By the time one of the maids called me in for dinner, the bathroom was flooded. Even when they knocked on my locked door and turned the doorknob, I remained lying on the floor in the fetal position. Water spilled out from the sides of the tub and the bathroom, flowing out into the small hallway outside my bedroom. There was a loud commotion of voices outside, and then a large bang. The door leading outside the suite swung open so fast it hit the wall on the side, leaving a mark in the plaster.
I didn’t raise my head.
To my surprise, it was Mr. Karin. I had wondered if he was ever going to come back. He stood in front of two maids, each having a concerned look on their faces. One of the women immediately ran into the bathroom and fumbled with the sink faucet, trying to turn it off. The hem of her skirt was soaking wet since the water was so high. The other one just remained outside, unsure what to do.
“How come whenever I see you in here, this place is always a mess?” Mr. Karin said in an exasperated tone as he walked towards me. His shoes were neatly polished, contrasting brightly against the wooden boards. “Quit doing this. Come on, off the floor. This is just ridiculous.”
I rolled away from him, lying on my side and chuckling. It was amusing how he thought I messed up the bathroom intentionally. He wrinkled his nose at the overflowing trash can at the corner of my room before shaking my shoulder. I pulled my arm away from his grasp.
”Leave me alone, my head hurts. I’m trying to take a nap.”
“On the floor?”
”No, on the rooftop.”
He sighed. ”This isn’t a joke.”
“No, but you are.”
“Baldwin’s not going to be too happy about this. And especially since—“
“Yeah? When is he happy about anything?" I sat up, ignoring the pain in my back and neck from all the training I did earlier. “Do you really think I care? And get the hell out of my room.”
”You don’t get to speak to me that way.”
“Says who?”
Mr. Karin glared at me. He looked a lot older, with worry lines surrounding his mouth and eyes. A streak of grey appeared on the side of his hair, which was starting to recede at the temples. “You have no respect. Get up and go to the office area. It’s time for dinner and he wants to have a meeting with you—“
The squeaking sound coming from the faucets turning hurt my ears. The maid’s hands were red from all the friction, sweat starting to gather on her forehead. Her attempts were nothing but in vain. The other woman remained at the doorway, biting her fingernails and glancing at the hallway from time to time.
“It’s always about what he wants,” I said. “I’m not hungry. I don’t want to talk to him, so what’s the point anyways? He’s just going to lecture me about responsibility and honor and loyalty to this blasted country. It’s the same conversation; we’ve had it a million times before.”
“Okay, I think it’s time for you to see the psychiatrist,” Mr. Karin snapped. “Maybe it’s best for you to receive some medication, for whatever is going on. I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but this isn’t going to slide. I’m going to let Baldwin know about all this. This attitude, the disrespect....you keep that up when recruitment comes around. They are not going to take that.”
”You think I care?"
”Why are you being so difficult? We are trying to help you. You need it. Badly. Know why? Because what you’re doing isn’t normal. Many civilians on this island are struggling to gain access to the very resources that you have, young man. You ought to be grateful. You know what you should care about? Your behavior. You whine and bitch and complain all day when things don’t go your way. You’re selfish.”
Something clicked inside of me. I held my hand out towards the bathroom, causing a strong stream of water to spray in the maid’s face. A gurgled scream escaped from her mouth as she fell on the floor. Mr. Karin turned and faced her, a shocked look on his face, before running to help the frightened woman up.
“You don’t understand,” I said. “You don’t.”
He crouched down on his feet, holding the maid by her side. She was gasping and coughing for air, clearing her plastered hair out of her eyes. I got up as the water in the bathroom began to rise in the air. The woman in the doorway covered her mouth with both hands. Mr. Karin pointed his finger at me.
“Stop it. Now! Stop, stop, stop. Listen to me—“
The individual blobs of water began to circulate around them. The tile bathroom floor was completely dry. In a couple of hours, he would be able to go home to a family, not an empty place, where it was cold and dark. Everyone in this building would. My arms began to shake as both Mr. Karin and the maid quickly scrambled to their feet.
