Fool of The Blight

  Chenda woke up blinded by fluorescent rods of light flickering above her. In a panic, she attempted to sit up. She groaned when her abdomen ached from the sudden movement, it felt like it would if she'd slept funny on her arm. She let herself relax back down onto the lumpy mattress, steadying her pained gasps.
Where am I? She thought.
        The room smelt of mold, rotting wood, and sweat with a hint of iron. She lifted her head slightly to examine the room, with little protest from her abdomen.  The room was a square with drab, concrete walls . On the left side of the room, sat a vacant bed and an archway open to the halls of the building. Beside her was a wooden stool and table with papers strew haphazardly around and a cork-board tacked with X-rays and ultra-sounds with incomprehensible results above the surface. Chenda had been taught on how the devices worked, but not how to interpret their scans.
        She spotted a window on the edge of the room- where the two walls met in the far corner. She was high up; she decided by the absence of another building or ground and the vast blue of the sky. Her mother must be somewhere in the building. If not, how could she have gotten here?
        She zoned out, for about five minutes, looking at the sky. There were fluffy white things floating in the air. What were those? When she lived in San Dolores, the capital of Adora, she never saw those. Had the climate of this region had produced these floating things? What was their purpose?
       "Hello, Miss Woodcock."
        Chenda whipped her head around to the doorway. Her wounded stomach protested the movement causing her to bite down on her lip, hold back a moan and clench her eyes. The pain was agonizing, pulsing throughout her torso- it was almost as painful as when she first got shot.
        The person gasped, "Oh my gosh! I'm so sorry! I guess i forgot to apply the salves..."
        Chenda opened her eyes to see a girl about her age standing in the doorway. Her hair was in a frizzy ponytail, one clip holding the strawberry blonde strands back. She wore a baggy shirt that read "Peace begins with a smile"  and shorts. On her feet, was what looked like a plastic wishbone and a carved piece of blue foam. She kept bouncing on the balls of her feet.
        This girl could feel too- like her and Cody. Could she be somewhere where others that could feel were living? Despite these thoughts, she was wary of the girl. Chenda eyed the girl suspiciously before asking, "Who are you?"
        "Oh, I-I'm Irene. I'm a medic in training," she stuttered out, rubbing the back of her neck, " The doctor'll see you after clean your wounds."
        "Okay...,"she analyzed Irene as she strolled across the room and grabbed a white container, tweezers, and a roll of bandages off the other bed's side-table.
        She looked up at Chenda, sweeping her body with her cornflower eyes, "You'll need to take off your shirt if you want me to fix that wound of yours."
        Chenda blushed, her face starting to glow red. The thought of somebody seeing her half-naked frazzled her. Begrudgingly, she wedged her hands under herself, anticipating the throbbing that would come next. She pushed herself up. Surprisingly, no pain came as she sat up. The real turmoil was to come when she was done crossing the Rubicon. She held her groan behind her teeth, clutching her stomach. Once the throbbing subsided, She grabbed the hem of her shirt -different from the one she was wearing before.  She pulled it off, careful she didn't trigger the pain again.
        Goosebumps popped up on her arms. She felt exposed. She looked behind herself to see if Irene was watching, but the girl was collecting cotton balls from a drawer- almost finished. Chenda crossed her arms, attempting to protect herself from Irene's gaze. She thought back to her dream. The scrutiny of her peers. She felt her heart rate accelerate, her palms began to sweat. How could she be going through this again? After she had been fine for so long since she had begun to feel? How was this feeling triggered? She was determined to find what that was.
        Abruptly, Irene interrupted her brooding by pressing a cold metal against the left side of her chest. Chenda kept calm, even though she was startled, not to frighten Irene. The thing pressed against her chest was a stethoscope- it measured her heart rate.
       Irene scrunched her eyebrows, and wrote something down on a clipboard, "Strange...Your heart has a slight murmur. It could be innocent, but I'll tell Josephine just in case."
        Chenda nodded in understanding. Irene grabbed another tool from a plate laying on the table, and stuck it in both her ears. After humming in satisfaction, she took a small wooden stick, "Open your mouth, please."
