IV

Agnes slowly walked over to her bed and sat down heavily, ignoring me at first. I stood quietly, waiting, and the worker eventually returned, setting up a tiny bed in the corner and giving me a small nod.

I sat on the bed, swinging my legs back and forth, and quickly becoming bored.

And hungry.

Swallowing, I glanced at Agnes, who looked like she wasn't going to move for a long time. My hand slipped inside my pocket and brushed the pill hidden there. I then slowly slid off the bed and went to the sanitation room, slipping inside and shutting the door carefully.

The tiny white room was identical to the one back at my residential area. I swallowed again and licked my dry lips, before pulling out the tiny capsule, which shone in the bright light.

Glancing one last time at the door, I lifted the tiny pill to my lips, and was about to swallow, when the door crashed open, giving me the most terrifying moment of my life. I jumped a foot in the air as my hand curled into a fist instinctively, and something clamped around my wrist with iron force.

Without even taking a pill, my blood roared in my ears, and adrenaline coursed through my veins.

For the first time, I was feeling a real emotion, without a pill.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" Agnes got up right in front of my face, and I stared at her with terror. She brandished the pill like it was a weapon.

"DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS IS? DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOU'RE TAKING?!" she released my wrist and suddenly opened the lid to the waste receptacle. Too late, I realized what she was doing, and I watched, horrified, as she dropped the pill into the water, where it promptly dissolved. 

Fssh.

Agnes pressed the button, and the receptacle emptied with a slight hissing sound.

"No!" I shouted, and stared at the empty basin with despair. There was no way I would make it to the morning. My body was already trembling, having been tempted with a beautiful shiny pill, only to have it viciously yanked away.

"I'm saving your sorry life, girl, so be happy about it!" Agnes snapped, and dragged me from the bathroom.

"How?" I screeched, wrenching myself from her grasp. "You just took my pill!" I felt hot and angry, and my skin prickled horribly. The room spun crazily, and I stumbled.

"I HATE YOU!" I screamed, fell to my knees, and suddenly burst into tears. The rush of fury was gone, leaving me only with grief.

Agnes was there in an instant, her hand forcing me to look up and her steely grey eyes scanning my own.

"Are.....are you.....angry?" Agnes whispered. "And sad?"

I hiccuped and swallowed my tears, but didn't answer. She didn't seem to want one anyway, after she quickly stood up again, and sat on her bed.

"No....." she murmured. "It's just a pill hangover, that's it. Nothing more. She couldn't......"

Her mutterings became blurred and distant, and I felt light-headed and nauseous.

Bile suddenly rose in my throat, and it was all I could do to make it to the waste receptacle before my stomach completely rebelled. Agnes was suddenly there again, and she stared at the full basin with utter disbelief. I looked at the disgusting contents, and my brain could only register one thing.

The bowl was filled with an unnaturally bright blue color.

Is that mine? my feverish brain wondered, before I passed out.

   • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

I could tell it was morning when I woke up again.

Harsh light filtered through the windows, and seemed to burn my skin for a moment before the feeling passed. My eyes looked around the room, and for a brief second, I was overwhelmed with a frightening array of unbelievably bright and vibrant colors. They faded quickly, back to the normal colors I was used to seeing.

But I felt....different, somehow.

I felt vulnerable, new, and scared. Something inside was changed, something had been lost.

"Don't overdo it." a voice screamed in my ears, and I clapped my hands over them to protect them.

"Calm down, it's okay." the voice soothed, much quieter now, and gentle hands pulled my own away from my ears. I stared at the unfamiliar face, then registered it as Agnes.

"I'm sorry, but for a while, everything will be very strong to you. Taste, sight, hearing, the senses. It's a side effect of those god-awful pills." she spoke softly, no longer harsh or cold, and her eyes kept looking at me strangely.

"I'm okay." I spoke. My throat felt dry and scratchy, and my voice sounded strange to my ears.

"But you're not." Agnes's eyes filled with tears. "You're not okay. You're going to be all alone, hiding yourself to protect yourself. Maybe for a week, months, or maybe for the rest of your life." Upset, she abruptly stood and went to the desk, hunched over it in silence.

"I'm such a fool!!" she suddenly shouted, and smashed her fist on the desk's surface. A sense of panic emanated from her as she rushed over to me, forcing her old body to kneel in front of me as she took my small hands in hers.

