The Folder

She straightened up and bent backwards at the waist to soothe her aching back. It was a blistering hot day for it to only be the beginning of May. Sweat had made a damp triangle on the back of her shirt and another one on her chest. She put down the garden hoe and picked up her water bottle, shaking the last few drops onto her Saharan tongue.

Everyone was out working today. The older ladies were preparing snacks and a picnic for the kids out on spare blankets and sheets. The men and most of the younger women were tending to the garden as she was. She wiped the sweat from her forehead and smeared dirt across it to make a mud smudge before she began dragging her already tired feet back to the main building.

“You going back for water, Pipe?”

Piper turned around to see Odis squinting at her in the sunlight. “Yeah. You need some?”

“Please,” He tossed his bottle at her.

She caught it with one hand, surprising herself a little. She walked on to look natural about it.

Inside the space was dull and gray. Everyone pitched in to spruce up the rooms where people spent most of their time. They painted and decorated the kitchen and the large patio out back had been given life with flowers and crystalline ornaments and lovely chairs. But there were still some rooms that hadn’t been given the same amount of attention. Sometimes Piper stepped out of a pleasant pastel green dining room into a dingy dry wall area that effectively reminded her where she lived. How she lived.

Piper smiled as two children raced past her with a stack of napkins to take out to their picnic. Now that she was in air-conditioning, she could feel how much her collar made her sweat. She slipped her finger under it to adjust it across her larynx where it was supposed to be. After working outside in the hot sun that the dome seemed to intensify on some days, her collar felt particularly tight. She knew others felt the same when she saw them giving a tug or two. Piper filled the water bottles and headed back outside. This time she looked up where the sun shone onto the dome. Even in here one still couldn’t look directly at the giant ball of fire in the sky. She tossed Otis’ bottle back to him before opening her own and chugging half of it without taking a breath.

“Piper!”

She turned around at hearing her name called so urgently. It was Gloria coming from the main building with a rush in her step. “What?”

“Lola has gotten worse. You might want to come see her.”

Piper put the cap on her bottle before she dropped it and trotted up to Gloria. “Where is she?”

“Out back, getting ready for the picnic.” She turned and led the way.

Piper cursed under her breath and kept a brisk pace out behind the building. She passed under the awning to the blanket lying in the grass where she could see Lola and Miranda.

Piper knelt down on the blanket and cupped the little girl’s face in her hands. “Hey, honey. What’s the matter?”

Lola looked up at her with pouty, blood-shot, brown eyes to croak out her response. “I’m achy.”

“She’s burning up.” Piper looked to Miranda, the black-haired teen of the community who properly fit the stereotype of any typical girl her age. Though the clothing options were limited in the colony, she found a way to cut hers up or down, whichever direction showed more skin. “When did she start running a fever?”

“I don’t know!” Miranda said defensively. “She said her throat was still sore; I thought she might feel better if she got some fresh air.”

Piper sighed, but she didn’t fuss as she picked up the five-year-old. “Well, now that she’s running a fever, let’s get her inside where it’s cool.” Miranda and Gloria followed her inside. Lola coughed on Piper’s shoulder and held on. Once the girl was inside in the cooler temperatures, Piper put her on her usual cot in the children’s bedroom. “There you go. You rest up now, okay?” Piper fluffed her pillow then looked to Miranda. “Will you go get a cold washcloth for her head?”

Miranda stood there with the pockets sticking out from under her selfbutchered shorts and kept her arms crossed. Then she turned, rolling her head around on her neck as she lazily exited. “A ‘please’ would be nice.”

Piper didn’t pay any mind and looked up to Gloria while smoothing back Lola’s hair. “Do you mind keeping an eye on her just until I finish up in the garden?”

“Of course, honey. I’ll make her some tea to soothe her throat.” Gloria patted the little girl’s hand. “Would you like that, sweetie?”

Lola nodded silently. Piper stood up. “Thank you. This is just crazy. First Cullen, then Tori. I think we need to run some kind of symptom checker on all the kids and separate them.”

“Oh, I know,” Gloria made her way to the door. “And now one of the adults has gotten sick. Someone needs to go to the Sphere and get some help.”

Piper furrowed her brow. One of the adults now, too? She followed Gloria out and closed the door to the children’s bedroom. “No one at the Sphere is going to help us. We’re on our own.” Piper went past her to go to the infirmary where Cullen and Tori were. Piper had never relied on the Sphere for anything. Any shipment of food, medicine, or supplies from them she viewed as nothing more than luck. They still kept the colony here like ants in an ant farm and Piper was convinced they didn’t care.

