Welcome to the not-so-distant future, in a city of structure and comfort. In a place where maturity and peace reigns. This is a story of one boy's fall into the chaotic pit of learning what it means to become of age.
After breaking his city's curfe...
The burn on my hand seemed to spread. The searing pain radiated through my palm and spread into every valleyed wrinkle and up the veiny streams to where it felt like the pain wanted to reach to my fingertips. The pain had not yet died down among the student population either. The morose atmosphere seemed to spread even more than it had yesterday, even more than it had after the blood of my classmate spread along and off of the platform a few days prior. The viscosity of everyone's mood was even thicker than the blood and lingered among the dull walls of our enclosure.
Even the gray-eyed classmate from Mr. Gill's class seemed stifled in his excitability about the school's rules. As we left Mr. Gill's class for lunch, I had asked him how he was doing. He had been rubbing his palm lightly.
"I'm fine," the gray-eyed boy said. "Why do you ask?"
"I saw you fidgeting with your palm. Mine hurts bad."
"This? It's nothing," the gray-eyed boy said all the while looking straight ahead. At the same time, he shifted his electronic writing pad to his other hand and let the seared hand drop to his side. When we got closer to the dining hall, the gray-eyed boy picked up speed. From there, we let ourselves steer away and went to our separate tables.
I scanned the room, from my seat, looking at the downcast eyes of the hungry students. They were all making glances at their palms. Some were trying to resist nursing their burns in front of the teachers. No one wanted to admit it, but we were all in pain. As I scanned the room, I saw Greg approaching. He held his head up, wore his lips in such a way where I couldn't tell if he was wearing a frown or a smirk, but from the way he held his shoulders I'd almost say his lips followed and were upturned.
He sat his tray down and immediately Mr. Gill and Ms. Connelly appeared.
Ms. Connelly held up her hand to stop Mr. Gill. "I've got him."
He hesitated a moment, raising an eyebrow that arched like his frown. "Alright," he grunted. My eyes widened and my mouth dropped open.
"Mr. Bakula, you're out of dress code." Her voice was like honey, thickly beautiful, but with an err of power that you wouldn't want to get caught in. With the cool authoritativeness in her voice, Mr. Gill stepped away to patrol the rest of the students. "Button your shirt."
I hadn't even noticed that his top button was undone.
"Yes, Miss," Greg said. That odd expression was still set on his face as he made a show of looping the plastic disk through its hole.
My mouth was left agape even as she walked away. Greg began eating his lunch like nothing had happened. My eyes honed in on Greg in amazement.
"What?" he asked as he chewed.
"Be careful."
"Like you don't make any mistakes."
That sentence gave me pause. He was right.
My face loosened and my mouth finally came back together. Greg's face cracked into a lopsided smile, baring his teeth as he chewed. He was looking at me with mischievous eyes. He finished chewing before he began again. "We have a layer of protection. They can't use the harshest punishment on all of us or there wouldn't be any of us left to train. Most of the teachers know that."
Greg pulled his electronic pad from under his seat. Ms. Connelly was still dangerously close behind him with where she posted herself in the dining hall.
"Put that away!" I urgently whispered. The maddening crawl of fear crept through my body as Greg blatantly exposed the two of us to the teetering wrath of the teachers in the room. One wrong move, one wrong glimpse, one wrong sound would cause the ground to crumble from beneath us sending us to our deaths.
"I do what I want. They can't tell me what to do," Greg said. He was writing something on his e-pad. I looked up with the careful eye of a guard ready to alert Greg of incoming danger. Ms. Connelly was scanning the room. There was no way that she could easily overlook Greg's infraction. Luckily, Mr. Gill was on the other side of the dining hall discussing something with a group of teachers.
"You've got to put that away," I said.
"I've got something to do really quick. Besides, it's just you and me. Are you going to snitch?" Greg said. He didn't look up from his e-pad.
"Rules are made for a reason," I responded. My years of raising boiled through my veins igniting the teachings that Greg's rule breaking would make things harder for the rest of us. This was no way to act at the dinner table.
"Don't worry. I'm almost done." Despite the undertone of annoyance in his voice, Greg retained that faint smile. "Besides, no one will notice if you do things in the shadows."
Finally, the next wave of students came through the hall's double doors, and Greg stowed his electronic pad back where it belonged underneath the seat. A couple more students approached with their trays, and a few waited shortly in line. Just as our other tablemates approached, Ms. Connelly made another pass behind Greg and then across the room. Her eyes drifted to our table as she passed, but all was settled and well amongst us. The boys were quiet, and Greg fell in line and continued eating his lunch. For all anyone knew, he had not missed a beat. No more than 5 minutes ever passed between the first of us to arrive and the last, but the gap of time expanded hours in my mind as I had looked into the chasm of trouble yet again. But Greg soared. He had been cool and collected. No one had noticed. The thought swirled loftily around my brain. No one had noticed. He had pulled out his e-pad and no one had noticed. I was stunned to say the least, but as my body remained frozen, my heart seemed to want to rise out of my throat and out of my body.
The table finished eating and we all picked up our trays so that we could clean up and leave. All the others worked at a brisk pace while Greg and I moved at a moderate, but steady pace without urgency. The others had turned to walk towards the exit leaving Greg and I face to face at the table for a brief moment. Other tables streamed out of the dining room too making a shroud of students. Greg popped the top button of his shirt and turned to leave.
*Note: I couldn't think of another last name that fit my requirements other than 'Bakula' 😅. Please read, comment, vote for Everett Gibson, Greg Bakula, and the others trapped in this school.
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