The Despairing Tribulations of a Doomed Boy

Chapter 8

Sunday

"Do I really have to be locked in my room all the time?" Otto asked Ellsworth on the way to lunch on Sunday.

"For now, yes. Things will get better, though, I promise."

Otto was almost certain that didn't mean what he wanted it to mean, unless Ellsworth was secretly working with Nurse Vickers to get him out of there.

The power went out. Ellsworth and Otto stood in the middle of the hallway which branched off from the center courtyard. The sunlight from the courtyard was the only light in the building, and it was just enough to illuminate the shapes of people shuffling around in the dark.

"What happened?" Otto asked Ellsworth.

"Just a blackout," Ellsworth said.

"Does that happen a lot?"

"Depends on who we have in HOME. Come this way."

"HOME?" Otto asked quietly, not really wanting an answer.

"Yes, this place is called HOME: Holding for Observation and Monitoring of Extremes."

Otto didn't really want to know any more about the place. He still held out hope that he'd be rescued before any more information became necessary.

As they entered the small cafeteria, the lights flickered back on. Two guardsmen with blue painted nose-buttons were posted in the room. There were four round tables, but only three of them were being used. Even so, Otto hadn't seen the room so full before. Dinner, the night before, had only filled two tables and hardly anyone was up for breakfast this morning. But lunch, it seemed, was the big meal of the day.

At the far end of the room was a table laid out elegantly with white linen and silver hotel pans full of food. "The small lady up there behind the serving table is the chef here." Ellsworth pointed to a short, petite woman smiling proudly as people came up for food. She had light brown hair tied back in a pony tail that reached the middle of her back. Her lavender colored nose-button gave her face a glow of childish innocence.

"Hello Rémy, this is Otto. Otto, Rémy."

"Hi!" Rémy said and grabbed Otto's hand from his side to shake it. "How do you like the food?" She asked.

"I haven't had any yet," Otto said, "Well, I mean, not this meal anyway. The others were good."

"Wonderful!" She bounced with excitement as she talked. "Well, tell me what you think of this meal. I have never tried it before, but I've always wanted to. They keep telling me that I am not allowed to buy roe for the sushi rolls because it's too expensive, so I have to keep playing with the recipes to see what I can do that's just as good. Have you ever had roe?"

"Uh, no. What is it?" Otto asked as he picked up a plate and eyed the sushi.

"Don't ask," Ellsworth said before Rémy could open her mouth. "Just be glad there isn't a budget for it."

They filled their plates and turned around to find a seat. At one table sat two boys and two girls that looked to be about Otto's age. None of them had been at dinner the night before or breakfast this morning. They sat leisurely in their seats and smiled as they talked. None of them wore nose casings on their white noses and none of them looked like they were being imprisoned.

Otto took a step towards them. There was one chair left open between the two boys. But Ellsworth nudged him with his elbow and nodded his head the other way.

At the next table over sat the anomalies that Otto had been introduced to at dinner the previous night. Fran and Nickola were two older men and next to them sat a sad young girl named Margo. Everything about this table was in stark contrast to the other. No one here sat leisurely, or even comfortably. It was pitifully obvious that none of them had suffered with the casing before coming here. Their faces were frozen in an uncomfortable sort of grimace. The cafeteria echoed with the sounds of them struggling to eat with it on—chewing, hard breathing, a few whistles through the casing holes, defeated sighs, and every so often, a sob from the young girl who looked quite miserable. It was depressing.