Aberrant

Chapter 28 - Outnon Habent Sanguinem, Nullam Justitiam

It had been a whole hour since I was sentenced to be executed and I've been placed in a small cell which gives me a view of where I am to be beheaded in the town square. They set the guillotine up about fifteen minutes after I made it to the cell. A crowd had slowly started gathering around the fencing that was placed in front of the guillotine to stop anyone from getting too close.

From the bared window I could see the parents pointing up at my cell window, encouraging their children to stare at me and mock me with their friends. I find it hard not to become angered by the children who couldn't help how they had been raised and conditioned to treat people in this way, but with their unmasked malice it was difficult to even think of them as children.

I had cried for the first thirty minutes in this cell, thinking about how I'd never get to see my best friend again. But now it was just a blur, a blur of emotionless pain and then numbness. Surprisingly, Cree's betrayal wasn't even at the centre of my mind - nothing was. Like I said, it was mostly a blur.

From my window I couldn't tell if anyone that I knew was there, but I had no doubt that Diason would be, as well as Acth. They seemed to be the ones most open with their hatred for me, at least they were honest, unlike Cree. At this point I'm not even sure if what I had with Cree was real or if it was an act as he waited to get rid of me.

I'm not sure why they're waiting to kill me, must be because they want a large crowd. If everyone is watching it then there's bound to be an Incipient around to witness it and realise that it's a threat - a threat to not step out of line. Maybe the government is realising that less Incipients are waiting around to be stepped on and are rather refusing to bow down to the system. Anyone needing to show a public execution must be desperate.

Fuck.

I kick the red brick wall with my bare feet. Not... a good idea. I collapse on to my metal framed bed and rub my toes furiously. They could at least have the decency to let me wear shoes, it's not like these bare floors are heated or anything. I've only been in here an hour and I already feel like I have frostbite. All I have is a thin T-shirt and trackie bottoms that they made me change into - they even removed the string from my trackie bottoms. Even I'm not nifty enough to use a string that short to make a noose. There wasn't even any point in not giving me shoes, what am I gonna do? Whack myself to death with the sole? I'd have more of a chance banging my head against the bed frame or the wall. But I shouldn't mention that since they'd probably put me in a padded room of some sort.

Feeling the overwhelming sense of death spreading over the vicinity as the room gets darker as it approaches the evening I use my overgrown nails to start carving into the cemented floors. I start by carving my name - my real name. Asha Hooper. It's been so long since I'd even used my name that I had thought I had forgot it, it feels weird on the tongue, like when you were in year three and you'd swap out your surname for your crush's.

I write until my thumb nail is a stump and then swap it for another finger, the damp cement building up under my nails. Asha Hooper. The girl I no longer am and the girl I never will be again, this 'community' stole that from me and changed my identity completely. Before I came here I had an average life - asides from the abilities - and I had friends and family. I liked bands, pretending to enjoy parties with my friends, eating sushi because it was the only thing I could usually stand, I had an abusive boyfriend, I experienced racism and sexism and the whole lot; but it was normal and I was like mostly everyone else in the world, I dealt with shit, but here, we're never given a chance. Ninety percent of the population here hates you just because you're Incipient, at least in the real world there was a possibility that horrible people would go to jail.

I'm not really sure who I can trust anymore but that doesn't matter since I'm due to be beheaded. My boyfriend put me in jail and the community claims that my mother is the one that caused me becoming Incipient, even my friends could just be lying about still caring about me. At this point I've lost faith in everyone, even myself. I can't do anything to stop this. With no communication on the outside and the use of my abilities I'm useless. As useless as Ash always said I was.