"Your ribs look lovely today," Gabriel said as I passed by him at the water cooler.

I glanced at him for a moment, shifting the pile of memos I was carrying. "Uh, thanks."

"How was staying after archery class? Did you get in good practice?"

"Yes."

"Well, I hope you had time to do your homework. You can always study with me sometime if you need to."

"Okay." I said goodbye to Gabriel and returned to my desk. Outside the window, the sky was bluer than ever even though the sun would set in five minutes. I was glad that Karmen was taking care of everything. My hands cramped as I typed.

Soon my shift ended and I took the bus line home. I hadn't had a chance to think things over yet, and as I climbed the stairs the smell of dinner cooking blocked out any further thought. I had made it home early enough to see my mother setting the table when I opened the door.

"Is Karmen home?" I asked.

"In her room doing her homework."

"She's not going to eat with us?"

"Not until her homework is finished she isn't," she sang. "Now go wash the calluses off your hands and get ready for dinner."

I rinsed off in the hall bathroom. The air smelled warm, but the dinner itself was slimy and cold and I used the fact that I had had a late lunch as an excuse to eat very little of it. My stomach acid bubbled as I helped with the dishes.

"Will Karmen eat when she's finished?"

"I'll leave her ration on the counter for her," my father said. "If she hurries, it won't attract bugs."

"How fair of you," my mother said to him as she kissed him on the cheek. "Run along, Jessica," she added. "Work harder than your sister does."

I shrugged and went to my room.

Karmen looked up at me as I entered. "Jess, could you come over here for a second?"

She was sitting on the floor beside her bed, and as I approached I saw that she was not doing homework. A person was tied up on the floor next to her, soaked in blood. "What's this?"

"It's Emmy," Karmen said. "I had to disguise her to be able to carry her through the city without being noticed. Don't worry, the blood's just spaghetti sauce."

"Why did you tie her up, though?"

"Well, she wouldn't come willingly."

"So you're not doing your homework?"

Karmen smiled. "I did it during lunch, remember? Mom and Dad are just pissed because I skipped tutoring session." She wiped some of the fake blood out of Emmy's hair. "I figured we have to help her."

"Okay. Why?"

"Think of all the stories she can tell! Don't you want things to be a bit more interesting?"

"Do things have to be interesting?"

"Of course! Help me while I untie her."

As Karmen skillfully undid the knots she had tied, I made sure Emmy didn't run away. She looked really desperate for death now, so there was less concern about her escape than there was about her attempting to engage us in mortal combat. "Alright, Emmy," Karmen said, throwing the rope aside. "Where do you come from?"

Emmy shook her head.

"Karmen, I don't think this is a good idea."

She ignored me and kept talking. "This isn't an interrogation, Emmy. We're just some bored kids who found a new toy. What were you doing outside of the city walls, anyway?"

"I, was, str - uh, dying."

I didn't say anything. I was still a bit shocked that we had found and kidnapped a traumatized homeless girl, but Karmen seemed unconcerned. "So you went out to die?" she asked. Emmy shrugged.

The radio came on in the other room, and the interrogation was cut short. Emmy was tied up again and her ears were plugged with cotton so she wouldn't hear anything. Karmen and I left to join our parents in the other room, who were listening too intently to the news to address us.

"Did we miss anything?" I asked.

"Probably another missing kid story," said Karmen. My mother shushed her.

"Do you remember that time," the radio buzzed, "when some people weren't happy, folks? One of them called me on the phone recently to thank me for helping them, and it made me wonder where all those once unhappy people are now. Let's be like them and use our newfound happiness to reach a sort of Nirvana, say, where we're free from this lovely little life of ours. Onto our next story, internet servers were down today, causing distress in several districts..."

The news never seemed to change any more than anything else did. I had no trouble at all letting my mind wander as the announcer droned. Karmen was picking her teeth, and as the announcer said something she laughed. Mother shushed her again.

When the show was over I hardly noticed. Karmen practically dragged me back into our bedroom, though this time we didn't untie Emmy, merely unplugging her mouth and ears. It occurred to me how odd it was that we had untied her at all.

"What time is it?" Emmy asked the moment her mouth was free.

I glanced at the bedside clock. "20:17."

"Emmy, if you're going to want to live with us, you're going to need to know how hard it is to keep your mind," Karmen said. "And don't tell me that you don't want to live with us because killing you is not an option. Now, are you hungry?"

Emmy was crying like a wounded animal. Karmen covered her mouth with her hand until she quieted down.

"We might as well turn her in to the authorities if you're going to treat her like this," I said.

"She'd cry no matter who had found her, Jess. You know that." She pulled a tin box out of her backpack. It was another lunch ration, more spaghetti of course, and she force fed Emmy as she talked. "I don't like this either, but I'm sure she'll feel better once we leave her alone for a while. Just like you after… She'll be just fine."

Globs of spaghetti drooped from Emmy's mouth, but it wasn't messy so much as pathetic. She was already covered in tomato sauce.

"Why don't you talk to her, Jess?" Karmen asked. "She seems to like you better."

"She doesn't need anyone to talk to her," I said. "Not really. You're doing a good job. I think that's all we can do for right now."

We laid Emmy on the floor in a way that would prevent her from swallowing her tongue, and I put a spare blanket over her and plugged her ears back up with cotton. Spaghetti continued to dribble from her mouth onto the carpet, and I waited a moment before putting the gag back in. I went to bed and had no trouble falling asleep.