Chapter 2: Is the Sky Really Blue?

When I woke up, there were no guards, no red walls, no other people around me. It would have been easy for me to concentrate on everything that wasn’t there, but all was quickly forgotten as I saw a rectangle opening on the wall. I knew right away what it was.

It was a window!

I had never seen one in person. I got out of bed, carefully. I was afraid I’d wake up. Afraid this was just another one of my vivid dreams.

I didn’t want to wake up! Not yet! Not until I had seen what was on the outside. I ran my fingers along the frame. Rested my hand on the sill. The whiteness of the trim was a stark contrast to the brown wall. I took a second to look at my hand, to feel the texture of the wood. It felt so real. Where was I? I chased that question away from my mind and decided to abandon myself to this beautiful illusion. It had to be a dream.

I took a deep breath and slowly lifted the corner of the fabric blocking the window. Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw.

I took a step back.

I took it all in.

To this day, the image is still burnt into my mind.

I was looking at “outside”: the outside world!

It was ugly. It was dirty. It was grey, black, brown, tarnished. It was falling apart. Walls precariously standing, covered with tarps. There were no birds, no grass, no pretty houses nor lakes. I leaned forward, pressing my nose against the cold glass. I was trying to look up. And there, between the buildings, I saw it.

But was the sky really blue?

It was hard to tell. It was dark. There was no sun. Yet, it must have been the middle of the day.

I was overwhelmed. My mind started racing. Where was I? How did I get here? What happened back at the orphanage?

“Right now, you must have a lot of questions.”

I jumped. I hadn’t heard anyone come into the room. I turned. There was an older man standing in the doorway. He was smiling. His clothes were clean. His face beardless. His hair neatly cut. He was tall. Much taller than me. Too big and too tall for me to take him down. Yet, I stood there ready to stand my ground, while he just smiled.

“2409? What’s your code name?”

I didn’t answer.

“Well then, let me guess. You’re a boy, it’s got to be four letters. Let me see, what month were you born?” He scratched his head. “Never mind, you probably don’t even know… So, what is it?” he bluntly asked.

“Fenn,” I said.

“Ahhhh! Then you were born in June! I’m Arno!” he exclaimed.

I didn’t know what to say. He seemed so pleased with himself. He seemed like a decent person. He was still smiling at me. I don’t think I had ever seen anyone smile this much. I had so many questions to ask him, but my head was hurting. My throat too. All I found to say was, “Can I have some water, please?”

Maybe that was a mistake. He suddenly stopped laughing. I braced myself for what was going to come next. I didn’t know my place yet. Come to think of it, I was probably his prisoner. I took a step back in the small room.

Fear must have shown on my face for he said: “It’s all good! How about I take you on a tour. You can meet everyone. We’ll get some water on the way too.”

He started laughing again for no apparent reason. I tried to smile. My face probably looked awkward as my muscles twitched. Smiling wasn’t something I had done before. I soon gave up. I don’t think he noticed. He was too busy talking.

“I know, I know, it isn’t really big but I’m sure you can make it into a cozy little place for yourself. It’ll be your room for the next short while. We occupy three floors of the building. Since the place is falling apart, and we have no steady electricity, getting around will be confusing at first but you will know your way in no time. It would be best for the next little while, if you don’t try to navigate the building without someone’s help. You might get lost and then who knows how long it will take for us to find you. Or worst, you might fall down an abandoned elevator shaft.”

I shrugged.

He continued: “For now, we’ll remain on this floor. This is where most of us have our living quarters. Come this way. Everyone should be there.” He finally stopped talking. I was amazed at how long he could go on one breath.

We turned a corner and arrived in a place of good proportion with windows on two of the four walls. Arno called the room, a kitchen. There were a few people sitting at a table in the middle of the room while others were gathered in the corner nearest to the windows, sitting in giant padded chairs. Conversation had been lively, but upon our arrival, the room went quiet as all eyes turned towards me. By the look on their faces, it was hard to tell if they were happy to see me or angry about my presence. Unlike Arno, none smiled nor laughed. I decided it was futile to try to smile at them. So, I just stood in silence starring down at my feet.

