Company 56 was an absolute backwater. With a population of only two hundred, the village was built on top of a small black soil reserve that had long since ran out of its natural resources; its inhabitants simply never moved out. A couple hundred miles south of the capital, sixty miles west of the Fourth Battalion city, most maps didn’t even bother to mark company 56 due to how insignificant it was. The low population density and the relatively large floor space allowed flat houses hosting individual family units to exist, which one simply would not find in the cities.

The gray fog slowly rolled across the snow-covered roof top, the air smelled like soaked through soil. Lsis stood at the front door with the luggages by her side, looking at this ancient house that she was born into.

For Iota citizens living in the modern age, seeing oneself as a free, floating agent, being able to go anywhere at anytime was seen as a sign of virtue, a way of exercising scientian thinking. In the Omnipseudein, humans were born with their umbilical cord connected to the land beneath them, and when the mirror age kicked in, the time when infants first recogonized themselves as a wholistic individual in the mirror, they tore their umbilical cord off with their bare hands, leaving the earth and venture into the living world, intelligent and rational.

Lsis was twelve; she was well past the mirror age, yet it was only today that she truly felt her umbilical cord falling off her belly button.

Her father exited the house and approached her. “Your mother…” he let off a long sigh, “I just want you to know, my dear, that your mother loves you more than anyone else in the world…” he caught himself in the middle of the sentence with a conciliatory smile, “well, so do I, Lsis. You are the bones beneath my flesh.”

Ma was still angry; she had been crying a lot lately, skipping work days left and right, lashing out at random objects in the house like the toothbrushes or the hydroponic edible lichen farm in the backroom. She did not want Lsis to go off to Klause; Lsis knew it, and her heart wrenched seeing her mother suffered like this, but the spirit of democracy dictated one’s freedom to chose their own path, and Lsis had chosen hers.

“Your mother ugh… wished you a safe trip,” her father said, his eyes looking onto the floor, “I do not… as your father, there is nothing more I can do for you now, this is the fullest extent of my capability to… guide, to help you in your journey in life, and it’s… soulsplitting to accept that reality,” he finally looked his daughter in the eye, his gaze weak and trembling, “you are on your own now. Don’t… don’t die in the desert… or anywhere…”

Lsis gave her father a tight hug, “I will radio back home… as often as I can.”

The truck was here; first time a truck actually came to their house to pick somebody up, and probably the first time the truck being completely empty. Shaman Oupyrsa exited the driver’s seat while the clerk, the same one they had been seeing for the past week whose name Lsis still hadn’t the chance of learn of, hopped off the cargo bed.

“So… This will be it,” the clerk said, “comrade Iltan of Sixth Division, First Battalion, Company 2, the Church of Falsehood will hereby take over the responsibility of your daughter’s safety, health, and education for the next four years during her stay in Klause. If harm outside of the acceptable daily perimeter happened to her, iocluding but not limited to death, going missing, malnourishment, mistreatment, accidents resulting in long-term truma such as amputation, abuse, or sexual violence, you are entitled to compensation for the emotional and physical distress the harm might cause. Note that thie entitlement will expire the moment your daughter reach psychosocial adulthood… I’m sorry, but the woman of the house really should be present for this disclaimer, where is comrade Flla?”

“She is… unwell.”

“Comrade Iltan,” the clerk gave Lsis’ father a pad on the shoulder, “we don’t share a close friendship, but you have known me since the very day I started working as the clerk for this part of the battalion. From one peer to another, will you consider me a democratic man?”

“Absolutely, your holiness.”

“Then take my words for what they are: Shaman Oupyrsa has been handling exchange students for more than a decade, and he is one of the more democratic, competent educator I have ever the pleasure of meeting, North of Bhgau or otherwise.”

“You are too kind, Sister Errraqi.” the shaman simply smiled.

“Hey, I’m just consoling a father here, don’t let the compliment go over your head,” the clerk snapped back, “if you ever need anything… or if comrade Flla needs anything, you know where to find me.”

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Some last minute paper work was done between her father and the clerk, and during all of that, Lsis was in a daze so deep, she could barely hear or see anything outside of that carpet of fog snailing its way across the roof of their house. This is the house I was born in. This is the house that my mother gave birth to me… this is the house…

“Lsis!”

She turned to find the shaman already back at the truck; the clerk, like a statue, sat stoically in the truck’s bed. She had turned her back against her home for so many times, yet this time, she felt it. As she tossed her luggage to the back and about to step into the shotgun seat, her mother, holding her kid brother Ngulo in her arms, stepped into the front porch.