        She did a she was told. Irene stuck it on her tongue, making her gag. She examined her mouth, pulled the stick out, and jotted down a note on her clipboard with a small smile, "Whelp, you're good on the physical part."
        Irene sunk down to her knees in front of Chenda, where she sat her supplies on the floor next to her. She opened the container, showing a green salve. She dipped a cotton ball in the concoction and  put her empty palm against her stomach. Chenda tensed, but relaxed into her touch once she realized that Irene wasn't going to hurt her. The girl smeared the salve on her entering and exit wounds, and bound them tightly. She cut the bandage off the roll and fastened it by tucking it under the other layers.
        Chenda found herself trusting this girl. Faster than she had ever since she had began to feel.
        Would she trust this girl with her secrets? No.
        But... would she trust this girl with her life?
              Yes, she decided.
        _________________________________________________________________________
        Irene tucked a loose hair behind her ear while she sat at the table rearranging the papers into neat piles. Chenda reclined back on her bed, watching her every move. They had fallen into comfortable silence, with a few awkward exchanges here and there. The resident doctor was currently preforming surgery on Deuce to remove the bullet from his shoulder. Her mother, Marquisha, and Cody were doing something else in the building down the street. At least, that was what Irene had murmured to her when she had asked.
        "I know its hard- to feel- y'know. When I began to feel again... It was so overwhelming, but that doesn't mean you can't talk to someone about it."
        Chenda froze with that comment, " What?"
        "Connecting yourself is hard when your emotions has been suppressed for your entire life. I get that," Irene met her gaze, with her doeish one. The girl that was bouncing on the balls of her feet was gone, replaced by a face she knew all to well. Except, that wasn't what Chenda was concentrating on. She guesse she had a nack for reading the underlying meaning of what others said.
        She narrowed her eyes, "What do you mean by 'suppressed'?"
        Irene went rigid, realizing her mistake, "Cheri was supposed to explain this to you, but... I guess I could." She sighed, "Okay, well lets start from the beginning... as you know before Adora existed there was America. Well, after World War 3 broke out a section of the population broke off from the United States. They formed an anarchist tribe state- made it off of what was left of their destroyed society. Only the strongest survived. Eventually, after World War 3 calmed down- when many of the countries pleaded for a cease fire- a group rebelled against the anarchist ideals- with the children of the leaders, afterwards, leading Adora themselves. Adora was extremely poor until they allied with Japan which began to trade technology with us until we gained in strength."
        Chenda's mind short circuited as little versions of herself cut the wires that transmitted knowledge to different parts of her brain to make sure she didn't keel over. There were other countries? She'd been taught that after World War 3 had ended everyone was dead, but Adora, being the country of progressive technicians they were, built tunnels underground to make a society for themselves. When the surfaced their area was untouched, but the rest of the world was in shambles due to nuclear fallout. They started society over again with the artifacts they could find of the previous Adora.
        "The leaders thought that they could make a better society by mixing the technology with our everyday lives- meaning they implanted every single newborn baby from then on with technology that controlled their thinking. Some children were insusceptible to them. They were killed off at first, but doctors became too lazy and gave them parents without any concern for the child. The children that were susceptible were programmed with IQs and interests beneficial to society. People, instead of procreating with a partner they loved, were programmed to procreate with someone. People went into scientific jobs, which lead to them bombing Japan with a large nuclear arsenal. The leaders implanted themselves with- I think- chips to make them immortal, or at least live longer, while the rest of society died at, like, 120."
        Chenda was in shock. She had been controlled- manipulated. She wanted to punch one of the leaders in the face. Who were they to own her? Many incoherent sentences and questions raced through her mind but she managed to pull out of her limbo, "What did they do to me, specifically?"
        Irene frowned, "Only Josephine can tell you that. I have no clue, but when I was born they changed my IQ into one with less intelligence, since mine would grow to a very high point during my life and they decided that I should go into medicine," She smiled at Chenda, but something was weird with her stare. "I guess that still rings true." She couldn't meet her eyes. Lying. Despite knowing this, she smiled back.