Arno nudged me and directed me to take a seat at the table. As soon as I did, someone put down, in front of me, a plate with food on it.

It wasn’t grey.

It wasn’t slimy.

It clearly wasn’t slop.

I poked at it.

What ever was on my plate was chunky, red on the outside and white on the inside.

I grabbed a piece.

It was cold, slightly wet but not slimy. It’s smelled good.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I guess you wouldn’t know,” Arno said. “There will be lots of adjusting for you now that you are on the outside. Go on, try it! You’ll like it I’m sure.”

My throat still hurt from inhaling smoke, but I was so hungry. I cautiously nibbled on the piece. It tasted good. It required chewing as it was crisp, but it was something like I had never had before. It didn’t take me long to eat the whole plate. It was just so satisfying.

“What is it called?” I asked.

Arno laughed heartily and told me it was an apple. It was a fruit that grew on trees. It could be kept in a cold room for well over four months, so I could expect to eat a lot of those in the next few weeks.

The thought of eating more apples made me happy.

So now I had food and a room of my own. I had windows from which I could see the sky. I was starting to think I could be safe with these people. Who ever they were. I couldn’t believe my luck. I had so much to be thankful for.

I looked up at Arno and said “Thank you. Thank you so much for everything.”

I would have expected him to smile after hearing these words. But instead I saw a shadow cross his face. His brow furrowed and for the first time, I noticed how old he really was.

A teenager, my age, who had quietly been sitting at the table this whole time, picked up on Arno’s change of mood: “So you didn’t tell him anything then. You give the kid new clothes and food. You take him on a tour, but you don’t even tell him why he’s here?”

This struck a chord with me.

He’s right!

Why am I here?

Where is everyone else? Surely, I can’t be the only one to have been rescued.

Then I thought of Eva. In all the commotion, I had completely forgotten about her. She had been with me in the dormitory. But then I had lost her. So, I risked myself and asked: “What happened to the others? Where are they? How many were you able to rescue?”

I hadn’t realized the weight of my questions until the words poured out of my mouth. I suddenly regretted asking. Part of me didn’t want to find out. And I could tell, no one around me was keen on giving me answers. Even the teenager went back to being quiet. The silence was becoming quite awkward and heavy. Probably in a desperate attempt to lighten up the situation, Arno forcefully laughed. He didn’t fool anyone. He didn’t fool me. But at least he was trying.

His laugh lingered in the room a few more seconds before he chimed in: “That’s a discussion, you and the leader need to have. I’m sorry kid. I don’t think I could…”

The teenager huffed before putting down his head on the table. All around me, people returned to their conversations and I was left there on my chair, with the empty plate in front of me.

I shouldn’t have asked those questions. I was beating myself up about it when a small voice interrupted my thoughts.

“Come,” she said. “I want to show you something.”

All to happy to leave this room behind, I followed the owner of the small voice. I could tell she was my age, but she was tiny. Her hair was dark blonde, cut at shoulder length. On her left cheek she had a dark stain like something had been scrubbed away. It was obvious, she too had had a red number inked on her face. Which means, she too must have been rescued. I had never seen her before. I knew everyone at my orphanage. She had to have come from a different place.

“You were in an orphanage too?” I wondered out loud.

She stopped in her tracks and gave me an inquisitive look: “Did you think you were the only one worth rescuing?”

I saw a smile light the corner of her mouth. She motioned me to enter the room. We had arrived. It was a small room, just like mine. Same bedding. Same brown walls. One lonely window.

“This place use to be a hotel,” she explained. “So, all the rooms look the same; all the rooms have the same tasteless brown walls and flower comforter.” She lifted the corner of the mattress and retrieved a book.

We had instructional books at the orphanage, so I knew what they were. I could read too. Before starting on the production line, we were all given the schooling necessary to perform our task. I excelled in math, that was the reason I had been put in charge of temperature calculating and regulating.

