Vestige Chapter 4 - Sayako Uragirimono
I can't help but feel remorseful watching my kids argue before me. Each of them with different dreams and aspirations, they plead promises of escape and safety for their friends and family. Bleeding out in pain, I'm tied up to a metal table in the lab. My children stand before me with the sparks of revolution flowing through their blood and here I am positioned decisively in their wake. Such a familiar feeling, I can't move or talk to them. I'm sitting here, absolutely helpless with a decision in front of me. Just like that time not long ago.
"Happy birthday, Sayako!" My friends surrounded and congratulated me. We sat in the dining room of our orphanage. A huge cake paraded the table and decorations flew around the premise. It was the happiest moment of my life. I was going to spend the last moments of my old life with my friends before I graduated and left.
Seymor laughed and teased me as he always did. Nile scarfed down his piece of cake and demanded more. Jamie patted me on the back and expressed her jealousy at my new life. I had never felt so filled with love and happiness in my life before, and yet all good things must come to an end soon. Yamilet blankly stared at her slice of birthday cake.
"What's wrong, Yamilet?" I got up, sat down across the room next to her, and placed my hand on her back.
"Why is everyone here, so happy?" She asked me. A sorrowful gaze plagued her pupils.
"Well, because I'm going to graduate of course!" I let my joy shine through my smile.
"Don't they release what's going to happen to you?" She cried out. Last month when Carole left to start her new life, Yamilet snuck out to give her one last goodbye. Ever since that moment, she hadn't been the same person.
"Please. Don't leave. Don't go with Mother tonight." She begged me.
"That's enough Yamilet." Conny, Mother, dragged her out of the festivities and into the kitchen for discipline.
This behavior seemed so novel to me at the time. I shrugged it off as paranoia on her part, without considering the reason behind her words and actions. I completely disregarded, anything she said she saw that fateful night and continued on with my graduation.
Later that night, Conny led me out past the gate and into the forest. We trudged through the lush woodland. I marveled at the new sights around me. I had thought such excess flora and natural wonder only existed in that of picture books. We continued until Conny brought me along to the tunnel that left Orphanage 203.
The forbidden underpass towered in front of me, but we gave it little thought. Conny turned to me and spoke words of encouragement. She told me that I was going to undergo an awful trial and that she had the utmost confidence in me to pass it. With hindsight, I could never accomplish such comforting and motivating words as her when I put my own children through the serum.
It feels strange to reminisce on the time I took the serum. Its cold touch has escaped me with age, and yet I still remember the look on Conny's face as I morphed and changed. She looked relieved, and yet I felt unbelievable agony and anguish flow through me. I was so confused at the time. I never understood the point of the serum, if we were just leaving to find happy lives outside the walls.
My original beliefs about the world outside the walls have all but faded from my mind now, but I know they must not have been accurate to what I actually saw. Then again, I never actually left them. I simply peered out from the window in my academy room. I witnessed those creatures bustle and rumble through their daily lives. I watched the neon lights on their shops blinker and flash in an unknown dialect.
Every now and then, Conny would visit me in my small, lonely room. She would ask how I was doing with my education and training. Every time I had the same response. I would get down on my knees and thank her for the mercy she showed me and reassure her that I was not failing her judgment. Conny was a very humble woman and she would tell me that she had complete confidence in me to succeed in my training and yet it was challenging for me.
I left my life with Seymor, Nile, Jamie, Yamilet and all others behind for one where I would study in solitary. The few other women with me were silent and aloof. They must have missed the family they abandoned. They must have had friends who were greatly hurt by their decision. The realization that the same pain they felt before coming here will be brought upon others by their own hands, must have deeply struck them. Alas, I never felt that way. I always knew that I made the right decision.
I had failed the test. When the serum coursed through my veins, I failed to control it. My body could not gain its power and so I was useless to the Overlord. Gratefully, I was offered a second chance. Conny sent in a letter of recommendation to the higher-ups. They had accepted it and allowed me to continue living as a mother. I was to replace another woman who's years began to catch up to.
I put my heart and soul into my schooling. I learned to read Archaic and to operate their communications networks. I drilled the blueprint of the orphanage and all its intricacies into my brain. I mastered housework, cleaning, repair, and cooking. I was even taught the biology of our people and how the serum permanently reworks and supercharges our enzymes. I did all of this, knowing one day I would put children through the same hell I endured. I even looked forward to it. I put all of my soul into excelling in my schooling.
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A day came though, that I had one last task to accomplish before I was allowed to become a full-fledged mother and work in the orphanage. I had to literally become a mother. Artificially inseminated, I gave birth to a daughter. Advanced science and medicine ensured I gave a quick and safe birth though, it was a still moment I'll never forget. Finally holding her in my arms and staring upon her crying face. It felt like a physical embodiment of everything I had worked for lay before me.
Such joy coursed through my body as I laid in bed. Though I was constantly hooked up to machines, a single woman helped me deliver.
"Have you decided on a name yet?" The midwife asked me.
"Yes. I think I'll name her Lulu." I replied.
