The line for the DNA registration was three hours long. Women and a few men, all dressed in their work uniforms, waited in the stale snow to be called into a hastily erected tent. I lifted my head skyward. It was cold, but the air was dry. My leg bounced with nervousness, but I forced it to still. Not much longer.

“Next!” A woman called, holding open the flap of the tent. She wore the light blue scrubs of a government health worker. I reached a hand into my jumpsuit pocket, making sure everything was in place. Then, breathing deeply, I entered the tent.

The inside was small and cold. In one corner, there was a small chair, but a folding table took up most of the space, with various trays of supplies sitting atop it: sanitizer, cotton swabs, and plastic bags. “Sit right here,” the nurse directed. I sat down in the chair, and she pulled a rectangular device from her waistband.

“Name?”

“Anabelle Laurent.”

“Age?”

“Nineteen.”

She tapped on the device. “You were registered here only last year, by the school district. That’s unusual. Where did you grow up?”

“North of here, in a village. Habersk. They only kept paper records.” She glanced at the screen to confirm what I was saying, then shrugged.

Internally, I sighed with relief. Proving my identity had always been problematic in Karakul—when I first arrived, I worked illegally as a housekeeper, but without the papers to prove my identity, I could never rent an apartment or apply for a registered job. After I had saved enough money, I had moved to a hostel, where I paid a paper forger to falsify my birth certificate.

“I’ll take your sample now,” the nurse said. She sanitized her hands, then unwrapped a cotton swab and swabbed my cheek. Silently, I thanked god that the DNA was being collected with a buccal sample, not a blood sample. If something had changed at the last moment, my plan would have failed.

Once the nurse had finished with the swab, she stuck it into a plastic bag and labeled it with my registration number. Then, she filed it away into a bin under the folding table. I followed her movements carefully, noting the location of the sample and bin.

“All done,” she affirmed. I thanked her and exited through the back of the tent, forcing myself to move casually.

I leaned against an adjacent tent and glanced around. Behind the cluster of tents, the line of people was barely visible. A few workers were walking through the compound, but they didn’t give me a second glance. I waited as a nurse passed, then crouched down, hidden in shadow.

My pulse hammered in my ears–I would have to be swift and silent. I drew a vial from my pocket and brought it up to eye level, checking the clear liquid was still inside. The antiseptic smell of rubbing alcohol wafted up into my nose as I uncorked the vial and splashed it onto the tent, dousing the canvas.

With shaking hands, I pushed a match between my thumb and forefinger. I struck it between my feet, and, holding it carefully, pushed it onto the canvas. For a terrifying moment, nothing happened. Then, the match sputtered out and fell to the snow.

Trying not to panic, I lit another match and tried again. The canvas ignited with a woosh. At once, the flame began to consume the tent, spreading upwards with wild intensity. “Fire!” I shouted. “Fire!”

Before the words had left my mouth, I was already moving. I ducked between the two adjoining tents and pushed myself flat. A moment later, the cry went up in earnest. “Fire! Fire!” The workers crowded around the burning canvas, dousing it with buckets of snow. My stomach filled with sickening guilt. I swallowed the lump in my throat and peered around the corner.

Ahead, the nurse who had taken my sample emerged from her tent. When she turned her back, I crossed the pathway and slipped through the flap again. I crawled under the folding table and crouched near the bin of samples. With heavy breaths, I rustled through them. Finally, I found the sample marked with my name.

I fumbled with the bag, opening it and pulling out the cotton swab. I stashed it in my coat, then drew another plastic bag from my pocket. Inside was a different swab, one I’d collected that morning. I pinched it between my fingers and slid it out, bagging it and placing it back into the bin, completing the switch.

I squeezed back out of the tent’s exit and looked around. The workers had managed to contain the fire, and they stood surrounding the last of the smoldering fabric. Everyone seemed calm, and some workers were returning to their posts. I sighed, and the tightness of my chest lessened. No one is hurt.

With an even pace, I walked down the walkway and out of the compound. Once the tents disappeared from view, I doubled over with my hands on my knees. My mouth tasted sour as I remembered the orange glow of the spreading flames.

I closed my eyes. It had been a wild day. The idea to switch the swabs had come when I’d learned that the DNA samples were gathered through saliva, not blood. It had been unappealing, but not difficult, to swab the homeless man’s cheek while he slept outside of my apartment. It was a risky plan–if he registered in the coming days, they’d have a double sample. And it was possible that the DNA in the bag had mixed, which could give an inconclusive result and prompt a retest.

My head was swimming. I’d swabbed a man’s cheek without his permission, started a fire on government property, and falsified a DNA sample. How far will I go to escape the king?

It doesn’t matter, because I’m safe for another day.

I touched the swab in my pocket. Around me, a bitter wind blew, bringing a chill deep into my clothes. My ankle throbbed dully, a reminder of the injury I’d sustained two years before. The streets were stark and lonely, and I felt a familiar longing for the friends I had lost. What would they think of me now?

My boots crunched on ice and snow as I began the walk home. My stomach rumbled, but I felt no craving for the hardtack and biscuits in my cabinet, and suddenly, my cold and cramped apartment seemed even more unappealing than the frosty city. Worse, soon I would have to report for my shift, which I once again shared with Chester.

I sat down on a bench and turned toward the street. Buses rumbled past, and I watched the warm vapor pouring from their exhaust pipes.

Though the streets were abandoned, I felt the eerie sensation of being watched by someone far away.

I need to leave here, I thought, but where can I go?