“Give me a sec, sir…”

Flla of Sixth Division, Third Battalion, Company 16 was a 180cm woman (5’11’’) with long lanky limps a sharpened face, and a bronze frame spectacle. From the day Lsis could remember, her mother was always the strongest person she knew. A production line supervisor at the Fourth Battalion down factory, her mother could carry sacks full of downs bigger than even she was from one end of the factory to another, multiple times a day.

Yet at this moment, the woman standing before her looked devastated, vulnerable, hollow; her puff eyebags, her hunchback and her wrecked hairdo, her skeletal face that accentuated the cheekbones, all reminded one of a sick patient.

“Ma…”

“Don’t die.” Her mother’s voice, though hoarse and barely intelligible, still exhumed affection in its every shrill and every tremble, “don’t die, Lsis. Promise me that.”

“I won’t. I promise.” Lsis said firmly; she never realized how emotionally stern she was, so much so that she could still muster confidence under such crushing circumstance.

Her promise visibly soothed her mother. Lsis’ kid brother Ngulo, barely two and half year old and sitting firmly on her mother’s strong arms, could hardly utter a complete sentence, yet it seemed the lugubrious air that had lingered in their familial home for the past week had infected him as well. He held out his hand to reach Lsis, and Lsis gripped on it tight.

“Sista… to school?”

“Yes, Ngulo, to school.”

“I lie sista, ga ga, o!”

“You like, not lie.” Lsis corrected him, and he gave her a toothful smile. Lsis moved her face in and gave him a kiss on the cheek. The boy had no idea what was going on, and he held her sister as tight as he possibly could; maybe kid this young understand things more than people might have realized.

Smooch, on the other hand, looked as stupidly merry as ever; of course it does, it’s mere a pig, it probably thought I’m just off to school again. She got down and gave Smooch a rough ruffle in the tummy, caressing its snout. The pig oinked in exuberant merriment.

“I’m off, ma,” all things come to an end, even the Omnipseudein doesn’t deny that, it’s time to go, “it’s time for me to go.”

Her mother just nodded, eyes staring straight into Lsis’ soul.

“Don’t die, Lsis, don’t die on me.”

The shaman was the one driving; Lsis felt somewhat uncomfortable sitting in the shotgun seat knowing that her holiness the clerk was sitting in the back bed.

“We are dropping her off,” the shaman explained, “she will be fine. We, on the other hand, have a fifty hours drive ahead of us.”

“You guys… knew each other well?”

“As well as two people of the faith could be,” as bizarre and frankly, grotesque as the shaman’s looked, the way he spoke and the ever so slight but noticeable tonal Klausian accent that made the common tongue came off like a hymn rather than a language just made Lsis very hard to dislike him.

“Sir Oupyrsa…”

“Not your commander,” the shaman said as their truck bumped into a small piece of rock, “also, us Klausians are post gender, so you might want to get use to genderless appellation.”

“Oh, sorry…” right! How could she forget about that? There was no gender in Klausian society, only the Breed and the Be Bred, with the Be Bred usually holding significantly more social power due to their complete control over reproduction. Lsis still had a hard time comprehending that, “your holiness… I mean, comrade Oupyrsa. Why… me?”

“Like I said, we are looking for students excelling in the Discipline of History,” the shaman pasued for a moment, seemingly deciding whether or not to say something more, “truthfully, the dictator has required the principle board of Kunkunite to compile a historical chronicle of Klausian states for quite some time now, there just wasn’t enough people of that profession to facilitate that happening. His grace is… not pleased. So here I am, hunting for talents in the Republic,” they took a look at Lsis askance, “relax, kiddo. You aren’t exactly cream of the crop, but you are the best we can have. I am gald that you have decided to come through. On behalf of all Klausian states, which to be frank I don’t get to be too often, I welcome you to the world of the Insula volcanoes.” They let out a hearty chuckle, “after this fifty hour drive and the Bhgau desert, that is.”

As the truck rocked them back and forth, Lsis drifted into slumber. Her brother’s half-talk rang behind her ears, and the sight of her mother standing in that front porch made her heart sink into her stomach. She had composed herself so well that she didn’t even flinch when parting with her family, but now that the truck had driven her far towards that distant land, her restless dream wrestled her in her sleep, and tears gushed out of her eyes. She whimpered, then sobbed, then cried, then wailed like a neonate. Shaman Oupyrsa kept their eyes on the road, but once in while they would hand her the tissue she needed to wipe the snot and tears away.