“You don’t get it, do you?” My voice sounded weak and unrecognizable, like it belonged to someone else. “I’m tired...I’m...I’m alone. All alone, all the time. I don’t have anyone to talk to. I don’t want be different. I just wish that someone would take this curse away from me so I could be normal, like all of you. Please, get one of the scientists to figure out how to make it go away.” My skin was tingling. “I’m begging you.”
“You need to calm down, just—“
The was a loud cracking sound as the blobs began to form into shards of ice. Mr. Karin held his arms out to shield himself. The maid began to cry, her sobs echoing in the room. Outside, there were many more people gathered at my door, but I couldn’t make out what they were yelling. My ears were ringing like bells, and my throat felt sore and scratchy.
”Take this thing out of me.”
”You’re…you’re special. You’re different.”
“I’M A MONSTER!”
There was a rustling sound and a loud bang, causing me to jump. The ice shards were stuck in the wall, all around them, like thick glass daggers. The maid wouldn’t stop screaming, and I soon realized why. One of them was lodged through her left arm, her blood splattered against the surface and dripping on the floor. Another shard had missed Mr. Karin’s face by a few inches, leaving a fresh cut on his cheek. He leaned against the wall, shaken up for a moment, before slowly hobbling out the room with the frightened maid. More staff members surrounded them.
The woman’s cries filled the air. There were rapid footsteps coming down the hallway, and Baldwin pushed his way through the crowd of people, followed by two other guards. When he saw her impaled arm, his jaw dropped open. I timidly followed them through the hallway, but stopped right outside of the double doors at the front of the building. Both figures made their way out into the grass on the front yard towards an ambulance truck, in the light of the setting sun.
Baldwin pointed at me. I had never seen him this furious before, since he spoke quietly. “Go to your room. Now. We’ll have a discussion later.”
I could barely get the words out. “I didn’t mean to hurt her... I...I didn’t mean it...”
He said nothing else, just turned away. After standing there helplessly for a moment, I walked down the hallway and closed the door to my suite, my heart beating like a drum as I leaned against it. The bathroom light was still on, where the ice shards embedded in the walls were starting to melt. The maid’s dark red blood stained the tile floor. Slowly, I sank to the ground. It was a puddle, covering most of it. I began to rock myself back and forth, unable to look away.
Hot tears threatened to come, but I successfully blinked them back, and took a deep breath.
* * * * * *
The psychiatrist gave me pills and told me to take it easy for a few days before I resumed training again. He informed me that I was supposed to take them three times a day, right after each meal, to make me feel better. I never saw that staff member again, and when I asked Baldwin about her, he said that that she was recovering in the hospital; he had paid her family a lot of money to cover medical costs. I then asked him if I was going to jail; if the police were coming after me.
He had scoffed. “In Jova, we are the ones in charge. Don’t you worry about a thing, I’ve taken care of it.”
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Somehow, I didn’t understand what he meant by that.
I saw the psychiatrist four times a week. He kept asking me stupid questions. The pills didn’t work, they just made me feel more empty, so I stopped taking them. I tried talking to myself more. Reading a lot of books kept my mind off things for a while, but not for long, because I began to envy the lives of the characters.
Nobody dared to come in my suite after that. Worst of all, everyone was avoiding me now, or worked a lot more around me for fear of making me angry. I didn’t blame them, it was my fault that no one really wanted to be around me, because they were scared of me. And that hurt more than anything else. I was disgusting.
Mr. Karin still attended the meetings the Red Mamba held diligently every morning, but immediately left after they were over. I busied myself with as many tasks as possible, but at night I couldn’t escape. I would stay awake and sit on the floor with my back against the bedpost for hours in the dark room, hugging my knees.
I began to devise a plan in my mind to show the staff that I had no intention to hurt them, I had just lost control that one time—that I was going to get better. That I only wanted to be their friend, despite all the pranks I had played on them to just get their attention. That I was going to be a warrior one day and protect them and their families from bad people who wanted to destroy them, the ones they were supposed to fear.
And then I would talk to Mom.
