GLITCH

CHAPTER EIGHT

    There was no sound in the food hall asides the sound of our footfalls as we walked down the hallway. Xera's creamy skin stood out then, the mark on her shoulders catching my eye. It was just a few seconds but my fingers instinctively went to my right shoulder, remembering the searing pain I once felt. The mark that changed my outlook on life. Xera didn't know what was going on in my head and I didn't bother to explain. She walked ahead of me, the rigidness of her posture betraying her nervousness. I couldn't tell what she was nervous about. The whole talk about being one of the Sapphires was weird, it seemed as though I was being pulled along by strings from an unknown puppeteer. I couldn't resist the pull as Xera touched the mark on her shoulder again, before she wore the jacket she held in her arms, making me wonder.

     The Black sector had one thing in common; the mark on their shoulders. It was like a sort of identity. It was made by dipping a metal in a burning furnace and branding that mark on the right shoulder. It was a practice I considered barbaric because I didn't understand why we had to go through that much pain for no reason. It was a known fact that deaths in the Black sector were more common than the mosquitoes in the air. We didn't have access to much of technology, just the scraps the other sectors deemed irreparable or outdated. Xera and I tinkled with  whatever we could find and the mere fact that the regulators never really checked what we had also played in our favour. We didn't have to hide anything from anyone because nobody was checking anyways. The mark was given to us the moment we clocked 12 years of age. I didn't know how the regulators knew but that was the only way we could keep track of birthdays in the Black sector. They came in body suits of startling white and gas masks. Their gloved fingers and covered faces did nothing to make us understand who they were. They came as though they wanted to fumigate the whole place but they came brandishing syringes and branding irons. The exact branding iron used on me was used on Xera too and almost everybody in the Black sector as long as they were over the age of 12. It was hell. The searing iron marking one's skin, the uncomfortable feeling for weeks that didn't get better as the day passed. The pain was a constant reminder of how things works in the Black sector. I didn't know about the other sectors because I'd never been there but I knew a lot from discarded newspapers and videotapes. The Blacks still remained the worst sector. We didn't even have a lot of population to begin with. But the mark of that branding stayed. Like a stigma, it lingered. Like the breath of a predator, it blew hot on our necks and we couldn't do anything. That's who we were; sheep made for the slaughterhouse. Meek lambs. Little wonder the mark on our shoulders was a sheep. A sick joke? Probably. But I've come to understand that sense of humor wasn't accepted in Cinder City. 

    "Mavery. Mavery. We're here." Xera jostled me as I shook myself out of my reverie. There was no need to ponder upon things of the past. There was a reason they were in the past.

    "Ah, thanks." I said in response and entered the hall immediately she did. There was a sense of palpable tension in the air, I could almost taste it. I wasn't ready for that. I contemplated walking back out the way I came in. There was no need for me to be tangled in whatever mess they were in. Also, I knew Xera wouldn't call me personally if it was something favorable. Lots of people in the facility would want to be a Sapphire too. But, why me and not them? Maeve seemed more qualified too. It seemed shady to me.

    "So, what's going on?" I said, breaking the silence since nobody else had the courtesy to. Evie was being lackadaisical as always but what struck me as weird was Femi. He wasn't making jokes or anything. He looked distracted, running his fingers through the neckline of his shirt as though he was feeling hot due to the lack of ventilation even though the window was opened. Richard stayed aside, his head placed on his hands. The whole atmosphere was downright depressing.

    "Nothing much. So, would you like to be part of our missions henceforth?" Xera asked again and the nagging feeling I had didn't dissipate in the slightest.