Never in my life have I felt as out of place as I do now. I sit alone at the final long grey table of the eight parallel tables in the Central Space. The first three rows of desks are occupied by the remaining Titles sitting at regulation distance, in regulation numerical order, doing regulation work in regulation silence. There is something about this room that isn't quite right. It's thought provoking. The tables span the length of the entire room and are composed of such dense metal that they would be immobile without the aid of heavy machinery. Therefore five empty tables sit for the world to see, a tribute to the eliminated.
All the classrooms and all our minds have been carefully groomed to ensure no testament to our gradually dwindling numbers. Yet these five tomb stones miraculously remain untouched. The poetry of it is marred only by me, the one girl sitting all the way in the very far corner of the final table. I really don't belong here. My fingertips softly pad across my tablet, tying together syllables with such mundanity and practiced craftsmanship that my brain isn't needed. At page eight my eyelids begin to droop as I slowly drift off.
In an instant I awake with a rush or adrenaline. Two five pronged metal clamps are biting into my shoulders rendering my muscles molten lead. For a moment the clamps tighten excruciatingly, then a sudden release. Ten icy fingers lightly drum against my clavicle, palms painfully pushing my spine into the back of my chair. In an instant the fingers change their mind and the two sets of hands grab my hands, now limp, useless appendages resting on my tablet. The new hands and my hands hold each other interlocking perfectly. Four identical hands dance in front of me. My four hands? A line can scarcely be drawn between the intruding set of forearms and my own. Suddenly the alien appendages take initiative lifting my hands and planting them on either side of my frozen metal chair. They pull back my chair with silent grace, then in smooth transition long fingers clutch my neck. I try to swallow, but my esophagus has been rendered useless against the iron grip which is now turning my head to face a set of inky black eyes.
There is a certain giddiness to One's demeanor as she escorts me out of the Central Space and into the dark hall via brute-force. Somehow we remain entirely invisible, our footsteps unable to make a sound. A tentative scream rises, but like my saliva it is unable to get past One's iron grip. Her eyes sparkle with the pure insanity, artificial light dimly reflecting off of her endless pupils. WHAM She drives my head into the ground, sending vibrations through my brain that rattle my teeth. I open my mouth and begin to choke on a warm thick rusty substance. Blood is streaming from my nose. I hear my heartbeat growing louder in my chest until it's all I can hear, until it's painfully loud, until I can't take it anymore. My entire body has been reconstructed from the pure essence of foamy anger.
I can hear laughing, an inhuman cackle. I look over at One but her lips are sealed. Her eyes are wild, yet her head is cocked to the right. I have never seen anyone look so utterly confused. We stand there for an eternity, the laughter ringing through my bones. The blood from my nose slowly ebbs, no longer pooling into my open mouth. Why is my mouth open? Somehow I manage to close it and the laughing stops. A shiver runs through me as something halfway between a scream and a sob rings from my throat. I sit down on the ground, head in my hands. In an instant One straightens her head, her eyes suddenly normal. She looks around entirely lost before her gaze drifts over me.
It is like she is seeing me for the first time. Her eyes light up with rage, but this time it is cold calculated rage, vicious sanity. She crouches next to me for a second, cautiously looking over her shoulder before gently sweeping my hair behind my right ear. Warm, soft breath conveys a single whispered word: "11." Before her brain even sends signals to her nerves I can see her knee coming down on my ribs. By the time her leg begins to move I am five feet away, running through the dark halls. I can't breathe with fear. I imagine that I am under a frozen river, hopelessly swimming in search of a hole in the layer of ice above. I run faster and faster through the halls until suddenly I find myself flying up a set of stairs and finally BOOM into a wall. I turn to find myself face to face with warm yellow light peeking out from behind a door. It faintly illuminates a small rectangular sign adhered to the wall. Room 458. Bump Nose's room.
I stand outside the door in the blackness, the pounding of my heart masking my own thoughts. I am animated with an indescribable energy. Fight or flight. Some animal instinct has taken over my brain. I expect to see a pair of eyes gleaming through the darkness. It's an archaic expectation passed on to me from the earliest of hominids. I see only dark yet some ancient segment of my genome tells me that any minute now something is going to charge through that blackness. I can almost hear it breathing on the other side. I back up against the wall, my hysteria mounting. My eyes stare into the darkness, desperate to see something, anything. My ears ache for the sound of footsteps. After what seems like hours my tired senses begin to humor me as shapes dance in front of me and my heartbeat becomes a wide array of peculiar sounds.
From the darkness comes a thin, long hairless snout with smiling human lips and pointed teeth. One eye is red the other is blue. It's knobby knees retain a human shape, while its feet maintain the illusion except for the toes which are pointy and triangular, slanted downward with thick black nails that scrape against the ground. In its mouth I can see row after row of jagged pointy teeth stretching on across the circumference of the globe. It's breath is warm against my face as it steps forward, ankles cracking. The tip of its nose is millimeters away from mine as it towers above me an impossible height. It runs a long, warm, sandpaper tongue over my entire face before growling a single word against my neck:"Weakness?" I try to scream. I try to move, but I can't. It has sucked the oxygen out of my lungs. My voice comes out muffled as if I am underwater. It shoots me a toothy grin, endless rows of stained, putrid teeth.
It slowly opens its mouth so that it's endless black tongue extends once again, wrapping around my neck and pulling me into its mouth. The one beady red eye I can see from this perspective stares into mine. Pink lips remain pulled back in a smile as sharp teeth draw tiny drops of blood all over my neck. It's eyes smile bigger as its jaw begins to tense. Suddenly, it is sliced through by a door, dissolving as the creaking metal touches it. Light streams through the hallway to reveal the towering silhouette of Bump Nose standing in the doorway. I take a step forward and fall into outstretched arms as the world goes dark.