Everyone in the community who wasn’t born here either was too young to remember or was too old now to remember coming here or anything about the outside world. Piper fell into the former group. Her earliest memories consisted of her having simple chores like putting everyone’s shoes together and calling any woman who made contact with her “Mom.” And everyone— everyone—had witnessed someone’s collar blinking orange and vibrating with that condemning, high-pitched, continuous ring and walk down that paved road toward the giant Sphere and never return. Hundreds of questions and requests were sent without any response. And not a single colony member who had been there and come back had ever seen a person in the Sphere.

Piper entered the infirmary and went to Cullen’s bed first. His face was flushed with fever and his lips were pale and dry. She sat down softly and picked up his hand and patted it. “Hey, kiddo. How’re you hanging in there?”

Cullen smiled a little, rearranging the freckles on his red cheeks. “Good,” he said in a scratchy tone.

Piper picked up his cup of water next to him and held it close so that the straw faced him. “Have you been eating?”

The boy took a sip and averted his gaze.

Piper sighed. “You have to keep your body nourished if you’re going to get better. You know that. You’re not queasy, are you?”

“No,” he breathed, “I’m just not hungry.”

She lifted her chin and her eyebrows. “Then you definitely need to eat something.”

From the other cot came a little cough that bore a squeak behind it. Piper turned to Tori and approached her. The little girl smiled and wiggled her feet in spite of her coughing fit.

“How about you, squirt? Have you been eating?”

“Yes,” she grinned before coughing again.

The nurse approached and checked her temperature again. Piper looked to the woman and inquired, “Is the medicine working yet?”

The thin lady took a breath then motioned with her finger to follow her. Piper stood again and followed the woman behind a curtain where they conversed in whispers. “Nothing is working. We’ve tried everything. The fever just won’t break; all we can do is treat the symptoms.”

Piper blinked. “Treating the symptoms won’t cure whatever this is.”

“I know.” She sighed. “Maybe we should consider sending Marshal to the Sphere.”

“Neither the Sphere nor Marshal should be trusted with anything this important.” Piper washed her hands in the bowl nearby. Marshal was the self-appointed colony leader. He was only allowed to elect himself because no one else wanted to step up. No one knew anyone at the time. And no one knew what a rash, belligerent fool he was either. Now everyone knew. But no one did anything because, well, he got the job done. Piper didn’t like him, but he didn’t have any objection to doing any of the work that needed to be done.

“Someone said one of the adults was showing symptoms now. Would you happen to know who that is?”

The nurse’s eyes grew round. “No, I wouldn’t. I didn’t even know anyone else was sick besides these two.”

“Lola’s sick. I’m moving her in here after I go find out who else is sick. So, I’ll be back.” Piper stepped out from behind the curtain, patted Tori’s leg, and made her way out of the infirmary. The sun made her skin swell almost immediately upon stepping outside. Before she could make it back to the garden, voices from the picnic area floated to her ears. Piper averted her course to find a group of adults and a few children. “What’s going on?”

One of the men turned around to answer her. “We have four sick now! This is an epidemic!”

Piper sighed. “It’s hardly an epidemic. It’s just a virus and we need to try different medicines—”

“Someone needs to go to the Sphere,” another said.

“I’ll go,” Marshal stepped out and Piper had to fight another sigh. He was tall, balding and had a good-sized gut on him. He was pretty strong and always too loud for whatever environment he was speaking in. His hands were on his hips like the self-righteous, pretentious, personified “ugh” that he was.

“We need to get to the bottom of this. I’ll go shower and change.”

One of the older women rolled her eyes. “Marshal, you’re not going to make it a big deal, are you? Because we can forget help then.”

“It is a big deal and we need to take it seriously! Our children are falling ill! Dropping like flies!”

Miranda crossed her arms. “So dramatic.”

“Oh, you’re one to talk,” said another woman.

Miranda scoffed and prepared a retort, but Piper cut her off. “Marshal, I think someone else should go, okay? Just this time?”

“What if the virus is coming from the Sphere?” said a young boy.

“That’s ridiculous! They wouldn’t do that to us!” A short plump woman squeaked.

“Oh, no, of course not!” interjected someone else sarcastically, “They’d never dream of making anything HARD for us!”

The crowd under the awning broke out in a din of argument, shouting at each other, or just shouting in general. Piper attempted to get someone’s attention, anyone’s attention, but there wasn’t a single one of them involved in the vehement debate who felt compelled to pause and take a breath.

BEEEEP. BEEEEP.