* * * * *
Two days after I gave Sergeant Davis the white envelope, there was a heavy knock on my door late one evening. I was lying on my bed, working on a crossword puzzle, trying to find a seven lettered word for a specific pasta dish. When I rushed over towards it and yanked it open, Mr. Karin stood there, straightening his tie. A thin bandage sat where the cut had been covered his face.
“Good ev—“
I didn’t even let him finish his sentence. “Look, I’m...I’m really, really sorry. I’m sorry for losing my temper like that the other day and...for hurting you. I know you hate me and I’m the last person you want to talk to, but I promise I’m going to act better.”
He gave me a confused, stunned look.
My hands rested on his shoulders; I stared deep into his eyes, my words breathless. “Please, show me what I have to do. I’m…I’m not a monster, I just…I’m really—“
”What? What are you saying?”
“You have to tell me what I need to do. To make you want to come back and see me. Or anyone in this building. The staff. Nobody comes by my room anymore. Can you please tell them that…that they don’t have to worry or be afraid when they are around me? It’s been ages since I’ve seen you, let alone anyone else. I was really hoping—“
“Whoah, whoah, whoah....slow down, sport!” Mr. Karin said. “You’re talking so fast, I can hardly keep up. I’m not mad at you, Adlai.”
“You’re....” I exhaled. “You’re not?”
He shook his head as I slowly released him. He looked a lot more relaxed, and he handed me a thick orange folder. “I came here to get you this. We had a meeting yesterday specifically about you. Most of the Red Mamba’s colonels and generals believe that you are ready to enter the recruitment program. Sergeant Davis had seen major improvement in your training so far, and your gift has advanced to the point where we believe that you are ready to be trained to use it in combat.”
I took the folder from him and slid my thumb underneath the flap. There was a stack of papers inside, still warm from being in the printer.
“What about Baldwin?” I asked. “Does this concern the white envelope? He told me that it had nothing to do with me.”
Mr. Karin sighed. “There have been a lot of enemy attacks going on around the city, kid. Huey Baldwin wanted to wait a few more months or so before you joined the Red Mamba army, but times are urgent. The Khonie villagers are barbaric. They want to destroy our good name. We need as much help as possible, now.”
Khonie?
He could have been speaking a different language, since I had never heard that word before in my life. Even as he said this, he appeared to be uncomfortable in front of me. He knew that Baldwin had lied to me, which, wasn’t surprising in the least, but still odd in this situation.
“Oh,” I murmured. “I understand. But...what is a Khonie?”
Mr. Karin paused. “Have you seen the creatures in the trucks with the cages that they drive out in the city? I’m sure that when you go outside, they are there. Those...those creatures are not human, they only appear to be. They are the very scum of Plod, and it is our duty—including yours—to put them in their place.”
I fought to make sense of it all. “I’ve never heard of them.”
“You will in this program. They educate all of our men well. The average citizens here learn about them in schools, but since you come from a different background you may not have yet been exposed.” He narrowed his eyes. “They’re vermin.”
A chill ran down my spine. Mr. Karin gave me a light pat on my shoulder. “Just sign those forms and have them ready in forty eight hours. Read them carefully.”
“Mr. Karin?”
“Yes?”
“I didn’t mean to hurt that maid,” I whispered.
He shrugged. “We do a lot of things we regret, Adlai. That’s just life. She is doing fine. You must’ve been having a bad week or something that day. But it is okay. Baldwin has noticed that your abilities get stronger with your emotions. While he is certainly very upset about what happened to his hired help, he does see more potential. If you can use them appropriately, it can be a good thing.”
“But everyone is afraid of me. Even you.”
Mr. Karin looked away and changed the subject. “Fill out those forms. Baldwin will fax those to the military camp once you’re done so you can pack up your belongings and get ready to leave. How is the medicine going for you? And therapy?”
“It’s alright,” I lied. “I’ve been feeling a lot better.” When I forced a grin, my insides shattered. “Getting more sleep, too.”
