Sing for Me

It has been 1,049 days since I last saw my father walking the Compound’s halls.

I remember the confusion and hurt that ripped at my chest, refusing to comprehend the fact that my father left me.

Alone.

I remember dreaming, my mind and subconscious caged in cells of fear - watching and watching as the voices around me woke up. I twisted and turned, aware of the real world and the battle in my head at the same time. A voice of smoke slithered and rattled the cage my mind had been forced into.

Sssamaira.

I struggled to find the key, my mind slamming itself against the cage, but still, there was no way out. I shuddered and twisted - I was a bird without wings. A bird whose wings were cut off and thrown away, too far to reach. The cruel voice came closer to the cage, the smoke in it making its way up my nose and down to my lungs, burning and burning. An endless ember sparking where there is no air.

Sssamaira, why mussst you fear me?

I screamed and screamed, my mind reeling and looking for a way to exit. A way to get my wings back.

I don’t fear. I don’t fear.

The voices all at once awakened, their presence overwhelming and demanding. A tendril of ash forced its way into my cell and pulled at my mind, at my soul.

The smoke pulled me up, up. So high I could almost see the end of my dream - my nightmare. It then pushed me back down, hard. The cage rattled and I felt pain erupting at the outer corners of my mind. The smoke pulled and pulled - so hard I was forced to let go of the leash I’d been holding on to.

One moment, I was in the endless pit of nothing, floating through ebony. Floating through the darkness that wasn’t black, but invisible. Ebony darkness poured water down my throat and stifled the ember. It stifled my screams.

And then I was out. I was out of my cage. I was out and they went in. The laughter and screeching of the shadows teased me, poked at me with vicious malice. The voices sealed themselves in the cage, taking my wings with them.

My mind stilled, expecting.

The hushed and whisper of voices died down. A dull, silver light gleamed in the birdcage I was forced out of.

A key.

I watched as silence expanded the invisible darkness. I watched as the voices and shadows started shaking with laughter. They sound amplified - reminding me of the hyenas said to be plaguing the 3rd continent.

They quieted once more, now safe in the outermost corners of my mind. Safe from it.

My mind reels as I feel cold seep into nothingness. A voice so ancient and old says my name the way a lover would - a purr skittering over the edges of my mind.

I still. Waiting. Waiting for it to come closer. It always does.

“Samaira.”

A shift in the darkness.

The voice is different - as if calling me from the depths of a well.

I stir, the darkness within my mind shifting and reeling back, cracking light in at last.

Again, the voice says my name. Closer this time.

“Samaira. The Commander needs to see you.”

I’m aware of two things at once: One - there is a man in the women’s quarters. Two - my head is pounding.

Opening my eyes, I look at a man, at his deep green uniform. His white hair.

I look at the white mask covering the right side of his face - the medals adorning his clean sleeve. All at once, everything rushes up. The nightmare. The man. Confused, I stand up - the blood rushing to my head so fast I almost fall over.

“Why does the Commander want to see me?” My voice comes out raspy as if I’d been screaming for hours.

The guard’s only reply, “It’s about your father.”

~

1,049 days ago I was woken up in the middle of the night to have my world shattered.

The Commander’s stern face will never leave my mind. The way the light clung to the bone-white mask he wore covering the right side of his face. The one all of the Guard wore. The mask that symbolizes menace and hope. Human and soldier - protector.

As he spoke, I memorized the left side of his face. The stern look of his left eye as he said,

“Your father is gone. We have reason to believe he crossed the Wall and is with rebel forces. You are not leaving this room until you tell us everything you know. If you lie, we will not be merciful.”

I was questioned and probed for hours. I was a child - shy of 18. And yet… and yet...

He left me.

My father was the only family I had - my mother died when I was three in a rebel attack. I barely remember her. He tried though - he spoke about her intelligence and her beauty. The way her eyes lit up when she watched the rainfall from the upper-level windows. The only piece of her she left behind was her silver heart-shaped locket.

It never mattered to me, not in the way it should. The only significance it held in my eyes was that my father’s face lit up whenever he caught sight of it on me. His eyes crinkling with age and his greying hair swishing left and right as he laughed with me.

Now, he is gone. To the rebels. The people who disrupt the little peace we have managed to maintain since the wars made most of our planet uninhabitable. The people who killed the woman he loved so fiercely.

He would never. I know it. However, the alternative is that he must be… dead.

No one knows how the rebels are able to infiltrate the Compound. Any Compound. In our continent - Otesh - or the two others, Azia and Uroa.

My father joining the rebels across the Wall - away from the safety of the Compound - makes no sense.