"Samantha, I'm so, so, sorry. This is all my fault, but you have to know. You're different, so much different, from everybody else. You had a mother, a real mother, who loved you very much. She would've, anyway, if she'd had the chance."

"But I have a mother already." I told her. "She's your daughter."

"No, no, dear, she's not my daughter. That woman is not my daughter, and she's not your mother. Your mother, your real mother, was part of a group of people who tried to help the world. This is not our world. It's a lie, a trick, to let terrible people take what they want. Our world, our planet, is far from here, broken, but it's our home. We wanted to fix it, find a new one and start over, but.....but things didn't go as planned. We messed it up, and now.....now you're the only one left. Oh, I am so sorry." Agnes was crying now, sobs fracturing her words that didn't make sense. My mind struggled to understand, wanted to understand, but couldn't grasp it.

"I.....I don't understand." I spoke slowly, sluggishly, and Agnes recovered herself, staring at me with those haunting grey eyes.

"I know. I wish I could explain everything better, but there isn't time. But your mother, just know that she never wanted to lose you, and she only hid you to protect you. The fact that you are here with me is a miracle. There's something in your blood, the genetic code, which has a sort of mutation. Your mother passed it down to you, and I believe that when you took those pills, they kick-started the mutation. From now on, those horrible drinks will no longer work on you."

"What drinks?"

"The nutrition smoothie. It's not for your nutrition. It's to keep the entire human population weak minded and complacent. It takes away your emotions, Samantha. Everybody here, with a few old exceptions, has grown up without feeling the tiniest shred of emotion. They've been brainwashed, and robbed of what makes them human. But you....you are special. Those things won't work on you anymore, and I forbid you to take those pills from now on. You don't need them." Agnes shook me a little. "Do you understand?"

"But....but Simon said that you need the pills to have real emotions." I stammered.

"Simon? Did he give you the pill?" Agnes asked sharply, and I nodded. "I see. And what did he mean, by 'real emotions?'"

"He said that there were ten of them; fury, cruelty, fear, anger, hatred, jealousy, pain, grief, loneliness, and despair." I told her, and she shuddered.

"Simon is wrong." she said firmly. "Pills can give you the feeling of certain emotions, yes, but those emotions are not the only ones. There's happiness, curiosity, excitement, hope, mischievous, love, and so many others. And they used to come without pills. Everybody had them."

"Why don't they have them anymore?"

"They've been stolen, taken from them without their consent. Everybody here has been tricked, by a false promises and lies. We came here to start again, because we thought that we'd broken what we had before, to start a society where everybody was equal and happy. This was seventy years ago. When the first people got here, they kept careful communication with us back on our old world, but they suddenly stopped, forty years ago.

"I was part of the team sent to see what had happened, but they captured us almost immediately and gave us a choice; keep our emotions and work for the Ruler, or be sent to live among the other people. I chose to be with the citizens, to try and fix them, and they gave me a place to live started to send me those shakes. I knew what they were, and didn't take them.

"For thirty years, I pretended to be an emotionless citizen, and they assigned me a husband and child, a daughter. Both were brainwashed by those drugs, and I didn't want anything to do with them. I secretly worked with the underground resistance, and got to know a wonderful young woman, named Lucille. She had grown up in the midst of the resistance, and joined as soon as she was fifteen. When I met her, she was twenty two, and smitten with a young man, Tash. They were very happy together.

"Then other people found out about my secret, and it somehow worked its way to the government. I was placed on lockdown, only allowed to access one tablet. That one tablet only told me the government's progress with exterminating the underground resistance, and with all my computer data, they tracked them down and eradicated the entire movement."

Tears slid down Agnes's wrinkled cheeks as she remembered the hundreds of friends she had helped kill. They were dead, because she'd been caught, and now there was no getting them back.

"The last time I saw Lucille was when she showed up my door, alone, seven years ago. She was worn down and skeletal, and absolutely refused my efforts to help her. All she would say is that she had a baby, a girl, and that she had a plan. She told me to protect her daughter, because she wasn't going to be able to. I asked her how, but that's all she would say. Her mind had partially left, and seemed to only be capable of repeating herself. She left quickly and suddenly, and I never saw Lucy again.