All mouths stopped moving and a hush crashed down on the group as that sound pierced into their hearts. Piper’s pulse reflexively picked up as she joined the others in looking about to see which one of them the sound was coming from. Every eye was glancing between every collar to see the horizontal stripe in the middle—all eyes except Miranda’s.

By the time they had all deduced who it was, Miranda’s skin had turned seven shades paler. Piper could practically see her trembling as the thing around her neck blinked bright orange and continued to emit that awful sound. One could see the turning of stomachs happening in facial expressions, but none so intense as Miranda’s. Her eyes began to well up with tears.

“Well, get going then!” said Marshal, “The Sphere may have a cure for our ill! They’ve chosen you to go get it!”

“Why me?” Miranda squeaked, taking her shirt in her fists between her breasts.

“We have no idea why they’re calling her, Marshal; don’t say that,” spat an older man.

“But look at the timing!” sounded off a young woman with a short bob, “How could it not have something to do with the sickness?”

“Yeah! They had to be listening to us talking about it!” exclaimed someone else.

By this time Miranda was dropping tears from her cheeks and she was gripping the flexible collar around her throat in an attempt to make it stop beeping. Meanwhile the arguing had begun again, this time about the purpose for Miranda’s summoning.

Piper shouted. “Guys! Guys. Let’s just let her go so she can come back and tell us why they summoned her. Then we will know for sure. Okay?”

The group looked amongst each other before nodding in general agreement with accepting murmurs here and there, as if this idea was reasonable enough.

It was everything Piper could do not to roll her eyes at them. She approached Miranda whose cheeks shone with her fear. “It’s okay, Miranda. You’re going to come back.” Piper put her hands on her shoulders and looked up at her, as Miranda was a couple inches taller than she.

“Y-you don’t know that,” she stuttered, still crying.

“You will. And it will be quick, too, I bet. It’s all right. I’ll walk you to the gate.” Piper put an arm behind her and led her away from the picnic area. The group parted for the two ladies to pass, heads turning with more whispers and mummers of suspicion. Piper ignored them and continued escorting Miranda to the gate.

The edge of the dome was quite barren as far as greenery and establishments were concerned. The community didn’t particularly care to spend much time at the edge where they could see the transparent wall that reminded them they were not free. The closer to the center of the dome everyone kept, the easier it was to forget they were prisoners. Nearing the gate told this just as well as the grass turned brittle and dry until it only appeared in patches in the dirt. Piper stopped in front of the gate of the dome where straight ahead of them lie the Sphere, its smooth, irony hue catching a blinding reflection of the sun. The ladies looked up at the gate that was only distinguished by a line in the wall in the shape of a rectangle. Miranda shook in her arms until her collar stopped beeping and the orange light faded away.

With an unexpectedly soft scraping sound, the gate began to rise up. As big as the dome was, there was still a slight curve for the single, glass-like door to follow as it rose, and it did perfectly. When it stopped, Piper could almost hear Miranda’s heart pounding. She turned to her and held her shoulders again. “It’s going to be all right. You’re in, you see what they want, you’re back out, and home again. Okay?”

Miranda was a sobbing mess. She hugged herself and wept with her head bowed.

Piper sighed and gave her a close hug with her chin over her shoulder. “It’s going to be all right,” she repeated. “I’ll see you soon. I promise.”

Without any warning, Miranda began to turn away from her and shuffle her feet to the gate. Moving at the pace she hoped would extend her life were it to be ended within the hour, she crossed the threshold and looked back as the gate slid back down into place. The silence was sealed between them now that Miranda was outside the dome. Piper gave her a nod of encouragement. The teenager visibly sniffled before turning and continuing toward the Sphere, still hugging herself.

“How could you say that,” a voice squeaked.

Piper turned around.

Almost all of the group in the picnic area was standing behind her about ten yards. The woman spoke again. “How could you make that promise to her?”

“You don’t know that she’s coming back!” said one of the men who had spoken earlier.

Piper sighed. “I was trying to calm her down.” She began walking down the paved pathway toward them.

“Yeah, but what if they take her prisoner in there or something? She’s gonna remember that you promised her—”

“We’re all already prisoners,” said Piper as she passed through them and made her way back to the main building.

Fifteen minutes passed while Piper found the adult who had become sick. It was Jolene. She was middle-aged and in relatively good health otherwise. But the same fever and cough gripped her body as it had Cullen, Tori, and Lola. Piper scowled at everyone standing around discussing Miranda’s fate and whether or not she deserved it as she brought Jolene to the infirmary.

