The Normals | ✓

T W E N T Y - T W O

A R D E N

I've barely passed through the doorway when Arthemis stops dead in her tracks a few paces in front of me. She whips her head around and then turns, staring with wide eyes at the plane that we came out of behind us. A few of the people streaming out of it give us weird looks as they walk around us, but Arthemis doesn't seem to care. Something like shock passes over her face and then she starts backing away slowly, back into the plane. The two people who had accompanied us during the landing are far ahead by now and seem like they haven't noticed we are no longer following them.

"Arthemis?" I say as she passes me. Her eyes are locked on the people around us, but they dart over to me for a second and she slows down. "What are you doing?" I ask her. "We have to follow them."

"No, we don't," she says. "Where they're going, you don't want to go."

"What? Where are we?"

"It doesn't matter," she replies. "Come on -- if we find somewhere to hide in here, we can probably go back."

"Where are we?" I repeat, grabbing her wrist and stopping her from going any farther.

She doesn't struggle, but she looks up at me and stares with coldness in her eyes. "Let me go."

I do, slowly releasing my grasp. She rubs her wrist and gives me a glare before darting away, heading against the flow of the crowd.

"At least tell me where you're going!" I shout after her.

It was a mistake.

As soon as the words leave my mouth, a deathly silence settles on the people around me, and their movements slow to a stop. Their heads turn toward me one by one and between them, Arthemis freezes on the spot. Suddenly self-conscious, I look around myself. They're all staring at me.

"Sorry," I mutter, turning my gaze downward.

There's a murmur that runs through them. Some -- the unmasked ones -- look to each other in confusion. They have a bewildered look about them, a bit like how I feel right now. I glance at Arthemis, looking for some sort of signal or sign that could help me make sense of this whole situation, but as soon as I look over at her, part of the crowd surges in that direction. I don't understand what's happening until there's a shriek and I make out Arthemis thrashing around between the people. Oh my god, I think, they're attacking her?

But they aren't. At least most of them. They're restraining her, holding her down. She manages to push the first few away, but as she gets more violent, more people start gravitating toward the scene. Unsure of what to do, I stand there like the rest of the unmasked people, looking on with wide eyes. Arthemis gives a cry of anger before she disappears under the mob of people. They seem to calm and some of them step back, giving the ones in the middle more space. They've got her face down on the floor of the plane, holding her against the ground with her arms pinned behind her back. She struggles against their hands and yells curses at them, but no one pays attention to her.

The two holding her down -- a man and a woman -- hoist her up. Once she gets back on her feet, she twists around and struggles, but it doesn't do anything to free her and they push her toward the exit.

I step forward, finally realizing I should do something other than just stand there. "Excuse me, what are you doing--"

"Quiet!" the man bellows. I flinch and shrink into myself, stepping aside to let them pass. As Arthemis goes by, she glares at me, cold anger in her eyes. I feel a twist of guilt in my stomach.

The two masked people half-carry, half-drag her out of the plane. She's given up on kicking, but she doesn't seem to be putting any effort into making it easy for them to bring her to wherever she's going. She struggles a few times but it doesn't do anything, and they drag her to one end of the room, where a group of similarly dressed people are standing.

As for me, I'm rounded up along with a few others around me, and bustled into a messy line nearby. We start moving forward almost immediately, some people shouting orders at us on where to go. I don't hear them, so I just follow the girl -- maybe it's a boy -- in front of me and hope I'm going the right way.

We exit the plane and the line slows to a stop. I crane my neck above the people in front of me, but even at my full five-foot-eleven height, I can't see what's causing the holdup. "Where are we?" I ask the person in front of me.

They turn around to glare at me, their spiky, short hair and pounds of eye makeup contrasting very much with their soft features everywhere else. "Shh!"

I open my mouth to say something else, maybe ask whether they're a boy or girl, but they turn away before I can. The line moves slightly, bringing us a bit closer to some sort of commotion up ahead, and after waiting a few minutes I finally am close enough to see what it is.

There's a table set up with a few chairs by it, and three big bins next to them. Two out of the three chairs are occupied with masked people, one of them writing down things on a clipboard and the other having a heated argument with someone in the line. Finally, one of them gives in and the line moves forward again, and by the time I make it to the table I've gotten a sense of how it works.

"Name and region?" the one with the clipboard asks, barely glancing at me.

"Arden Viotto," I reply. "Cordillera, sector three."

"Okay..." he replies, writing it down on the clipboard. "Next."

I move on to the next person. He tells me what out of my clothes I should put in each bin and hands me a big number to stick on my shirt. I do, dumping my old shirt and the rest of my stuff in the bins. It feels a little weird to get rid of them, but as long as I stick to the rules here, I can get back home as soon as I can. Then I can wear as many of my own clothes as I want.