Lumia

It was quiet in her room. So quiet that Lumia’s ears rang. The silence brought back a rush of memories of those lonely nights that she’d spent locked up in quarantine. Nights and days. Well, the days weren’t as bad. At least during the day she’d had people to talk to. Sometimes.

Thankfully, the shifting of feet on carpet broke up the monotonous ringing in her ears. Raphael stood by the door with his hands behind his back, like he was Lumia’s personal guard. If she were to guess, she’d assume he felt like he was intruding. His embarrassment was endearing, as was his eagerness to help. As far as she could tell, he had no ulterior motives. He had been kind to her the moment they’d met, on the steps outside of King’s College, and he was kind now. To her, to everyone in Class Euripides.

Raphael nodded her way. “If you brought any possessions with you, they should all be here.”

Lumia smiled back. “Only what you see on me.”

Raphael grimaced. He must have realised his blunder. Prospects were not allowed to bring any possessions with them from the surface, save for a single keepsake. Lumia had been told it was to reduce the chance of spreading disease, though she was not fully convinced on account of the one month quarantine period.

“Bathroom is over there,” he said, jutting his chin towards a closed door. Its lock light was a vibrant green. “I’m sure you know how to use it?”

“Of course! Unless the bathrooms here are different from those in quarantine.” Actually, that was concerning. The food was completely different. Why wouldn’t the bathrooms be?

“Faucets are activated—”

“When your hands are under them. Temperature is set to an ideal warmth.”

“And the shower—”

“Turns on when you step in.” Lumia shared a soft chuckle. “Everything is made to be easy to use. Except for the terminals. The options on those are as numerous as a person’s needs!”

Raphael exhaled a laugh. “If something breaks, you’ll need to apply for a replacement,” he explained. “It’s not easy to get one though.”

“I imagine that resources are scarce.”

Raphael shook his head. “There are more than enough resources in Plato to replace everything here. But we try to keep our footprint small. The Educators enforce this by placing restrictions on what you can have, and when. Otherwise, everything in your room is yours.”

Yours. The word tumbled haphazardly through Lumia’s mind, so difficult to grasp. Hers. Not to be shared.

Lumia began grazing through the room, taking everything in. The carpet was soft beneath her feet, and she wanted so badly to take her slippers off and feel it on her soles. She came to a tall drawer, grey and perfectly angular. Tentatively, she brushed her fingers across the top. When she brough her hand to her face, her fingertips were clean. No dust, no dirt, no steel splinters, no sprinkles of rust—none of the dredge that was hereditary to Glassfall. Just a clean, indistinct surface.

“Your uniform should be in there,” Raphael said, referring to the drawer. “You’ll need to wear it tomorrow. Being a girl, you get to choose between wearing pants or a skirt. How lucky!”

Lumia turned and met a forced grin. She merely blinked at him, then stared at her hand once more. “Lucky,” she said under her breath.

The shaven man nodded. “If you have any trouble, feel free to call me.”

Unceremoniously, he turned to leave. When he opened the door, Leo and Alan’s conversation breathed into the room. Then the door closed behind Raphael and it was silent again. Lumia’s ears rang. She sought refuge in the exploration of her room.

Everything was clean and sparkly, as was the way of Plato. Only perfection was accepted. Compared to the pristine white coverings on her bed, and the spotless top of her desk, and the glass of her window so polished that Lumia could see her own reflection staring back at her, she was a disaster! Her hair was wildly frayed, her eyes were pitted from exhaustion, and her robes were yellowed from perspiration—that was due more to her stress for wanting to make a good first impression than physical exertion.

Everything in the room was spread out, making full use of the excessive space. Her desk was in one corner, her bed in another. Sitting lonely atop the desk was a screen with a keyboard attached, folded closed—one of the portable terminals seen everywhere in Plato. An empty bookshelf was isolated against a wall, and her drawers were an unnecessary distance from the wardrobe. Lumia creaked open the wardrobe door and—another space? She could actually walk inside! She could not imagine who would need so much room, or who would own so many clothes that they’d manage to fill up such a void. She herself had been given five sets of uniforms hanging from the racks: all deep black and bright golds, wide lapels on the jacket, pleated skirts and white blouses, gold neck ties, pressed and smoothed out so that each item appeared to be more of a board than something intended to rest around her form. Frowning, she slid the door shut, being careful not to slam it.

