My eyes throbbed. That was the first thing I realized when I came to. It pounded in time to my heartbeat, as though a reminder that I was awake. That this was all real.
It felt ridiculous -my life did. All I ever wanted was someone I could rely on. Someone I could call my family. I still had Y., of course, but it just isn’t the same. He has a wife and kids. As nice as they were letting me live with them for the last ten and a half years, I could see the looks. Sometimes passed to each other from behind salad bowl or after a bad fight Y. and Iona (his wife) would have. The final straw was when their oldest, Xabat, moved out. He was sixteen, a year younger then me. I realized my stay there had expired.
I moved to the dorms at Mount Otium. It was nice and peaceful there. I was close to my school and not to far away from my mentor. The north side of the mountain was the school for children with over one gift, but the east side of the mountain was for the Verum-in-training.
The transition was easy enough, moving from Y.’s house to the dorms. Keeping my secret --that was the tricky part. At dorms, there is typically a lot of peer pressure. To show off your gifts, pick up dates, or just forget training or studying and party. Thankfully it was easy enough to study and train verus party and having a boyfriend put me out of the picking up dates part. The problem was mainly showing off. For one thing, I didn’t like to show off. For another, I didn’t have much to show off.
I stared into the floor making the blurriness I always got when my lack-thereof entered my mind.
My head pounded, as though there was a exterminator in my head trying to squash my thoughts with a giant hammer, but was so clumsy he only succeeded in hitting the insides of my brain and giving me a bad headache.
That strange thought made me smile into the hard ground.
“I am on the ground,” I told the floor, “I should get up now.”
My arms, which were clamped to my sides, gathered so that my palms cupped the ground in the “up” position of a pushup. My legs tucked under the rest of my body, and stood up very slowly.
“Thelma! You’re finally awake!”
I jumped, and shifted into a defensive pose taking my knife out slowly.
My eyes cleared, and I recognized Orin through the misty fog.
“Oh, please. Put that silly knife away. You aren’t going to hurt me,” he chided.
My hand returned the knife to its sheath.
My eyesight cleared completely and I was able to see him.
Orin was sitting on a chipped wooden stool. His tan arms were crossed across his chest in a relaxed position. His blue eyes were half way closed as though the conversation was boring him. He was sporting a white shirt with short sleeves, light brown cargo pants, and old shoes the color of sawdust.
He looked exactly the same as the day he left me.
I put that thought aside, and pasted a cold glare on my face.
“What do you want?” I retaliated.
Orin put a hand to his chest in fake hurt, “I want you, of course!”
My heart skipped a bit, betraying my mind in its attempt to hate Orin.
I kept the glare on my face, for once glad that I took acting lessons in my early childhood.
“You want to train me, to turn me into a Prima loyalist,” I snapped, angry at him and myself at the same time.
“That was a plan, sure, but I doubt that’s possible --not with your attitude,” Orin went on, “It’s probably much more likely you’ll stay here for the rest of your life.”
I watched as he stood from his creaky stool, “Living in this dreary room, with disgusting food for the rest of your life.”
“Or what? I spend my life with the guilt of knowing that I betrayed my family and my planet!” I shot back.
My lip lifted into a sneer, “I would rather die!”
Orin let out a chuckle, “You’ll change your mind, soon enough.”
Not gonna happen.
Orin turned and walked toward the door. He rested his hand on the door handle as though to open it, then turned to face me.
I jerked in surprise. There was no trace of the haughty look that had rested on his face before. Now there was only concern that played with his features. Concern that scrunched his eyebrows and made his eyes water. Concern which made his lip tremble ever so slightly.
He whispered something that took me a minute to decipher.
“I wish you would, Thelma. It’s the only way you can survive.”
Then he was gone.
I stared at the floor. Orin’s expression was painted on the wooden tiles ,having being burned into my memory as though looking at something very bright.
I didn’t understand it --I couldn’t.
What an idiot!
I slammed my fist at the floor right where I imagined Orin’s face being.
It felt good. Well except for the bruised knuckles afterward.
“Hello? Thelma Alby? May I come in?” a voice interrupted.
I stood from the floor, “Uh- yes. Come in.”
The door swung open and in came a new-looking Figura Trebea. He was about four inches taller than me. His torso was copper tinted with overlays of gold coloring. HIs eyes were wide and young --with none of the terror that other Figura Treabeas inflicted. His arms were long and silvery, the multi purpose hands turned into fingers that held a basket.
“Here,” the Figura Trebea shoved the basket toward me, “Your necessaries.”
I accepted it from his outstretched hands and peered in.
Soap, a change of clothes, and food greeted me from inside.
“Thank you,” I murmured putting the basket gently on the floor.
“Well?” the young Figura Trebea effused.
I looked up at him, “Well what?”
“D- do you like it?” he asked, voice relating to that of a child’s.
“Um, yeah,” I glanced at him, he seemed to puff up with pride at that one tiny comment.
“Oh good! I made it myself! According to your file, your favorite color is green!” the Figura Trebea pointed to the basket with his hand.
I took note of the fact that his fingers were at least a half an inch less in diameter than your typical Figura Trebea hands.
“It’s green cloth, see!” he grabbed the cloth that laid in the basket as evidence.
“So, it is!” I replied.
“Do you not like green or something?” the childish Figura Trebea asked, suddenly shy.
“Oh, I love it,” I silently cursed myself for giving him that impression. For some weird reason I really liked this Figura Trebea and his childish attitude even though I had never really liked kids before.
He smiled wildly, and for some reason it did not seem out of place on his face.
“So, anyway I feel a little out of place. You know my name, but I don’t know yours… what is it?”
“Thaddeus.”
“Well, hello Thaddeus,” I smiled warmly, “It’s very nice to meet you.”
Thaddeus smiled again, “My pleasure is all mine.”
I frowned, “I think you mean ‘the pleasure is all mine’.”
He looked at me with a curious expression on his face, as though I had said something interesting but he did not understand it, “Okay.”
“So, Thaddeus. How long have you been working here?” I changed the subject, quickly.
“As long as I have been alive,” Thaddeus replied.
“How long is that?” I hoped I wasn’t prying to much, but Thaddeus didn’t seem the type to be secretive.
Thaddeus held out his mechanical hands and stared at them. He was mumbling something under his breath that I recognized to be numbers.
“Ten years,” he looked up then spontaneously grinned. “Wow, I am old!”
“Ten years!” I sputtered. Most Ossa on Prima became Figura Trebeas on their fifteenth birthday. I have never heard of any doing it when they were ten.
“Yeah!” Thaddeus nodded.
“That’s really rare!”
“Uh huh.”
“Why did you become a Figura Trebea so quickly?” I questioned
“When I was an Ossa, I became sick. They called it cancer. They turned me into a Figura Trebea early to save me from dying,” he responded like it was no big deal.
I stared at the young Figura Trebea in front of me. He was only a child. He had lived through cancer. His soul had been implanted in a piece of machinery and it had saved his life. The people of Prima had saved his life.
How can their technology be so bad, if they saved a little boy’s life with it?
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