"You have to stop telling her these outlandish tales, Laura!" A single lamp was lit in the living room and the man who had spoke was continuously pacing back-and-forth on the carpet. His wife stood beside the coffee table, her hands clenched into fists so strongly that one would wonder if her nails had pricked her skin and released blood.
"There's no harm in telling her about them, Robert! She's a child! Let her enjoy being a child!"
"Children have to grow up sooner or later! She's too old to be hearing such things!"
"She's nine!"
The man turned towards her, "Exactly! And soon she'll start sharing them with her friends and you know what will happen, Laura? She'll be outcasted! I will not let my child suffer over some fantasy that doesn't exist!"
It was just after nightfall when the other Cadets marched in. She hadn't moved from the bed and her sullen expression hadn't changed, but her tears had long since dried away.
Behind her, she could hear a few groans and the shuffling of feet.
"Looks like we've got a newbie." Audrey turned and met eyes with one of the boys. He was tall with a dark buzz cut and had this look in his eye that made her suddenly feel a bit uncomfortable. He could've been about a year older than her. "So... what're you in for?"
"Leave her alone, Ross!" Audrey saw a girl on the bunk beside her give him a glare with her small eyes as she added pins to her black-haired bun.
Ross spoke over his shoulder, "It's not like it matters. We're all here for the same reason!"
"I said, leave her alone," the girl spoke firmly.
Ross, however, didn't listen and walked closer to Audrey to the point where they were almost inches away from touching noses. She tried her best to maintain a straight face, although she could tell she was failing.
The boy chuckled under his breath, "A Chairman's kid, right?" She didn't reply. "You won't last a day."
"That's enough, Private." The boy scrambled to his feet as another stood right behind him. Like the girl, he also had black hair, which looked a bit messy and unkept along with a slight bit of scruff on his chin and above his lips. He had to have been older than everyone else in that room. If wasn't, he at least appeared that way. And judging by the badge on his jacket that the other cadets didn't have, he was also of a higher rank.
"Why must you always give newbies the warm welcome?" Ross asked sourly.
"'Cuz some of us didn't receive one when we first got here. Right, Private?" Ross merely furrowed his brows and stormed off. The other boy turned his attention to Audrey. "Let me know if he gives you any trouble, alright? That guy's been an ass since he got here." She nodded as the boy walked over to his bunk, which happened to be diagonal from her own.
The girl walked over to her, "Don't let Ross getcha down. He can be a real jerk, but he feels just as miserable as the rest of us."
"I can only imagine," Audrey replied.
The girl offered her hand, "The name's Pamelyn Flit. Don't bother memorizing the first name, everyone goes by the last around here. So just call me Flit."
"I'm Audrey Korbich," she replied, shaking Flit's hand.
"Korbich, huh? Isn't your Dad on the Whoville Council?"
"Don't remind me," the brunette snapped. Flit looked at her, wide-eyed, before she continued, "Sorry. He's-."
"-The reason you're here?"
"Yeah."
"I don't blame you. My uncle sent me here after my parents died in a car crash." Flit put her arms behind her head and let her back drop onto Audrey's bed. "I never liked him anyway."
"How long have you been here?"
"Since I was eleven." She chuckled under her breath, "Four years being in this dump and not much has changed. It's always the same. Schmitz wakes us up at the crack of dawn, drills us until we're exhausted, we eat, we drill again, eat, drill again, blah-blah-blah, you get the idea. The only real difference is the people who come in."
"Does anyone ever leave?"
"Only if they 'prove they have been purged of the Thinking disease'," Flit said, adding air quotations.
"So everyone is here because they're Thinkers?"
"Well... that's debatable. Ross could've easily been dropped here for other reasons."
Audrey lowered her voice a bit as she glanced over at the high-ranked boy, who appeared to be playing around with what looked like a pocket knife, "What about him?"
"Mercer? Wouldn't be able to tell ya. He had to have been here longer than any of us. No one gets the title of Master Sergeant in this place in a matter of a few years."
"He's not a Cadet?"
"Well..." Flit tried to explain. "Yes and no. He got his new rank about two years ago, but apparently he refused to change bunks. He is one of Schmitz's favorites so it doesn't surprise me that he agreed."
A loud bell rang in their ears as some of the Cadets began filing out of the bunkroom along with the Sergeant, who shoved the knife in his pocket before walking out the door.
"C'mon," Flit said, standing up. "The raw liver may be a bit unsettling, but you grow used to it after a few sittings." Audrey let Flit go ahead of her as she slowly followed, her mind unable to erase the lack of life in both Ross's and Flit's eyes.
"Maybe some of them do exist. If you just let me-."
"No! I'm not letting you leave our child behind to go off on some trip to who-knows-where! Children need their mothers, Laura! When the hell are you gonna grow up?!"
Thump! The couple turned and froze as a bit of brown hair whisked around a corner and a drumming sound came from the stairs.
The wife turned to her husband with glistening eyes, "I wish you had never taken that job at the city council." She walked out of the room as her husband sat down on the couch with a pained sigh.
"Neither did I, Laura. Neither did I."
