thoughts away, I get ready.
I take a last look into the mirror. A green-eyed, freckled girl looks back. I know her. She isn't the Rayen sharing a dorm with Malone and the others, the Rayen that has at least some tiny little will to live. It is that girl who I had been for years. Dark circles beneath my eyes, a pale skin, emotionless, non-caring, internal dead. Great. I convince myself to build up a fassade again, I put on some mascara and cover the dark circles. Then I take off for the last test.
On my way I realize that lying awake and just thinking myself through the night has on the one hand prevented me from regainig much energy. But on the other hand I have decided to take the test. Just take it and see what it is. I don't have a choice anyway, but I decided to either pass it if the task does not destroy all of the freaking few principles I have, or to just do not do anything. Becuse right now, the death threat doesn't matter. The general was right, no one cares if I am alive. Not even I care.
I reach Sector D, I enter after my ID has been scanned, I return to the hallway I spent my first guarding shift ever in. And I have almost forgotten, at least my brain has forgotten it. Not my body. As I enter the hallway and approach the familiar point in the very middle of it, passing by all those glass walls, those cells, those wrecked persons inside, my heart rate fastens. I feel my knees getting shaky, chills running down my spine.
I reach the middle of the hallway. I want to suppress the urge to look at the cell opposite my position. I can't help it. I glance through the hallway again, check if any guards have appeared. There haven't. And then my head lifts itself, my eyes following.
There she is.
I look at her, I can't see anything else anymore. She sits there, on the floor, eyes open and awake. My glimpse wanders over her body - she has recovered a little, as far as I can tell, some wounds have actually begun to heal, she has gained a wisp of weight, still she is not more than a wreck from bones, skin and muscles. My eyes wander to her face and stick to it. The few freckles she has, the defined eyebrows and cheek bones, her lips that seem soft although they are dry. You can see her exhaustion, her pain, she is raddled. Her collar bones stick out, her blonde hair is messy.
But she still is so beautiful. I find the courage to meet her eyes only to find them attached to mine. Her eyes, those two oceans, look at me deeply. I cringe, her eyes are so intense, she touches me although there is a glass window between us.
I can see the development. There was a grey blur over her irises, at least it feels like there was. But as our gazes meet, her eyes return to their blue sparkling. The change is so intense that her whole face lights, her body tension decreases. She just looks at me and her eyes tell me "I knew you would come back." I can't help but smile sheepishly only to blush very hard as I notice what I am doing. You're such an idiot.
I want to get into her cell. No, you don't, Rayen.
Once acain I glance up and down the hallway, check for any sounds. Nothing. My mind races and trips, I can't think straight anymore. You can certainly not go in there, Rayen. What would the superiors think? You have absolutely no objective reason to enter the cell, get rational!
Unsure of what to do I remain standing at attention, occasionally glancing into the cell, finding Luna's eyes locked to mine, blushing, looking down, returning to standing at attention again. It becomes quite a routine.
I lose any track of time fastly because everytime our eyes meet sheepishly everything else blurs. I am just calm and somehow content. I forget why I am here and what is on the stake. It's not like I am not internally dead and emotionless anymore, it's not that I don't hide myself again to build a protecting wall between me and the world that threatens to overexert me. It is just simply that I don't care about anything else.
That's why I startle when 7 soldiers enter the sector and appear at the end of the hallway. Most of them nod in a greeting manner, I salute just for sure. They start slowly walking along the cells, but it's different to the last time I saw soldiers passing the glass walls. The last time they have been snarting at the Goners, disrespecting them. This time there are first of all remarkably more soldiers of remarably higher ranks - as far as I can tell all of them in the Special Forces. And second, they behave differently. They don't use their position to feel superior. They seem like they know they are.
Instead, they just walk dangerously slowly along the hallway. The leader, a high general in front.
"We need another 5."
What? They keep on passing the cells, looking into every single one, valuing the condition of every Goner they pass until -
"That one looks fine. Should be in Juh'r Kran's interest. Get her to the others after she has finished."
The general had stopped at a cell six rooms away from me and spoke to a soldier behind him.
"Clean yourself up! And hurry a little."
He scoffs at the Goner inside the cell he's facing, only to turn around and continue his way down the hallway in my direction. He scans every single cell with is eyes, somehow it reminds me of someone hungry eagerly focussing on their favourite meal just before it's ready to be eaten.
"That one, too." A second soldier stops and waits for the Goner in the cell opposite of the first one and a little closer to me. They are somehow selecting those Goners. I don't know what is going to happen to them or why they are selected, but my heart is pounding stronger and faster the closer the Special Forces come. I don't want them to take Luna. Step by step the general approaches, terribly slowly but frightening relentlessly. He passes another 2 cells and just shakes his head at the Goners inside, then he reaches Luna's cell.
And he stops.
And he nods.
"This one looks fine. Recruit, get her to the main hall of the sector when she has cleaned up."
There is heat, such a raging flame inside my chest, leaving a mess of black and grey. I am panicing, cold sweat runs down my back, my hands are cold as ice, shaking. They can't get her. They simply can not get her. I don't know how - but these Special Forces are definately not just taking Goners to work. They are dangerous.
I need all my courage to speak up, praying that my voice does not transport how frightened I am or reveals that I lie.
"Sir, may I say something?"
"Yes, Recruit... Finley?" He actually stops to read out my name from the little name tag on my chest. But it isn't in appreciation. His voice is low, calling me by my name makes me shudder.
"Um, Sir, thank you. I do not know for which purpose you are picking Goners. But it might be in your interest to know that the outward appearance of this one is lying. I have spent about 2 hours here now, guarding, and I have noticed that girl puking and coughing the hell out of her. She has been shivering most of the time and look at her pale face. I bet she has a serious infection."
I stand and wait, I am so tensed, I have stopped breathing. There is so much tension in the atmosphere between us, I wouldn't be surprised if there were electric sparks. The remaining 4 soldiers stand back quietly and after what feels like years the general answers.
"If that is true... and I hope so, although I also see no reason why you would be lying... well, then we must pick another one. Juh'r Kran would be really angry - and that is something we definately do not want to experience. Thanks for the warning, Recruit. Stay here and then join us when we leave with the Goners that I am going to select now."
"Sir, yes, Sir."
Only when he has continued his way down the hallway and all the other soldiers have passed me I dare breathing again, feeling a relieving stream of air filling my lungs. I look up, like so many times this day and meet Luna's eyes. Only I don't look away this time. And only Luna's expression has changed. It isn't that pure expression in her eyes anymore, the warmth and the wild ocean, the painful sadness and the mere relaxation of watching me. No, I see mere fear in that eyes now. The blue is stormy, unsettled. The eyes are opened widely, and they spread so much gratitude I can't take it. Luna looks like she was about to fall down a cliff, only still alive because our eyes are interlocked. So neither of us breaks the shared look, were clinge to each other and comfort each other, I want to calm her down, want her to feel safe, but I don't move. Our eyes are the only tool we have, so nothing else matters anymore right now. I don't hear the general picking the last Goners he needs, I don't see him approaching again on his way back. I am only torn back to reality by the snarled command I hear that has my name in it.
"Join us now, Finley!"
I need incredibly much willpower to finally break Luna's and my entwined eyes. I smile at her stealthily over my shoulder as I follow the Special Forces. Luna's image burns into my soul as I leave for the last test and chance I have at the Special Forces.