What.
The whole crowd is silent. It presses in on my ears, blocking anything from coming in or out. I feel my mouth open and something vibrate in my throat, but I hear nothing.
A girl behind me pushes out into the clear path; no-man's land. Her fingers twist together, her long, brown hair covering her face.
Nutellie.
My lips are moving.
No sound.
The people around me, their outlines, are blurring...together...why...
'Ell!' The scream twists itself from my core, then there is no blur and just her, crying, in my arms, too sharp in focus.
She cries and I hold her.
People yell.
Hands on my arms.
Between us.
No.
Oh no she won't.
'I VOLUNTEER!'
They shove me in and the door slams. I turn and look at it. Brown oak, such a simple pattern. So I just stand there and watch it. My mind is still so shocked no coherent thoughts can drift across, so I just stand there.
When it opens, my mother's face appears. She is as white as old milk, her eyes shining like stars, and there are fingernail marks running down her cheeks.
She takes a few steps to close the distance and enfolds me in her arms. She smells like warmth and smoke and cherries and sugar and-
'It'll be ok,' she whispers. I nod, because that's all I can do.
She's shaking.
'Why,' she chokes, 'why did you volunteer?'
I set my face into a grim and determined one.
'Because no-one else would have. She's twelve. She'd die.'
My mother shudders, so I grab her shoulders tightly and stare at her. Her eyes are like a spark of electricty, bright blue and glowing. I don't have them. I have my dad's eyes...
'Time to go,' a Peacekeeper says, pushing into the room. My mum crushes me in a hug.
'We'll be together again,' I say. She's pulled away, tears streaming down her face, blubbing my name.
'Don't worry,' I raise my voice, 'it'll be o-'
The door shuts with a loud click.
Tears well up in my eyes so I collapse onto the sofa, which is pushed against the wall, and bawl. I use a cushion to muffle my cries but I think they can still hear me.
When I've finished, after about two minutes, the door opens again.
Nutellie flies in and collides with me. Behind her is my best friend Trin.
'I'm s-s-so sor-ry!' Nutellie cries. Her sobs rack painfully from her body so I wrap my arms tighter around her to surpress them. Trin watches us.
'It's not your fault,' I manage to grab her shoulders and hold her away from me so I can look into her eyes. They're a duller blue than my mother's, but now they sparkle with tears. I wipe her cheeks with my thumbs and force my mouth to twitch at the corners.
'This was my descision, and I stand by it.'
Nutellie nods and sniffs. I sit her down on the sofa, then rise to look at Trin, who stares stonily back at me. Her carroty hair is spiked with gel, and her green eyes, I can see, hold a wealth of emotion that she manages to surpress.
Without words, we take two steps each and embrace. She smells of burning, and my mind flashes back to a happier time of playing on the geology tracks downtown, messing with Daniel and Kane in the centre. A time long passed.
'You'll be okay,' her deep voice is muffled by my hair.
'Do me one thing?'
'Of course.'
I grin.
'Make sure you ask Kane out. You two are good, and it'll make me feel better knowing you'll be happy when I go in.' A rock slides into the pit of my stomach as I say it. When I go in...
Trin pulls back with a look of shock, but the Peacekeepers are back. They pull her and Nutellie silently away and close the door.