“You really think Miranda is coming back?” Jolene asked as she began making herself comfortable on one of the infirmary’s cots.

“I really do,” replied Piper as she wrung out a cold washcloth before placing it on Jolene’s forehead.

“But we don’t know everything that goes on. The Sphere does. What if she did something they didn’t like?”

“I don’t know. I just have faith that she’s coming back.” Piper stood and tucked her blanket around her. “Drink all the water the nurse brings you and rest.” With that, she turned and left the infirmary before Jolene could suggest more deplorable outcomes of Miranda’s summoning.

Piper traveled the halls back to the children’s bedroom where Lola was sleeping, but not peacefully. Her breath was ragged and Piper could see sweat shining on her brow before she was near enough to feel the heat coming off of her body. “Hey,” she said gently, brushing her fingers through the little girl’s hair. When the five-year-old opened her eyes a sliver, Piper touched her hand. “I’m going to take you to the infirmary now for some medicine. Okay?”

Lola nodded and coughed so hard her body shook.

Piper carefully picked her up and held her to her chest while carrying her back through the halls of the main building. Some of the men and women were peeling vegetables, still buzzing about Miranda as they worked. “She’s a snotty teenager,” said a man, “She deserves to be summoned if you ask me.”

“You know, I saw her taking extra rations one day. She’s a thief,” said an old woman.

“And the way she dresses? She might as well have “easy” tattooed on her forehead,” said another lady.

“Oh, it doesn’t take her wardrobe to tell me she’s a slut,” said a woman Piper recognized as Gladys. “Don’t you know she’s slept with all the teenage boys here—and some of the men?”

Piper cupped the back of Lola’s head, standing outside the kitchen. “Hey.”

The cooks turned to her, their faces flushing in embarrassment.

“Take it easy. Nobody knows why she was summoned. Stop pretending like you do.” Piper marched away, leaving them standing with their shame, but it was mirth short-lived. Piper could hear them whispering again before she made it too far down the hall. She couldn’t believe the cruelty of some people. No, Miranda was not the most likable person in the colony. Did that mean she deserved death?

From the infirmary ahead of her, she heard a shrill scream that pierced through her thoughts. Piper’s heart leapt into her throat and she ran as fast as she could toward the sound with Lola in her arms. She threw the door open and rushed inside, quickly setting Lola down on her way to Cullen’s bed where the doctor and nurse stood. Another nurse was walking away from his bed with her hands over her mouth and guttural sobs escaping through her fingers. Piper stumbled up to the foot of Cullen’s bed and froze.

The little boy lay with his head turned on a blood-stained pillow. His mouth and chin were painted red and his wide eyes stared at nothing. The doctor removed the stethoscope from the boy’s chest and sighed.

Piper could hardly breathe. She staggered back a step. She was just here. She just saw him. “What--happened,” she rattled out.

“He started coughing and he couldn’t stop,” said the nurse. “And then…” She looked down at the boy with a mixture of shock and sadness written in her features.

Piper was speechless and still had yet to take a normal breath. He was dead. Cullen was dead, a member of their colony. A child. She couldn’t stop looking at all the blood. She had to be dreaming. This was a nightmare.

“Piper?” came a squeak of a voice behind her.

She turned around quickly and picked up Lola before she could say anything else. “Don’t look, honey.” Piper briskly carried her away to the farthest bed. Tori squalled with sobs, which only made her cough more.

“What happened to Cullen?” Lola asked after being tucked back in her cot.

“He—we don’t know yet. It’s all right, don’t you worry about it right now, okay? Everything is going to be all right.” Piper smoothed her hair back.

“Is he dead?”

Piper’s eyes started to shine. She pursed her lips tight for a moment before opening her mouth to respond.

“The gate is opening!” Someone yelled in the hallway. That was all it took for every person to drop what they were doing and hurry outside—save for the nurses and doctors tending to their patients.

Piper looked up to see people running past the door. She turned her eyes back to Lola. “I’ll be back in a minute, okay? Drink your water and try to go to sleep.” She kissed the five-year-old’s head then hurried to the door of the infirmary to follow the rest of the colony outside to the gate. Piper did her best to run up to the front of the group. It was important to her that Miranda saw that she was waiting for her after making her such a promise as she had. And deep down she was sighing in relief that she hadn’t been wrong.

Sure enough, there she was. All in one piece, Miranda stepped through the gate onto the walkway that continued inside the dome. She didn’t appear to be harmed; there was no blood, no gimp in her step, but she wasn’t all right. Piper only needed a second to notice her features were anything but calm. Her eyes were so wide it was almost like she hadn’t blinked in years. As Miranda neared, Piper noticed her clutching something to her chest, her wrists crossed over each other. She was hugging a red folder.