"I spent years obsessing over her words, feeling helpless to help a baby that I didn't know, and that I'd never seen before. I curled up and became bitter, lashing out at my assigned husband and daughter, your assigned mother, until they finally sent me here." Agnes sat there for a moment, staring at nothing, until her eyes suddenly focused on me.

"But you must be the child she was talking about!" she grabbed my shoulders. "Lucy had a special gene, that made her immune to the drugs in those drinks. The gene was probably hidden all these years, but now that it's started to function, those things will never affect you again."

"Is that why I'm so dizzy?" I asked her, and she nodded.

"Your body is experiencing everything without dampened emotions for the first time. It'll feel strange at first, but you'll adjust." she promised.

"What about my parents?" I quietly asked after some hesitation. "My real parents." Agnes was silent for a long time.

"I'm sure that they're very happy, somewhere far away." she finally spoke. "But I don't think you'll see them again." I swallowed, and Agnes suddenly gripped my shoulders.

"Samantha, listen to me." she spoke with fierce severity. "It's vital that you never let anyone know that those drinks don't work on you. Somebody would find out, and they'd take you away. You have to keep this a secret. Do you understand?" I rapidly nodded, and she released them.

"Good." Agnes looked at me with a terrible sadness in her eyes. "Oh, I'd wish I'd found you sooner. I only have a few hours, before they come, and you'll be all alone. I'm so sorry, Sam."

"That's not my name. My name's Samantha."

"Sam is a nickname, child." Agnes half-smiled. "Now you have two names, too."

"I suppose I do." I told her, and slowly slid off the small cot. I went back over to the big set of shelves, and opened the small dusty box.

Carrying it back over to Agnes, I settled back on the bed and watched her carefully as she lifted out the beautiful oval.

"What is it?" I breathed.

"A musical locket." she replied. "When you open it, it plays a song that we used to sing." Agnes slid her fingernail into the crack, and the locket popped open. The beautiful sounds, or the song, began to play immediately, and Agnes's eyes half closed, listening, before she began to speak in a strange, lilting way that sounded like the musical locket.

Forgotten memories, of days in the past,

With hearts made of stone and minds made of glass.

The sky streaked with fire, the ground trembled and shook,

The world screamed for amends for the things that we took.

Now that it's over, it's time to revive,

It's time we put down our rocks and look to the sky.

A new world to begin, with a leap off the ground,

But now we know what to do this time around.

No more sadness or sickness,

Only happiness and health,

No wickedness or suffering,

Nor poverty or wealth.

Forgotten memories, of days in the past,

With hearts made of stone and minds made of glass.

The sky streaked with fire, the ground trembled and shook,

The world screamed for amends for the things that we took.

But there's no going back, it's too late for retreat.

There's only time to break the chains on our feet.

Break the chains, drop the weights, we're off to the sky;

But now we'll get it right, on our second try.

Please tell me it's all right, that it'll be okay,

Because hope is all I have left for today.

The music slowly faded off, and I felt warm inside.

"I feel strange...." I slowly spoke, unwilling to break the spell. Agnes, her eyes closed, smiled.

"You feel happy." she told me.

"What is it? The sounds."

"It's called music, Sam. Back home, everybody had music."

"Everybody?"

"Everybody. It's another one of the things that they've taken away from the people here. Art, literature, individuality, creativity; all stolen." her eyes flew open. "But you still have access to those things." She took my hand and set the wonderful locket in my hand, curling the fingers around it.

"I want you to have this, after I.....after I Pass." she told me, and I opened my mouth to refuse, then slowly accepted it. We sat in silence.

"Agnes?"

"Yes, Sam?"

"Could you...." I hesitated. "Could you tell me what home is like? What is it's name?" Agnes smiled and stroked my cheek.

"It's called Earth, Sam." she whispered. "And it's the most wonderful place in the universe."

Reviews

[Jason van Dongen]

Hello, Bella. I have similar goals to you. I also love writing, but struggle to see a novel through to the end. Your writing shows real promise, especially from someone so young. I would love to be able to offer constructive criticism that would improve your work, but there is little I found wrong with it. I would encourage you to keep writing; writing is a craft that improves with practice. I am sure that if you put aside a little time to write every week, you will develop the skills to become a published author. Good luck.