The transport leaves me at the compound. Out on the flat land, outside the city, I linger in the yard, looking at the western sky, the foothills, and the mountains beyond. Someone shoves me so hard I fall forward onto my knees.
Inside, they sign.
I hide inside all day. They lock us inside all night. I hate being inside. I ache to climb back up into the mountains, as though I may have left something there, something important to me.
Important.
We are locked in the dark, unable to sleep, with no light to see one another by, so we can’t even speak. In the morning when the light streams in, I see someone else has had their neck broken in the night.
Tenth, a girl signs as she steps over the body, like that makes it acceptable.
One night, after two days and nights locked inside, I curl up, squatting with my arms wrapped around my knees, facing into a corner. Normally, I might face out, not that it makes much difference since it is too dark to see most of the time. But it’s safer to face out, easier to crawl away from any trouble that approaches in the dark. Lately, the nightmarish silence is frequently marred with the sounds of violence and the threatening or desperate growls and hisses that accompany it.
I’ve crawled away from an attack more than once. Someone broke the smallest finger on my left hand, for no good reason that I could discern. They simply snatched my hand and snapped my finger back. I hissed at them and shoved with my other hand. Then I heard them scuttle away. The pain wore off by morning, but I was left hurting anyway. Hurt feelings. So stupid. I don’t know what I did to get my finger broken.
I keep thinking that maybe Sixth will find me here. My Sixth, I mean. There are other Sixths here, but they are not very friendly. Neither was my Sixth, of course, but . . .
Ah, but she’s dead. I saw her die. She died and flew away on wings of blood.
Dead. Dead. The shape of that word doesn’t seem right anymore. It’s similar to our sign for “stop.”
Dead. Stop. Stopped.
I press my forehead into the corner and try to focus my mind on something else. I wish I could sleep. I might dream. I might dream of . . . someone, a girl, not Sixth. . . . My brain is turning to mush. It takes all the mental strength I have to hang on to one thing.
Eighth. Will. NOT. Obey.
Defective. I make the shapes in the dark. Disobedient.
Dandelion.
A human girl. I know that when I lose hold of that thought, I might as well stop crawling away from danger in the night. Sometimes there is no noise at all, yet still when the light returns there is a dead one beside me. Do they just die, or do they not resist when someone comes to kill them? Perhaps they have forgotten the one thing that makes them a separate being.
The wall is cold. I can feel that through the sensory inputs in my armor. I stand and press my hands onto it, on either side of my head. Maybe I drift too far into a thought, or an attempt at a thought anyway, because I don’t notice anyone beside me until I feel another hand press down on mine. I try to jerk it away, but the fingers intertwine with mine and grip tightly. I’m about to get another broken bone, I think.
But my finger isn’t broken. The one beside me grips my hand tightly, but not painfully. It’s so dark I can’t tell if it’s a boy or a girl. I don’t even care. I squeeze back. It feels nice to hold hands. Sixth let me hold her hand sometimes, begrudgingly, when she grew tired of teasing me.
I feel a head drop down and rest on my shoulder, hear a little sigh of rattling breath. It’s a boy, I now realize. His head is level with mine, and none of the girls are as tall as me. He rests his head there on my shoulder, clinging to my hand, breathing. In between breaths it’s so quiet I can hear his heart. After a few minutes he moves but doesn’t let go of my hand. I could easily yank it away, maybe even shove him so hard that he falls down, but I don’t. As he walks away, I let him lead me.
We slink across the room, pressed against the wall, careful not to step on anyone or trip over their legs and feet. We both have lights, but don’t dare use them. On the first night in this holding cell those who turned on lights were quickly targeted for beatings, or worse. I’m not sure I understand the logic of this. It’s possible there is some directive that I haven’t received. Some others seem to know what is going on more than I do.
The other one, the boy, pulls me through a doorway and down a passage. We are not supposed to leave the holding cell, but there doesn’t seem to be anyone there to stop us. We reach a corner where a small light bathes us in a dim red glow.
Rank? I ask, able to see him at last.
He tilts his head to the side and lifts his free hand, palm up. It’s a question hand, but I know he means something like Do you need to ask?
Eighth? I sign, and he nods, pulling me forward. Eighth, like me. Maybe all Eighths think for themselves, feel lonely, and like holding hands. Maybe this is something he knows and I don’t.
We reach the end of the dark passageway. The other Eighth lets go of my hand, turning to the wall and sliding his fingers up and down, looking for something. I could turn and run back to the holding cell. If we are caught here, they will kill us both. I don’t know where this Eighth is taking me or what he wants. There is something troubling, a slip of an idea that concerns me. I think of the human girl, and a dream that woke me drowning in shame. I can’t really remember what I felt so ashamed about.
The other Eighth finds a latch. I hear a tiny click and feel a rush of cold air. A door slides open just enough for us to slip through, and suddenly we are outside, on a kind of walkway. He hops over the guardrail and disappears. I hesitate until I see, beyond the rail, that the ground is covered in soft, fresh snow. I swing my legs over the rail and let myself fall, landing fifteen feet below, in snow up to my ankles.
I’m overcome with such a feeling of pleasure and relief that I fall to my knees, pressing my hands into the snow. The smell of it is indescribable. I grab handfuls and hold them up to my nose, sniffing deeply. After a few seconds I feel Eighth’s hand on my head. He stands above me, making a question hand.
I feel very happy, I sign. He nods and does the sign for “repeat,” pointing to his own chest.