Piper moved through the chattering crowd that was already demanding answers and took Miranda’s shoulders again to escort her to the picnic tables. “Quiet, all of you! Just give her a minute!”

“We don’t HAVE a minute! What the heck just happened up there?!” shouted a younger man.

Piper ignored him and the rest of the herd of people flocking after them to the picnic area. She sat Miranda down and gave her a little space, watching her stare through the table. It wasn’t but a few seconds later the crowd had surrounded her again and became a din of raving questions and commands. “Everybody SHUT UP!” Piper yelled. “You’re not helping anything! One person asking is MORE than enough.” She calmly turned to Miranda, reached over and patted her knee. “Whenever you’re ready.”

When Miranda swallowed, the murmurs and whispers among the throng evaporated. Every ear was tuned, awaiting her voice. And then she spoke. “I didn’t see anyone. A voice… came over a speaker and told me to take what was in the drawer in front of me. And it was this and I did.”

The questions erupted again, but because it was all the same question and because Piper was so focused on her response, they continued until Miranda answered.

“I can’t tell you.”

“What?!” said a woman.

“That’s ridiculous!” exclaimed someone else.

“Miranda,” Piper addressed calmly, “Why can’t you tell us what’s in the folder?”

She stared for a moment, her features pale and her skin crawling with goosebumps. Her lips trembled as her mouth opened, but nothing came out for a long, agonizing moment. Finally she breathed her reply. “I just can’t.”

“Miranda,” Marshal said all too loudly, “Does it have anything to do with the sickness here?”

“Is it a cure?” said a woman with a spark of hope.

The teen shook her head slowly and repeated herself. “I can’t tell you. I’m sorry. I can’t.”

“Because they told you not to,” said Piper in an even, grave tone.

Miranda’s eyes turned back on her. Piper could almost hear the girl’s heart beating.

The older girl inhaled and kept her voice calm and steady. “Can you tell us what you’re supposed to do with this folder?”

The teenager shook her head slowly and her eyes started to glaze over, perhaps in shock or detachment.

Gloria touched Miranda’s shoulder softly. “Is there anything you can tell us about the folder?”

Once again, she shook her head, still clutching the thing to her front.

Gloria looked at the rest of the group and Piper looked down before she sighed softly. “All right. Well… if there ever is anything you can tell us, you don’t have to address all of us. You can tell me if you want.” Piper intended this statement to be Miranda’s permission to leave and the teen had no compunctions about taking advantage of it. She stood from the picnic table without the use of her hands at all, still hugging the folder, and walked away back to the main building. Everyone watched her go.

“This is ridiculous,” said someone, “Why on Earth would they summon her and send her back with that folder if she’s not allowed to tell us what’s in it?”

“Do you think they will kill her if she tells us?” said another.

“Or,” said an older man, “maybe the reason she can’t tell us isn’t even a punishment. Maybe if she keeps it from us—”

“She goes free,” finished someone else.

Piper’s nose wrinkled and she snapped at them all. “That’s enough. Everyone just stop overthinking it and give it some time. Things may become clear soon. Nothing is going to be solved standing here speculating. We should all just go on about our business.”

But the crowd wasn’t listening to her so well this time. They remained standing in their throng, tightly knit and speaking in a range of murmurs to occasional shouts. Piper gave a scoffing sigh before she marched back to the garden to continue her work. Someone had to. She was in the field by herself for a good long while with the sun still beating down on her back. But even she found her mind wandering… what could possibly be in that folder?

That night, sleep didn’t come easy for anyone. Piper knew this because she could hear feet shuffling through the halls and people downstairs in the kitchen rattling the coffee maker in the wee hours of the morning. Their minds hadn’t stopped racing either. At the moment, Piper was thinking about Lola. Tori and Jolene, too. When she was brushing her teeth before bed, Piper heard a man coughing terribly on his way to the showers. Maybe they were right. Maybe this was an epidemic.

Piper sighed and sat up in bed. She stepped into her slippers and quietly shuffled out of the bedroom she shared with six other people. She made her way to the infirmary and opened the door as slowly as she could to reduce the volume of the inevitable squeak. At Lola’s cot, she put her weight on the mattress pound by pound, watching the little girl sleep all the while. Again, she wasn’t sleeping well. Her breath was labored and her brow shining with sweat. Piper carefully smoothed back Lola’s hair from her sticky forehead and fought a wince at the heat she felt. She flinched when the girl coughed twice in her sleep. Her stomach squeezed in on itself when she saw something dark appear in front of her mouth on the pillow. Piper bit her cheek tightly as she reached forward and pinched the pillowcase to pull the spot into the light. A shining dark red dot stared back up at her. With a shaking breath, Piper lay down behind Lola and fingered through her hair softly. The possibility of losing her was far more prevalent than she was comfortable with.

