"Ben, get up. It's time…"
"No," I grated into the dirt beneath me, clenching muddy fistfuls of grass between my fingers as my skin began to prickle with the autumn Michigan chill. I didn't know how long I had been lying there on the cold football field, sobbing and cursing every person that I could think of at the moment. My coat was smeared with gladiator's blood and saliva, all of which was adulterated by the menacing muck. The ground was ripped apart where I had violently hacked away at it with my knife like I had wanted to do to Jack's body. The weakness of not being able to kill a man that was supposed to avenge my brother's death had eaten away ate me until I had been reduced to a sniveling lump of tissue.
Yet, the voice sliced though the darkness again, this time more demanding, "Ben. Get up."
Slowly, I lifted my head to face the person who was ordering me so, and everything instantly vanished as if by some spiteful fiend of the mind. The football field was wiped away, Jack's unconscious body disappeared, and my mature flesh was stripped from me. My world blurred into one garbled mess, and without warning, I was back inside my Manticore past, lying on the glistening tiled floor of our dormitory with blood dribbling out of my young nose. It seemed as though my present emotional pain augmented my past physical pain-neither of which I could readily escape.
Crouched beside me, Jack emerged into my peripheral vision, rubbing my shoulder and whispering, "Ben, get up. It's time…Get up, Ben, get up." His voice, despite the premature age at which it was presented, conveyed an utmost sense of authority and affection; he should have been CO-not Zack.
I couldn't move, at first. Everything in my entire body wailed with burning pain that sent jarred contractions through me. When I did try to rise, my vision obfuscated from the agony-and the blow I had been given-and I would be sent sprawling awkwardly back to the floor like a toddler who has not yet learned to walk.
Off in the far corner, Zack dully stood, looking out the window with glassy eyes as he rubbed his split knuckles. During my struggled to stand, he would occasionally glance over to me, as if trying to make himself believe that he was, indeed, the good little CO he would always strive to be. Nevertheless, when I lifted my swollen head to meet his eyes, he turned away, denying that he had cared-friendship was an emotion that Zack had yet to openly portray; the best anyone ever got was a dismayed grunt.
"Ben." This time it was Eva's voice, painfully feminine and dangerously robotic. "They could be coming soon…and if they see you like this…"
"I-it," I stammered, wiping clumsily at my nose that was probably broken. A film of blood and clear mucus smothered the back of my hand as I did so. "It hurts," I moaned.
"Come on, all we have to do is get you to bed. That's all," Jack was urging me. "Try to get up…balance on your feet, at least."
Clutching a leg of one of the glacial beds and causing some severe pain from my bruised muscles, I managed to drag myself up to a seated position, upon which Jack and Eva immediately grabbed me by the arms and began to haul me across the floor. Max and Jondy, who were sitting cross-legged on one of the beds and playing some kind of string game with a strip of fabric from the cots, looked up as I passed.
"What's wrong with Ben?" Jondy asked, abandoning the game and hopping off the bed.
"He got in a fight," Jack explained to her as he pushed me into bed and propped my nauseated head up with flimsy pillows that even the homeless would have found unsuitable.
Max's doe eyes widened, while she followed Jondy's path over to Jack. "With who?"
Jack was about to answer her, when Zack stepped forward out of the shadows, letting a sliver of the moonlight outside caress his harsh face before illuminating his body in its entirety. "No one, Maxie…no one."
An unspoken ripple of comprehension stirred throughout the hollow room as everyone put two and two together. After all, it didn't take a genius to realize that dear old captain had punched me cleanly in the face, then threw me to the ground in his blinding rage; a fight that they had not seen and probably never would see one like it. Yet, the fact remained that I was the one who had provoked Zack by challenging his almighty authority with belligerent words, thus, averting the sin of my pain on my head-not his.
Jack sat down on my cot by my hip and tenderly dabbed at the clotting blood around my nose with the wet end of a blanket. "You're hurt pretty badly," he told me apathetically.
I tried to laugh, but my voice came out as a gargle in the back of my throat, and I ended up coughing several times before I was able to speak. "It could be worse."
"Ben…" His voice was sympathetic and soothing, not at all like Zack's roaring bellows. Jack had never once gotten angry with me, although, on rare occasions, he would find somewhat of an irritation inside of him, but could rapidly dismiss the feeling almost as easily as it had arisen. I trusted Jack more than I trusted myself most days; on the same viewpoint, though, I also feared him to a certain extent, constantly unsure if he would snap. "Tell me what happened," Jack urged, patting me on the leg.