But despite how many things she now miraculously owned, there was still so much space for more.

Wanting not to dwell on this situation anymore, she sank down onto the bed and kicked her slippers off. The bed was soft, too comfortable, moulding itself around her bottom. The full weight of her fatigue came crashing down on her. For the longest time she sat there doing nothing, just being a part of the world.

I forgot to ask Raphael how to use my device to call, Lumia realised. But I’ll be fine. All that I need is within my thrall. I’ll keep my footprint small.

Sighing deeply, Lumia unwound her hair tie and let her long, blonde hair unfurl around her. Gingerly, she placed the cloth beside her, careful not disturb the frayed ends. It was her only keepsake, her only connection with a home she’d never see again: a tattered piece of a flag, from her country when it had still been a country. From a time when countries meant something. Back then, they’d called it Australia.

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When she was so small that the adults looked like as tall as the skyscrapers, she’d salvaged it from the ruins of a collapsed building while she scavenged for anything worth selling. Back then, she hadn’t known what it was, but she had known it meant something. Old world artifacts tended to sell well, even if it was nothing but a tattered piece of polyester. Yet Lumia couldn’t bring herself to part with it. So she’d kept the flag and gone hungry that night. Let her sister go hungry.

Clementine’s cries that night had been heart-breaking, but Lumia had felt—had wanted to believe—that there were matters more important than the next meal. There needed to be a reason to keep moving other than to keep living. There needed to be. And since that day, she’d promised herself she would find it. A few years later—years, as far as one could tell when the weather was always hot and the days were one long struggle—the skies had parted and for the first time Lumia had seen light. She’d found her reason in the floating city of Plato.

But now that she stood in the sky, nestled comfortably within the last hope of humanity, she was not quite sure what exactly that reason was meant to be. So she held onto the only matter that made true sense to her: to keep fighting for her sister’s sake.

Little remained of that flag now besides a long and fraying strip that Lumia had taken great pains to maintain. On one end was as flash of white and red—the remains of the union jack. On the other was a single star. She’d never seen a star either, again due to persistent cloud cover. Even up on Plato, the reflection from the skydome made it impossible to see anything but grey in the depths of night.

It’s just me, now. Me, alone in the darkness. Me, invisible in the artificial light.

Lumia grimaced. That was not her best poetry. Actually, it was terrible, and not worth writing down. She flopped down onto her bed, taking care not to disturb her ribbon. Staring up at the blank white ceiling, she tried not to think.

Thinking was a danger right now, because Lumia was afraid. She’d done her best not to show it, though she was certain the Educators had spotted it. They were a brilliant lot, far more brilliant than Lumia had initially given them credit. They saw through her, and that terrified her a little. But not as much her own thoughts as they lingered into imagination, conjuring up ideas of what tomorrow would bring. And all the horrible ways she could fail.

She tried not to think. Her ears started to ring again. The dreadful silence was back!

When she was in quarantine, Lumia had never really got used the quiet. She’d needed to break it up with occasional humming, singing, talking to herself, or simply making odd sounds. More awkwardly, she was being monitored the entire time and was conscious that every bit of strangeness she portrayed, the Bulwarks would note and wield against her. But that ringing was horrible! It took only three days of isolation before she could no longer maintain her smiling act and started talking to herself.

Still, three days was still longer than what she’d lasted at King’s College. She’d made a complete fool of herself in front of Morgan, during the test today. At least Morgan didn’t seem like the kind of girl who would gossip to everyone in earshot.

Lumia blinked at the ceiling, trying to get the sting out of her eyes. That speech. Morgan’s speech. That something inexplicable. Upon arriving to Plato, she knew there’d be a whole culture in the floating city that she would have to accustom herself to. However, she had no idea how to go about it and so, before entering King’s College, she figured she’d smile and keep her head low. But that speech.