Piper awoke the next morning to the sun shining in through the window across the infirmary. As if on cue, she heard one of the nurses enter and wash her hands. Her own hand wandered to Lola’s side as discreetly as possible, praying to feel movement while her own heart raced. Piper sighed when she felt her small breath.

A sharp gasp split through the quiet of the infirmary. Piper sat up and looked to the nurse who had entered. She was standing beside Tori’s bed with a hand over her mouth.

Cursing under her breath, Piper got up and rushed over to the bed, telling herself she would not find what she knew she would find. She froze next to the nurse. Tori’s eyes were open, glazed and milky. Blood lined the inside of her lips and spotted her pillow and she was nearly as pale as the sheets that covered her. Piper didn’t need to feel her skin to know that she was indeed dead.

The nurse turned into Piper’s arms and cried. This couldn’t be happening. Four sick. Two dead in the order they became sick. Something had to be done.

Before lunch, graves had been prepared. Two small bundles of sheets lay next to dug dirt holes in the ground. Half the colony was present for the burial. The other half preferred not to witness the laying-to-rest of two children. It seemed the other kids were more bewildered than they were upset. They didn’t understand what was happening. Piper didn’t blame them. She didn’t understand either.

As anticipated, Jolene was the next to lose the battle against this illness. The past two days before she died, Piper had spent a lot of time in the infirmary comforting Lola. In the last day of her life, Jolene did nothing but cough and cry. Her crying turned into a despaired wail of her eminent demise. Piper would cover Lola’s ears for her and sing next to her face while Jolene screamed. And that same day she died, two more people entered the infirmary with that same, terrible cough. Piper had never felt more helpless or scared in her life. It seemed every hour was nothing but its own lucid dream, completely detached from the hour before it and after it. She had been refusing to accept it for a while now, but her throat tightened up when reality struck her in the back with a blow hard enough to take her breath away. Lola was going to die next. Piper hid herself inside while Jolene’s burial took place, sitting against the wall with her knees up and her head bowed into them as she sobbed. And she couldn’t help but come back to that folder. That blood red folder Miranda had been hugging to her chest everywhere she went. Sparks of resentment would flash through Piper’s heart when she saw her eating lunch with it flat on her lap, or when she saw her walk through the hall from the bathroom, still holding that thing. Sometimes Piper felt like she was parading it around, boasting of how she obviously knew something the rest of them did not. Piper would then scold herself for thinking such things about Miranda. She wasn’t like that. And her behavior and mannerisms as of late indicated the last thing she wanted was attention.

Drying her eyes excessively with the back of her hand, Piper made her way to the kitchen to get Lola some ice water. She found Miranda standing against the counter with five or six adults closing in on her.

“You don’t have to let us see it. We’ll take it from you and there will be nothing you can do about it,” said a man.

“Shh! They can hear you!” said a woman while tapping the collar on her own neck.

“She can fight back. She can try. It wouldn’t be her fault,” said a younger man, eyeing Miranda as if he were already planning how to restrain her.

“Please,” Miranda begged with the folder held so tight against her it bent under the pressure, “Just let me go. Let me go!”

“Just give us a hint! We won’t tell everyone!” said another.

“Forget that, she doesn’t have to tell us anything. We’ll take it from her.”

Piper stormed up to the crowd in the kitchen. “Hey!” she barked, “Leave her alone for God’s sake! None of this is her fault!”

“How do you know that, Piper,” sneered Hilda.

“Yeah,” added Wilson, “Weren’t you the one who said none of us know anything?”

Piper shoved through them to Miranda and stood in front of her protectively. “Just back off.” She almost said something about waiting to see what happened. But there was no time. Lola’s clock was ticking. Piper gently turned around to Miranda and looked up at her. She licked her lips and gripped her own collar from the front as if she could muffle her own voice from it. “There’s got to be a way around this, Miranda. Have you thought about… like, loopholes? Anything?”

She quickly shook her head. “There aren’t any. I can’t. Please, I just want to go back to my room!”

“Kid, don’t you understand? We’re all gonna die of whatever sickness this is. Just tell us if it has to do with that or not!” said Frank.