I sighed, leaning into the cold cotton that composed our pillows, and I found absolutely no comfort in doing so. So, I pushed myself to an erect sitting position instead, making direct eye with Zack before starting. "I was down in the basement, and…I saw them."
"Them?" Eva echoed, clambering on my bed beside Jack.
"The 'nomlies," I responded, and I watched a swell of both confusion and fear pass through the group that was haphazardly gathering around me. At that period in our Manticore lives, we had not yet began building marches in which we would march stoically around the facility, so only a select few of us had seen the anomalies. Zack and I, specifically-the cause of our fight earlier in the evening.
"What are…'nomlies?" Max chirped in her sweet voice as she, Jondy, and Tinga made themselves comfortable on the foot-board of my bed.
I paused, wondering what to say that would terrify her so that she would forever lie awake at night, fearing for her life. I wanted her to suffer. I wanted them all to suffer because I was different and they all knew it. They laughed behind my back, whispering adulterous comments just because I was smaller…weaker…inferior. Yet, I knew at that moment, as I began my horrifying description, that there would be a day that I would stand above them all and laugh. Laugh at them. Laugh at Lydecker. Laugh at the anomalies that wanted me to join them.
"They're creatures," I whispered unintentionally as a torrent of anguish pulsed through my body, causing me to wince, although my group of listeners believed my grimace to be caused by the painful memories-not the stitch in my side. "Creatures that crawl up from the basements. Their nails scratch against the walls…" Forming my hands into monster-like claws, I hissed, "Scritch, scritch, scritch…" My audience had increased-with the exception of Zack, who stood off the side, almost disowning the rest of us. Well, he was of no importance; his ears would hear my words anyway and would hopefully scare him in some way or another. "They have their own special tunnels that they use because, even though everyone insists that they're stupid…they're not. They have their own special ways of getting to us that Lydecker doesn't know about. The 'nomlies hate him just as much as we do. Only problem is that they hate us more because they were supposed to be like us, instead they're down there…in the basement, wasting away. But, when it's dark and everyone's asleep," I said under my breath, leaning forward in my bed, "you'll never know that they're there until…BAM!" Everyone jumped in surprise, and I heard someone hold a scream down. "Until they drag you away to open you up and drink your blood to try and become us."
Jondy, now quivering in fear it seemed, trembled, "And when will they come for us?"
I shrugged absentmindedly, watching Zack glare at me through the corner of my eye. "Whenever they want to."
"They could be coming right now?"
"No. It's too noisy because we're still awake."
"And when we go to sleep?" Krit challenged.
"Then, they will come for us, unless someone can save us."
This troubled them, obviously, because none of them fully believed my story, yet at the same point, they weren't about to deny it in case someone was dragged away in the middle of the night. Nervously, Max and Tinga exchanged worried glances, wanting to ask each other if I was lying to them or if I had discovered another horrid secret that Lydecker had kept from us. Finally, though, Brother Zack broke the silence.
"That's impossible," he snorted in his deep voice as he padded across the cool cement floor. "The 'nomlies don't want us."
"Then what do they want, Zack?" Jace questioned, not wanting to provoke him, but merely wondering.
Before he could answer, I gave a weak snort, and pressed, "Yeah, Zack, what do they want?"
"They want Lydecker," he responded, naturally grabbing onto the first logical answer that presented itself to him. Then again, logic was never a strong point for Zack, so I, of course, challenged him.
"Then why haven't they grabbed him yet? He's down there nearly every day, and we all know that," I commented.
Pausing as he decided whether or not to sock me again, Zack bit down on his lower jaw, causing a muscle in his ruddy cheek to start twitching warningly. "Get to bed," he at last snapped to the others, "before somebody comes in here, and we all get punished."
Without having to be asked twice, the other siblings all hurried away to cover themselves up with starched cotton sheets-with the exception of Jack who gave me a longing look, knowing that he couldn't protect me from Zack.
Yet, before Zack retreated to his own bed, he placed his hands on my mattress and bent over me, twisting his lips back into a feral sneer. "Don't you do anything to scare them, Ben," he warned. "You scare them, Ben, and we'll never get out of here. You and I both know that the 'nomlies don't want us."
"The next time one of us dies, Zack-'cause you know that it will happen eventually-watch where the men take that person. Watch, and then you tell me that the 'nomlies don't want us. Tell me then, Zack, and I'll stop telling the unit the truth."
