Xeavva

01

The sweet melodic sounds that were advancing near my ear were interrupted by a voice verbalizing with the help of an unharmonious intercom. It was time to get ready but my eyelids wouldn't budge to open. I groaned, fatigued by the vulgar men who roared us to get out. As soon as my eyes did open, it shut again. After sighing a long-lasting and faint breath, my eyes flashed open and I headed towards the nightstand. It was rusty, the walls scraped down from the force of committed women.

I looked at the corroded chronometer, its pointer points on 7. We were earlier than usual, but I barely cared.

I progressed near the washroom, a queue of females waiting for their turn in the bath. My mother had already washed, I knew this. She was the earliest waker at daybreak. I was still in my eventide attire, it was bland, a dark grey hue. My hair was trimmed short, to the extent of my upper neck, and my skin was pale from less nutrition. I wasn't skin-and-bones like the elder women who aged 50 and up, I was just a bit less than the average 16-year-old girl.

As the woman in front of me walked out of line and into the washroom, the intercom had sounded again, intervening the thundering voices in the room. "The washroom will be closing down in 15 minutes."

I cringed. I shudder at the announcement. I knew something afflicting would have happened every time. Then the afflicting moment happened, a swarm of females dived through the line, causing people to plummet to the ground. They were cutting the line that people had made to wait and have their turn without argument and yet, these desperate women are passing through, whining their way into the washroom. I grumbled, pulling the woman in the front with one hand, and throwing her down onto the ground before making my way inside the washroom (Don't worry, it was the woman who cut the line).

After hastily getting ready, I walked out, finding the woman I had pulled down in front of a different girl in line. She was annoyed at the woman, so she did the same thing and pulled the woman down. I hesitated at first, but in the end, I gave her a small grin. She didn't smile back, but she definitely gave me a nod.

When the 15 minutes had passed, the intercom had gone back on again, now with a group of military men in front of us. We immediately get into rows, from alphabetical to numeral orders. We follow their lead into a substantial room where everyone would fit because of the formation we had to be in. There were about 65,000 females in the large room we had gone into, and how we got together in a few seconds was prodigious. It might've have been because we had gotten used to the 'rubbish' attitude they gave us, or the dirt and rations of food they had given us.

A daily event we had to get through in the mornings was the 'Art of Retreating'. People would retreat from our sect and what rumors had said, was believed that they would be locked in a cell forever. That put me into thoughts that made me fear to make wrongdoings.

"Ade 002,"

"Yes." The girl a few blocks away from us raises her head. Her eyes are blank, but her body is alert. She looks like a girl I had imagined in my head in my childhood. Her curly red locks, the dusty strip of fabric tied together to make a ribbon on the side of her head.

"Active." The girl I heard as Ade 002 inhales. Her face showing reassurance.

Then, a different girl- a girl with jet black hair and dark eyes appeared. She puts her hands behind her back before hearing her name. "Kyzera 089,"

"Yes," Her voice was soft but forceful. Her eyes close desperately as her voice echoes through the massive room. Kyzera's chest moves back and forth, and her eyes gaping. After the eternal silence, the commander on the stage declared, "Inactive."

Kyzera bit her lower lip. She looked to her back and then to the ground. She walks out of line and to the military's arms. A tear spills out of her eyes as they grab her arms and drag her out of the room. The room was still silent. Only the sound footsteps were heard. As they went out, Kyzera 089 took a glimpse of me, and I felt my skin get cold. My heart stirred and I bit my chapped lips. Another loss. Every day, it felt the same. After the names were announced, we were dismissed. I was glad that I hadn't done any wrongdoing.

We were then lead to the canteen, the meeting point in which both genders can communicate. I never really communicated to the opposite gender, except my father, who I don't talk to often anyway. As I went into another queue to take my daily ration of porridge, another commotion started. I had no idea what it was about, but I was in line, unable to get out of it, so I waited until the bowl of porridge and the eating utensils were placed in my hands. Then, I sat on a table nearby to the commotion.

When I turned my head to see who it was, I saw my father. No one cared about the situation, the military who guarded us just stared at them, curling their lips while giving a cold shoulder. I also ignored them, but soon enough, my father had spotted me, giving me a glare before turning back to his opponent. I knew that his glare meant 'stay away or have trouble' which convinced me not to approach my father down even more.

Right after that, they gave us our monthly payment to trade for rations. The rations were sold inside a market next to the Quilteme Sect, but it is still a closed-off area so if any other civilians from outside Quilteme Sect wanted to come in, they need to possess a platinum pass with their identification on it. One man I had met when I was inside the market gave me extra rations I never paid. I hadn't known at the time, but after what happened, I was almost caught by the military when they checked the distributed goods. Since then, I had always checked the number of rational goods I had bought before heading towards the customs area. 

 Today, I was given money that would cost 4 days worth of rations. In total, I would have money that cost around 143 days worth of rations. Enough to live off through the year. Though, we weren't given payment every day, instead, every end of the week.

The rest of our time was spent with working hours, learning hours, resting hours, or community hours. I was at the time of resting because I had been working 14 hours for the past few days. I lied on the stiff bed, the chronometer on the nightstand beside me. The nightstand was white, but since it became primitive, the paint had crumbled, leaving small marks of wood on the edges, not only that but the glass that once stood there had shattered, leaving shards of glass on the floors.

My foot had been caught on the glass many times, the first time had caught onto the center of my foot, throbbing in agony as the glass pierced deeper into my skin. Now, although the shards would have cut through my skin, it was less painful, and I was more cautious. The more cautious, the less painful.

When boredom started to sink in, I left my bed and headed towards the outer area which was covered with cloth of many kinds, ranging from dead people's ragged clothes to the silk found on the ground. The commander does not allow anyone to pass through the outer area of the dorms, if we do, we would be put in terminal confinement. It was one of the biggest crimes to commit.

The wall of cloth was thick, but if I was to use a glass shard to rip it open, it could have worked, but I would have not done it anyway. I walked further to the outer area and soon enough, the checkpoint was seen. "Name?"

"Xeavva 001."

They looked at the clipboard placed on their hands before letting me through the bulky silver door. There was a lock in the middle of the door, and they took out the key from their pockets, opened them and let me in. Through the door was the working area of the entire sect and that was where I mostly spend my day.

Walking closer to the room I would have worked at, someone called my name. "Xeavva!" I turned around to see a boy with blonde hair heading my direction. He wasn't just blonde, he had a range of blonde tones on his hair. From gold to sepia.

Immediately, I knew who he was. The boy who would play games with me during my younger years of life. Before I had come to this sect. At first, I thought it was him, but then it was all just a hazy thought, "Vidal?" I blurted.

I took a deep breath, holding in the liquid in my eyes, "You're not dead?"