White Eyes

Chapter 21 - Board

— Ayra —

That day had been full but a lot of fun; I'll never forget the underwater view, even if it's just a pool with colored lights. Inside, the water resembled the sea, the movement of the water inside felt a lot like the sea, and that sensation of weight being completely different from on land was marvelous.

After the bath, I didn't even look at myself in the mirror; I was too happy to look at the monster that I am. Can't I be happy once in a while? That was my moment, and not even my reflection in the mirror could ruin it. After my shower, it was Lina's turn; there was a TV in the room, and I got excited. I knew TV, but what I wanted was to see places from around the world. I grabbed the remote and pressed the plus button. I had increased the volume. Then I pressed the up arrow button and changed the channel. I kept wandering until I found something interesting—a movie about princes and princesses. I left it there because the kingdom looked beautiful.

I kept thinking about that day and how it had been. Many people in that place had abilities, and I observed each one of them, wondering what the limitation of my ability might be. I only knew of one until that moment, but there could be more. I had always been grateful to have the ability to see what others could do; without it, I would never have been able to escape so easily.

This reminded me of the past—the day I found out I was one of the people in the world with a special ability. It had been many years; I only remembered being there with Reid and my younger brother playing in the garden. The day was beautiful, I think; I'm not sure, but something happened, something was not normal, and...

"Wow, what a wonderful shower," Lina said, pulling me out of my reverie. "Did you turn on the TV? Is there something good on?"

"There's this Kingdom movie playing. It seems good; twin princesses have to solve problems in their own realm," I explained from what I had read in the synopsis.

"Oh, this movie was widely talked about when it came out. I loved it. I even bought the book—a marvelous, charming trilogy."

"If I find the book, I'll read it too."

"I see it's already past 9 p.m. Do you want to finish the movie and then sleep, or do you want to finish the movie and go downstairs to do something else?"

"Either way," I said, but I wanted to go downstairs; I wasn't ready to sleep yet.

"Let's finish watching, and then we decide. This is the kind of movie that, once started, has to be finished."

That's what we did, but the decision was made as soon as the movie ended. It was already past 10 p.m.; unintentionally, I had chosen a movie that had just started. But the thing was, when the movie ended, Lina closed her eyes and dozed off. She had watched the whole movie, but as soon as the credits appeared, she couldn't keep her eyelids open any longer. It was kind of funny.

But Lina slept, and I was alone at night, thinking about life. I had always thought a lot, maybe because I had no one to talk to, nothing to do, and was always in the dark. I didn't want to stay there anymore; I could be in my pajamas, but it was very dark, even with the lights, and I missed Eyder. It was easy to sleep when he was by my side.

I went down to the lobby and walked to the poolside mats, looking up at the sky. The stars shone like never before that day. I remembered the past, a more distant past when I was still a child, not that I was very mature at that time.

Many of my memories were not very clear, as if they had been deliberately erased. I didn't remember arriving at the dome or my initial tests. I always thought it was normal because of my age. Then I realized there were much more recent memories that were blurry, like their faces; I couldn't remember them well. Had I seen them? I thought so, but they rarely took off my blindfold, only occasionally and when they taught me to read. Why did they teach me to read? Why were there no guards in the second escape? Nothing made sense.