Miranda only kept shaking her head. “I can’t! Please! I can’t!”

Piper bit her lip. “It’s okay. Go.” She took the teen’s shoulders and escorted her through the looming group until she made it out of their reach. Miranda wasted no time in jogging to the door.

“Hey, Miranda,” said the younger man.

She stopped and looked at him, halfway out the door.

“Eventually, you’ll have to let go of that folder.”

Her pupils shrunk further into her irises, trying to bury themselves in the blue. Miranda hurried on her way and didn’t look back again.

Piper turned to them. “You’re all awful. Every one of you ought to be ashamed.”

“You can’t tell us you’re not the least bit curious about what’s in that damn folder,” said Frank.

“Of course I am,” Piper snapped, “but I have enough decency to not harass a seventeen-year-old girl!”

“It doesn’t make any sense, Pipe,” said Hilda, “Why would she not even be able to tell us if it was related to the illness or not?”

“I don’t know, but I trust her.”

“You trust way too easily, Pipe,” said Wilson. “Now, we love you, but you’re gullibility is gonna get Lola buried out there right next to Jolene.”

“Shut up!” Piper yelled. “Just shut up; we have work to do.” Her voice wavered and she took this opportunity to make her way out of the kitchen— without getting a glass of water for Lola.

She hadn’t slept the entire duration of the night. If she wasn’t worrying about how well Lola was breathing, she was being constantly jarred by the chorus of coughing that filled the infirmary with the sound of misery. But by the time the sun had started to come up, Piper heard a commotion. She sat up and smoothed back Lola’s hair from her sticky forehead again. “I’ll be right back,” she whispered before kissing the little girl’s cheek. Lola could only reply with rasping breath and a slight shiver. Piper stood and left the infirmary to follow the ruckus to its source.

They were standing outside in a tight huddle. In the middle of them was Marshal, bellowing with his fist up in the air. “Are we gonna let them beat us?!”

“NO!” the rest of the crowd replied.

“WE decided our fate! Not them!”

“YEAH!”

Piper pushed through people to get to the center of the throng. “What the hell is going on?”

“Justice, Piper,” said Marshal, “That girl is going to hand over the folder to us TODAY. Or we’re going to take it from her by any means necessary.” His statement was followed with other cries of agreement.

“Will you people just listen to yourselves? You’re acting CRAZY. This is what the Sphere wants from us! They want us to act the way you’re acting! And you’re giving them that satisfaction!” Piper turned as she spoke, making sure everyone knew she was addressing each of them.

“A means to an end, Piper,” Marshal replied, “They want us to die here. They want to watch this illness kill us all. Seven more last night! Seven more plus the twelve already in the infirmary! That’s already half of our colony! What other choice do we have?”

“You ALWAYS have a choice! There’s always another option! And you’re choosing to lynch a teenage girl over a stupid folder?!”

Marshal stepped closer to her and lowered his voice, looking down into her eyes. “I’m not going to die here. If you want to, that’s fine. But if you get in our way, I can’t promise mercy.”

And that was that. Piper stared back at him in shock and anger. Such weakness. All of them. They were allowing the Sphere to be their puppeteer. Piper shoved through the crowd back the way she had come, leaving them to rile themselves up into the angry mob they were becoming—the mob they already had become.

Piper pushed the door open to the infirmary and went back to Lola’s bed. “I’m sorry, sweetie. I’m back. Can I get you some water?” She sat down and looked at the little girl. Her eyes were closed and she couldn’t hear her rough respiration. “Lola.”

No response.

“Lola!” Piper quickly checked for a pulse. “No, no, no, no, no, Lola! Lola, wake up, sweetie.” She pulled the covers off of her small body and shook her shoulders. “Lola, honey,” Piper immediately began chest compressions. From this point, everything was a blur. She wasn’t sure how long she pressed her hands into her chest. She wasn’t sure how many times she had breathed into her little mouth. She wasn’t sure of what time it was, what day it was, what year it was. She wasn’t sure when she stopped. She wasn’t sure how long she had been hugging Lola and crying into her sheets. All she knew was that none of it mattered anymore.

The sun had come up and gone down again. Piper blinked at the wall of the infirmary, lying on her side in Lola’s bed the way she had been apparently all day. It took her a moment to register the lantern lights flashing through the windows and the angry voices that accompanied them. It took the same amount of time for her to realize they were looking for Miranda.