“Good, good!” he exclaimed. “You see? Maybe there was a chemical imbalance that needed to be corrected. We’ve all been teenagers before. Eighteen isn’t an easy age. But things will get better.”
I wanted to believe him. I really did. But I think he knew that I was slowly losing my mind.
Don’t leave me here by myself, I wanted to say. Please, won’t you stay and talk to me for a while? It can be about anything. Please, please, please.
Instead, I pretended to look at the folder with great interest. He must’ve noticed I was hiding something from him. Or heard me talking to myself right before he knocked on my door. He knew all of this, and he was keeping silent, smiling politely in front of me.
”Goodnight, Adlai.”
I managed to smile back at him, watching him turn and head down the hallway. With one swift motion, I slammed the door and threw the folder, kicking at the pages that spilled out on the ground with my bare foot. My hands were shaking.
Water beaded in my eyes as I gritted my teeth. My fingers tightened around the pencil I held, causing a thick layer of frost to grow on its smooth wooden surface, before it snapped completely in half. I then scribbled all over the crossword puzzle and knocked it off the bed, pages fluttering like a wounded bird.
Around midnight, when it was dark and silent inside the building, I went down the kitchen and stole two large trays of blueberry muffins, freshly baked that day. When I got back to my room I placed them on my desk, pulled off the liner of the first one I selected, and began to cram them in my mouth one by one. The lights flickered in my room as I kept chewing, ignoring how the crumbs clung to my chin and lips.
* * * * *
The day to leave came way too fast.
Getting fitted with a uniform for the program was another hassle. The two tailors who Baldwin had hired frowned and poked at my arms, shoulders, and back, the yellow measuring tape twisted and curled around me like a snake. Mr. Karin had been watching from the corner of the room, an exasperated look on his face. When they tried to squeeze my arms through the sleeves of a jacket, he slapped a hand over his face.
”No, no, no!” he barked, causing them to look up. “What are you doing? You know that’s too short for him. Baldwin had specific orders—“
”Apologies, sir,” one of the men replied, adjusting his glasses. “But this is the largest one that is available, and I had done everything I could to make it fit properly across the shoulders.” He made a low noise with a throat. His shoes awkwardly squeaked on the stool he stood on. “Due to his height, it may be best to have it custom made—”
”You clearly didn’t try hard enough,” Mr. Karin snapped. “The boy is bloody six foot six, two hundred and ninety pounds. There’s no time to have anything custom made, you fool.”
As they began a shouting match, my eyes lingered towards the rain pattering against the glass window.
* * * * * * *
I had brought a small duffel bag filled with some clothes, a couple of my favorite books, and some basic toiletries. It was a rainy day when I left that white government building. Baldwin offered to have a ride for me down to the military camp, but I preferred to walk. Two guards stayed by my side the entire mile and a half down to the area. After meeting with a stern, middle age woman and handing them my papers, she motioned me forward to where a crowd of other guys were standing, waiting for the bus that would take us to our location.
The guards stopped following me then, but I knew that I was still being monitored. Baldwin had informed every officer there of my ‘circumstances.’ It sucked, but I was glad to be out of that horrible building. In the distance, a pair of headlights shone through the pouring rain as a large white bus arrived in front of us. All the recruits began to file in a line. I was at the very far end, trying to see past all the tall heads in front of me.
Most of the recruits’ family members were there, hugging and kissing their sons goodbye. The badge of the red snake that they wore on the sleeve of their clothing, were faded and dirty.
I took one more look at the guards, who were still watching me in the distance. For some reason, I wanted them to say goodbye as well, since we wouldn’t see each other for several months. But I knew I was being stupid, that it would never happen. They were not my family. They were getting paid to do this. Once they were done, they could go back inside to a nice, warm building, out of the rain. Their night shift duties would be easier than ever, without me there.
I knew Mom was still watching over me. She had to be proud of me in some way, based on all I’ve learned. Sergeant Davis had taught me some about guns, but I hoped that I could master my shot, especially with reassembling and loading ammo. I was terrible at that.
The line began to move forward.
I shivered underneath my too small jacket as I began to board the bus.