She’d felt it, what it meant to be a Platonian, if only for a brief moment. And she believed in it. She wanted it, to burn bright, to be remembered, to leave a mark on the world that could never be forgotten. It stung so badly that chills ran through her body and tears welled in her eyes. She wanted it all, and something more. Something she couldn’t name; a ravenous beast that dwelled inside her that had no form or shape, that words could not explain it.

Lumia rubbed her eyes and shook the thought away. Ah, this quiet is unbearable. My thoughts are unrelenting!

Thankfully the silence was broken again by her bathroom door opening on its own.

Lumia froze. Her eyes snapped to the door. Something was moving. She couldn’t see it, but a yellow fin poked over the lip of her bedstand. It slid from one side to the other, approaching the centre of the room.

Holding her breath, she lifted her head. And came face to face with two glowing red rings for eyes.

Morgan

It was gloriously quiet! So much had happened today and Morgan wanted no more of it—the people, that was. People were always the source of her problems.

But here they would not harm her. She was wrapped in a blanket cocoon, letting her body toast, laying catatonically in a divot in her mattress she had carved out for herself over many years. She had refused to part with her mattress despite being offered a new one on many occasions. This was how she slept every night, and she would have it no other way. It was warm. It was safe.

Still, it would take some getting used to. Her current room was much larger than her last, and arranged differently as well. As much as it irked her, there was no way to avoid such a setup. She had given specific instructions to the school about how she wanted her room arranged, but given the odd position of the wardrobe and bathroom, only so much could be done.

Despite her fatigue, Morgan could not sleep.

This was a new place with many unfamiliar faces. It had been a rough day, but Morgan had made it into King’s College. She still could not believe she was here. The bedroom felt more or less the same as any of her previous ones, despite its different arrangement, helped in part by her possessions being transplanted into this space. The room was not the source of her discomfort. Rather, it was her new family.

She drew an arm out of her blanket wrappings and propped herself up.

I am sure they are fine people. They all seem exceptionally bright in their own ways, and bright people tend to worry about their studies above all else.

As though to spite herself, memories rushed through her: Lumia declaring she would set the world on fire; Leo abandoning her; Alan with his head in his meus; Raphael crushing a student’s nose; Tock speaking when she was told not to.

Her own hubris.

Stomach churning, Morgan sought a distraction. She threw her legs over the edge of the bed and drew the blankets around her. Standing, snatching her meus off the bedside table, she shuffled across the spacious room sat with her back to the wall, right beside the door. She played with her meus’ settings and the intercom above her switched on. Static-filled voices poured through.

“—and then she bit my hand!” shouted Alan.

A voice chuckled in response, which Morgan recognised as Leo.

“Maybe you should have talked before you got into the fight,” replied Raphael.

“How? She was being completely unreasonable. People don’t bite; animals do.”

“I guess,” said Raphael hesitantly.

“I still can’t believe you got locked up,” said Leo. “How many terminals were there, again?”

“Six!” said Alan. “And get this: one was supposed to unlock the admin rooms. Speaking of which, why didn’t you search for the terminals?”

“I was, er, busy,” said Raphael.

“Hey, it’s over,” Leo said snappishly. “Let’s worry about what happens tomorrow.”

Despite the arguing, they all sounded so acquainted. No, it was the arguing that made them seem so close. That was strange to Morgan. She could not understand why she would get the impression that an argument was so pleasant.

I wish I could join them, she thought.

Exhaling, Morgan slouched forward and tried to imagine what her first day of school would bring. She thought of her future, and all of the things she could be. She could be a hero. She could be loved by everyone. People would respect her, praise her. She could be someone that the world needed.

A scream pierced through the intercom and rattled her ears. Heart leaping, Morgan threw off her blankets and ripped open the door, not worrying if her timing revealed she was sitting beside it and eavesdropping.

When she entered the common room, she saw complete stupidity.