Still, I am alone - father-less.

I was questioned for hours. And now, 1,049 days later, I am regarded with suspicion. Whispers slither across the infinite tables set up for lunch as the people behold me.

No one has left the Compound in 87 years. Not since the new world was formed and the Compounds were built underground to protect the humans who had the modified gene and those who did not. The same gene that could battle the deadly disease that killed billions of us - the same gene my mother had, the one I have too, marked by white hair.

The Compounds are safe from disease and the animals now warped by the virus. Concrete walls wrap all around us, trees visible from windows aligning the upper levels. The Wall starts five kilometres from our Compound. Inside the walls, we are safe.

Inside, nothing can harm us.

Nothing but the humans who want to disrupt our peace.

I sit and watch the endless rows of tables, people sitting and talking in a hushed manner. I watch and watch until I spot a familiar head of dark curls. He finds me before I can even smile.

Raoul.

The only friend who stayed by my side despite the whispers. His dark eyes seem to twinkle under the pale white lights adorning the walls, his dark skin gleaming with sweat. Just finished a cleaning shift, no doubt.

Walking over to his table, my eyes roam the space beside his - noting a tray holding soup and bread beside his own. Noting his family - his twin sisters talking animatedly as Adele, his mom, nods along and digs into her potatoes.

“I see you want to keep me alive yet another day,” I tease, settling down beside him and pressing a kiss to his right cheek, then his left. The common greeting of Compound B-13.

“You overestimate my kindness Samaira, I just wanted a certain pretty one to sit next to me,” he teases right back, stealing half my bread in the process.

“Shut up and give me my bread,” My hand reaches for it, only to have him dangle the bread out of reach.

Smiling at him, my left hand steals the bread from his tray, licking it in the process.

“Should’ve seen that one coming” he muttered, glancing at his mom only to find her rolling her eyes and suppressing a smile.

“Yes, there will be a next time Raoul, but for now I win,” I wink, nodding my hellos to his family.

They were my father’s closest friends. Raoul’s family kept me company and looked out for me when even I stopped caring about myself. His sisters, Estelle and Luna treating me like the younger sister they never had. Never mind that I’m older by a year.

I gesture to the seats and old flags placed around the room, “What is this about?”

Adele in between bites manages to explain, “No one knows.”

Going back to my food, I ask Raoul, “What’s your guess?”

“Probably just a weekly report,” he shrugs, indifferent.

“We had one yesterday though,” I say, taking a spoonful of cold soup into my mouth.

“And nothing interesting happened, maybe something finally has,” He continues, “It’s likely about the virus.”

Almost everything was about the virus. Although all updates about it seem to be the same - death counts upon death counts.

The virus cannot affect those born with the mutated gene - we are safe, the only side effect being vivid and lucid dreams. The mutation caused part of our brains to evolve, our hair to turn white. Humans without the gene, like Raoul, cannot lucid dream. They forget about dreams instantly, as soon as they wake.

I would give anything to forget mine.

A chair scrapes to my left, jolting me back to reality.

All at once, thirty guards walk through the doors and stand around the grey room - the Commander walking in last. A glance at Raoul says he's confused too, slightly worried.

The guards dress the same - dark green uniforms, a mask that covers the right side of their faces and medals adorning their sleeves. Only their families are allowed to see their real faces, their sleeping quarters are different from ours - dwelling on the highest levels of the Compound while we stay underground. Always separated.

The Commander’s icy voice fills the room as we all stare on, confused.

“Today marks the 20th year of my service.” He pauses as we all realize what this is.

“From today and carrying forward, my title as Commander passes on to my son,” He motions to his left where a young man with milk-white hair stands with his head high.

He has the gene mutation then, I note as his hair colour matches my own.

The Commander goes on, talking about his son’s qualifications and years of preparation. I watch him, noting his mask is whiter than the rest, almost luminescent as the light bounces off it.

“Erik,” the Commander motions his son forward - to speak.

I catch the determination in his gaze, the slight nervousness too. His brown eyes meet mine as if by looking, I summoned his gaze. Looking away, I listen as he begins to speak.

“This may come as a sudden shock, but I assure you I will keep the Compound as safe as possible, just as my father has done,” His voice is deep and slightly raspy, a complete contrast to the icy shards of his father’s.

His eyes find mine again, pausing before he speaks, “Before we talk about the virus, we have to address an ongoing issue.”

My brow furrows. An issue with what? The rebels?

The room is silent, waiting on his next words, and then… and then they come.

“We have reason to believe we are living amongst a spy.”