With the final task behind me, I was finished. After several months of hard work, I was allowed to continue living. My life wouldn't be forfeited like so many others who failed were, I was to carry out the sacred purpose the Overlord bestowed upon me. I wasn't given any fancy celebration, just one day off before I started working. I spent most of the day staring out the window in my room until Conny arrived.
"You've done well." Conny embraced me and held my head close.
"You're going to start running your own orphanage, Sayako."
"Yes, I will." I couldn't help but let tears fall from my eyes. My body ached, but I felt so motivated to move forward.
"Before you start running things yourself, let's take a trip down memory lane, shall we?" Conny led me out of my room and up to the topmost inner floor of the wall. We stopped in the hallway between the file management room and the city management department room. Stuck between the two largest divisions within the building, it was a long hallway with glass aligning both sides.
We passed a couple of guards as we looked through the one-way glass at Orphanage 203. It exhibited the same model that all of the other orphanages did, and yet it was special. This was where I spent the first fifteen years of my life. I remembered those familiar places and those days of running around with Yamilet and the others.
I had left her behind to rot in the orphanage. I couldn't help but feel regretful, but I knew what I was doing wasn't wrong. This is how the world works and we just need to accept that, and yet some people can't bear that fact. Yamilet was one of those people and before I knew it everything came crashing down.
The door leaving the file management room came busting down. A nearby guard rushed to the commotion to stop the assailant and was promptly shot to death. From the file room, Yamilet, Nile, Jamie, Seymor, all came running out. Their bodies were stained with sin and blood. They held automatic guns in their hands and killed the other guard with ease.
They had no remorse what so ever for challenging the system that allowed them peace. They had already made it to the upper level of the wall. To go through the previous floors, they must have slain many in their wake.
"Sayako!" Yamilet's voice screamed out and tears fell from her cheeks. She ran up and hugged my body.
"I'm so glad you're safe. We've been looking for you." Her crying eyes met mine. "We're going to get you out of here and find a better life outside the walls."
Her words spoke of inexperience and a lack of knowledge. She didn't know what was really outside the walls. She didn't know the real reason we were stuck in this forsaken system. Her ambition blinded reason and forced her to commit atrocities in the name of justice and freedom. What would she have done if she made it outside the walls? How many more would die so she could be happy outside the system? How would the Overlord punish all our race because of her actions alone?
I was struck with a loss of words. She must have endured many hardships to get here and yet I couldn't let her just continue on. The outside world is incredibly cruel. It isn't a place for the fond of heart, and I didn't believe she could survive it. I couldn't stop her in her tracks just for not believing in her, could I?
Filled with indecisiveness, I looked towards Conny for resolution. I found her body leaned lifelessly against the glass. Blood streamed down her face and all over her chest. Her breathing had stopped.
"How could you do this?" I asked.
"What do you mean? That old hag is the one who turned Carole into a goddamned monster!" Nile shouted back at me.
"Don't tell me you still think of her as your mother, Sayako." Yamilet let go of me and wiped her eyes.
"She's an evil woman who has been playing with us like toys!" Yamilet explained.
"She's been putting us through this hell for her own amusement!" Seymor shouted as he pinned one last bullet into Conny's skull.
"Just imagine the suffering Carole must have felt as she became that thing!" Jamie recalled.
Conny took me to peer back upon Orphanage 203 so that I would recall the memories I shared with these people from afar and yet they stand before me. I search through the back of my mind, but at that moment I couldn't come up with a single happy moment I had with these people. They are monsters that kill for their own self-righteous desires. Do they seriously believe that they can live happy lives outside the walls?
"This is wrong." I offered up.
Yamilet's cold eyes explored mine. "Killing monsters is wrong?"
Who is the monster? Does that serum make us monsters, or are we already ones without it? Nonetheless, I knew what the truth was. I knew that this revolution would fail and cause more trouble then it's worth. So I broke the glass and pressed the alarm button on the wall beside me.
They had gone through so much effort to sneak up here unnoticed and I threw all of that away. I sold out the beasts my friends had become, so I could continue the corrupt cycle they sought to destroy. Could their movement have actually changed things? Could they have brought better lives to our people? I don't know what their outcome would have been and it doesn't matter, because I watched them be hanged the next day.
It must be strange that my mind wanders to those thoughts at a time like this. I reckon, my current predicament feels so similar in nature to that decision I made long ago. This time it is different though. Again, I attempted to quell the uprising before me, yet this time I failed. The children didn't bother to speak to me as Yamilet did. They disregarded and shot at me. I've become greatly out of practice in recent years, so capturing me must have been easy for them.
Are these kids different than those fifteen years ago? The ones in front of me haven't gotten nearly as far as Yamilet did, and yet my opinion of them is different. I feel proud of them even. I raised these children with the optimism to reshape the world and its status quo. I don't know if they can do it, but I hope they can. I reach down through my bindings into my pocket and pull out my key card. If they ever hope to escape the walls, they will need to first reach the upper level. I slide it towards Jax.
Go on my children. Change the world.