The song ends and the girl jerks out of her trance. She smiles and takes her friends hand. She doesn't realize the boy in the white clothes has just figured out who she and her friend are. Because she finally found it.
"Caraphernelia." She tests the name on her lips. It's long, like a poem. The strange noises, full of more feeling than she's ever heard, more beautiful than any of the words that pour from the mouths of her peers. She chooses in that moment, to end her existence as Bethany. Caraphernelia. Her name.
The bus pulls up, but as the angry headmistress drags her on board she watches the boy standing in the rain, watching, whispering her name. Caraphernelia.
Cara jerks awake, her whole body aching. The white tiles above her head spin dizzyingly, and she locks her eyes closed, her head pounding. A needle is shoved roughly into her arm, and she dissolves into darkness.
"Carapherlenia Ward. Number three-seven-two. Patient admitted at nine sixteen Pm." She hears the words through a haze, not sure whether their a product of a mouth, or her own mind.
"Wake her up." Fear freezes her in place, paralyzing her completely. It's the headmistress.
"She's been sedated, Ma'am. A fighter jet couldn't wake her." Caras whole body goes weak with relief as she hears the harsh footsteps fade into the distance. Saved. But all salvation is temporary.
Everything hurts, when she wakes up again. She forces her eyes open, and is instantly blinded by the stark white of the room. She flops the deadweight of her arm across her face, hoping to find relief in the charcoal gray cloth, but she's met with more white.
There's no fear this time, only a heavy, dead weight in her chest, pinning her to the bed. White means she has a week.
She opens her eyes to Mila sitting on the edge of her bed, wrapped in a blanket.
"I'm sorry." She whispers, letting the blanket fall to the ground, the stark white of her clothes making even the steril walls seem gray. Cara feels her eyes fill with tears, as she realizes what this means. One week. That's when they dress you in white, and send you off to be Unwound.
She opens her eyes again, to a darkened room. There's still a dull ache in her muscles, but she can think now, and knows what she has to do. The note.
'But I can't' That line had meant something. Mila would never admit to being unable to do anything. It could have been fear that made her write it, but Cara knew her better.
The nurse that was supposed to be on duty had taken a bathroom break, and the girl slipped out the door, racing through the dark halls. The gym area was mercifully silent, and she snatched up the note quickly, before climbing the spiral staircase to the old loft they had spent so many hours in.
'But I can't' The words had been written with a darker color pen than the others, bleeding through to the back, impossible to detect in the pounding rain, but bright as day in the moonlight. Cara's heart beat faster, as she recognized the code on the back. They had made it up ages ago. I meant you, or the letter U in some cases. But would probably mean nobody, or a letter N. Can't had to be reality, or R.
Reality you nobody. RUN.
The code had been made up so many years ago the jokes and stories that had been behind each translation had faded, but it was functional. But what did it mean? Mira was telling her to run, of course.
"Oh gods." Cara leans against an old beam and closes her eyes. If she stays, she'll fulfill her duty, and help so many people. It wouldn't be what Mira wanted, but what sort of a life would she have outside of the Institute? Running from the law, scavenging, trying to survive. Pain and fear, so much more than staying would bring. But what about the unwinding? An idea so terrifying Mila would kill herself before she faced it. But it was what she was meant to do.
"I'm sorry, Mila. I'm so sorry." She let the paper fall into her lap, and let the tears fall. Fifteen years, fifteen years spent together, closer than sisters. But everything was gone in an instant. It seemed like yours, she sat there, her feet slowly going numb from the cold and the lack of blood flow. Tears began to darken her white shirt, and the ink on the letter smudged slightly, staining her fingers.
"I'm sorry." She stands up and tucks the paper into her pocket, and begins the long walk back to her dorm.