Slowly she peeled herself off of the cot and cradled her pounding head. “I’ll be back,” she said to Lola’s body, giving her cold little hand a squeeze. Piper hugged herself as she made her way out into the dome’s stagnant night air. The lot of them were actually marching around the building with knives, garden tools, lanterns, and rope. They were tipping over appliances to see behind them, they were thrashing bushes and hedges away to nothing to reveal Miranda’s hiding spot. Piper flinched when a window was shattered next to her. This was ludicrous. She jogged around the other side of the building where half the mob had headed with their lanterns only to find Marshal throwing gasoline on the wall and through and open window. “What are you DOING?!” she yelled.

Marshal stopped and looked at her, as did the rest of the mob. In an instant, they were all crowded around her. “Where is she, Piper,”

“What are you THINKING, there’s still people in the infirmary!”

“Where is she, Piper!” Marshal grabbed her arm roughly and yanked her forward.

“I don’t know! Let me go!”

“Oh, yes, you do know. But if you’re not going to tell us, then we’re just going to weed her out. She can’t hide forever! And you can’t protect her forever either!” He let go of her arm and lit a match by flicking his thumbnail across the head.

“You’re INSANE! You’re gonna burn down our HOME?”

“I’d rather be shelter-less than dead, Pipe.” He tossed the match. The gasoline ignited and raced through the window. In an instant it seemed, the building was ablaze. This raving mob of monsters all cheered and hollered like they had made a sacrifice to their god. Piper couldn’t spare the time to process what was happening to her home, her family. She had to find Miranda.

Piper hurried through the building and covered her eyes through the smoky hallways. As it would turn out, fire inside a building was effective in luring one out into the open. Not long before Piper decided she couldn’t continue did she run into Miranda while rounding a corner. They both struck each other with a little shriek of surprise. Piper saw her clutching the folder to her chest. “They’ve set the building on fire, Miranda, we have to get out of here.”

“They’re gonna kill me, Piper,” the teen sobbed, “They’ll kill me!”

Piper grabbed her arm and led her down a less smoky hallway. “What’s in the folder, Miranda,”

“I can’t tell you!”

“You can tell me! What’s in the folder!”

Miranda tried to escape her grasp now. “No!”

Piper grabbed her shoulders. “LOLA’S DEAD! She’s DEAD, Miranda; could it have saved her?”

“I can’t,” Miranda wept.

“Could it have saved her? Yes or no?”

“Piper, please—”

“YES OR NO!”

A window shattered behind her head and Miranda squealed. Piper gripped her wrist again and ran with her through the hallway to the back exit as fast as she could with her limited vision. Smoke stung her eyes and lungs and that neon EXIT sign was their light at the end of the tunnel. Piper shoved open the door and ran out with Miranda close behind her. The older gasped for clean air and coughed before her feet stopped moving.

“AAAAAGH!!”

The gut-wrenching sound of something cleaving split through the air over the roaring of the hungry fire. Piper turned around to see the mob on either side of Miranda. The teen stood motionless with the folder still clutched to her chest and a shovel’s spade sticking out from the top of her head. Her blue eyes turned dull as a thin stream of blood ran between them. Her lips twitched, her knees buckled, and she collapsed to the grass.

The fire could have suddenly stopped burning and not a soul would have noticed. Every single person left of the colony stood and stared at Miranda lying on the ground. Dead. Marshal’s chest heaved, but even his eyes were popping from the sin he had just committed. No one breathed. Lanterns lowered and weapons were quietly laid down. It seemed for minutes they all stood and watched the blood pool around Miranda’s head, and watch her fingers twitch.

Piper was the first to move. She stepped forward and approached Miranda’s body, seemingly not of her own volition anymore. Her feet just moved until she was standing over her. Her waist bent and her fingers gripped the red folder and slipped it out of Miranda’s arms, which loosely held it for the first time. Piper’s heart raced as she lifted the folder, her fingertips receiving almost electrical stimulation from its touch. The others watched her with baited breath. No one came closer to see for themselves. They just waited.

Piper opened the folder.

Her eyes fell on the single piece of paper inside.

She read words silently to herself. In her head.

In one instant, everyone’s collar turned red. Before anyone even knew their collars had changed color, their knees gave. Every person in the colony fell to the grass at the same time. Some fell sideways into each other. Some fell backwards, some fell forward. But there was two seconds of thudding and no one moved. Eyes were open. Lanterns were still lit. The fire was still burning.

Piper had fallen on her back and dropped the folder just out of the reach of her lifeless fingertips. It was open.

It was open to that one piece of paper.

With one sentence in small black letters.

IF ANYONE DISCOVERS ANY INDICATION OF THE CONTENTS OF THIS FOLDER, THEY ALL DIE.