       They whipped their heads to the door when they heard tiny foot steps. A middle aged Asian woman was standing in the door way lighting a cigarette. She wore standard medical protocol: gloves, lab coat, and a mask hanging around her neck. She pocketed her lighter walking across the room toward the two girls, "Thank you, Irene. I'll speak with your friend now, if you would like to leave."
        "Yes, ma'am," she spoke."Bye, Chenda. I'll see you at dinner."
        Irene padded out the room, down the hall from where she originally came, while the woman sat down on the wooden stool in front of Chenda. The woman puffed out red smoke- a medical cigarette. She had silky black hair and obsidian eyes that turned into a purple as they reflected the color of the smoke.
        "My name is Josephine Crawford, " she held out her hand for Chenda to shake. She hesitantly recuperated, as though her hand would burn her's.
        "I want to talk about some of the scans we've gotten from you. All of them do not show any life threatening anomalies, but they are... strange, it say the least," She pulled out a scan from the clipboard Irene left on the table. It showed a top down section of her head. "From your brain scans, we have found that your Hippocampus and Amyglada are smaller than the average person's. Your Amyglada is also more active, along with your Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal Axis."
         The female pointed and thumped at sections of the brain rapidly, " The Prefrontal Cortex is less active, as well." She set down the scan and clasped her hands. "These abnormalities are most prevalent with people with Borderline Personality Disorder, meaning that you could potentially have a hard time regulating emotions and thoughts, participate in reckless behavior, and have unstable relationships with others. Now, I believe it is a little too early to diagnose you with this, but from the scans there is a high chance that you do suffer from BPD."
        Chenda stared at her like she had murdered Irene in cold blood; She sounded so pompous, "Huh?"
        "Don't worry. That's not the most shocking thing," She retrieved the ultrasounds from the cork board. She pointed to an oval with holes varying in size on it, "This is your one of your ovaries, or it would be... if you didn't have only one."
        Chenda's eyes widened. She was supposed to have two ovaries. Why would she only have one? She was never taught about this in school. Sure, the brain stuff she understood perfectly, but this.
"And that means..." she tried to tug the answer from Josephine's mouth, as though it would fall out and into her's.
        "Well..." she pulled out another ultrasound and located a solid, lighter gray oval. "This would be your testis."
        Chenda froze. That was part of male anatomy. Why was it in her? She didn't want to believe it. The little voice in her head kept on screeching in denial. She wanted to stowaway in a closet, only eating the food Cody, Irene, or her mother could manage to slide under the door.
        "This means that your are... intersex. You have a specific type called Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, though it is partial since you have an ovary that is nowhere near fully formed, but was definitely on the track to making a testis. I thought that your chest size and the fact that you have not started menstruation just meant that you are an early bloomer, but it actually lead me to doing the  ultrasound of your internal genitalia. You had a Vaginoplasty to correct your external genitalia, once you were born as far as I can see," She elaborated. She breathed deeply, resting. Chenda rubbed her arms, trying to warm her frozen mind. Little Chendas darted around, trying to replace the cut wires. Some of the Chendas had keeled over from the costs of the repairs- the company would never be the same again.
        Josephine checked her watch, "You should join Irene for dinner seeing as the dinner bell is about to ring. You'll find your sister there as well, along with Cody."
        Chenda grumbled from her crunched position on the bed, "What do you mean "sister'?"
        Josephine adopted a disbelieving look, her mouth agape, "You mean she didn't tell you?"
 She whispered gravely.
        Chenda shook her head. She had a sister? Since when?
        "Cheri is your sister. She was born years before you. Your parents died and... I believe she put herself in the role of mother to protect you. After all, that is seen as taboo in Adora nowadays. Pretending to be your mother and erasing any documentation of your parents would help you two live a normal life."
              No.

Author's Note

I'm not exactly happy with this chapter, seeing as the dialogue is snappy (I was probably ornery that day) and pompous, but I like how it turned out overall.