She sat on her bed and opened the book. “This book was given to me after I was rescued. It was just a small welcome gift but to me it opened up my world,” she explained.

The book was full of little pictures, all in colors. She called it a Pictionary. On the first page, I noticed a faded inscription. Someone had written in blue ink: Lianna’s book.

“Lianna? Is that your name?” I asked her.

“No,” she answered as I started flipping the pages of the book, one by one. My eyes couldn’t get enough of all the colors. Each page was divided in eight squares. Each square had a picture representing an object and the corresponding word. They were in alphabetical order. I was surprised to see the apple as a whole. There was a picture of an airplane. I had never heard of airplanes. There were acorns, alligators, almonds, alpacas, ants and apricots. I flipped the page and under the “B” there was a bird. A bright yellow bird. Just like the one in my dream. I suddenly closed the book. Had I ever seen a bird in real life. No, it was impossible. But I had seen that yellow bird in my dream plenty of times. How did I even know what a bird was supposed to look like? How could I have seen this exact bird before? I reopened the book, half expecting the bird to be gone. But it was still there. Still yellow. Still exactly like I had seen it before.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name. What is it again?” I asked the girl.

“My name’s ELI1126 but you can just call me Eli,” she said.

I squinted. “By any chance, were you born in May, Eli?”

“Yes! Yes, I was!” A smile lit up her entire face. “You’re a quick one. No wonder, they wanted you so badly!” she answered excitedly.

“Eli, do you mind if I keep this book for a little while.”

“You can have it!” she replied, still smiling.

“Thank you. It’s a beautiful book,” I said. But my attempt at smiling back didn’t work.

She noticed: “Don’t worry, you’ll get better at it. We better get back,” she said quickly changing the subject. “I shouldn’t keep you all for myself. A lot of people will want to meet with you today.”

Book in hand, we made our way back to the kitchen. No one had noticed that we had been gone. I was astounded at the freedom of movement here. The mere thought of being able to leave and enter a room without special permission, without a guard holding you at point blank was mind boggling. To think that this was how people lived in the outside world somehow made me angry.

The room filled up quickly, as people started to arrive. There was no where left to sit. I stood next to Eli by the door, trying to keep out of sight. Eli said we were going to have a debriefing following yesterday’s event. She told me, the committee had spent all morning discussing the event behind closed doors. According to her it was standard practice. They would soon come in and let everyone know, what we needed to know. Which once more, according to her, wouldn’t be much. She seemed to complain that information was scarce. I was surprised a person in charge would go through the trouble of giving out information at all. This was not something that ever happened at the orphanage.

As we waited, I eagerly observed everyone in the room. I was searching for a friendly face. I’d assumed that if anyone else had been rescued, they would be coming here for the debriefing as well. There was a possibility, at any moment, Eva would come walking into the room. I kept my hopes up. The room was getting really crowded. I had been pushed deeper to the side along the wall. The temperature too was quickly rising. The air was becoming uncomfortable to breathe. My head started to hurt again. With everything that had happened in the past twenty-four hours, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise. However, it was the suddenness of the pain that was starting to worry me. It came, and it went so quickly, for no apparent reason.

Even more people entered the room. Taller than anyone, I could see Arno on the other side of the kitchen. Eli was still near me. The teenager still sitting at the table. Everyone else was a stranger. It was obvious that no one from my orphanage was here. At this point my headache was such that spots started to blur my vision. The room started spinning. I closed my eyes and leaned back on the wall. I heard Eli asking if I was alright. I don’t remember if I answered her. Any attempt of reopening my eyes, sent the room spinning into a frenzy. I could feel my heartbeat racing. My breath getting shallower. I tried to concentrate on my breathing, but it was completely out of control. Like it wasn’t mine. A picture of the hallway flashed before my eyes. That same hallway I had just walked with Eli. I could see the door to the kitchen. In one last attempt, I tried to straighten myself up and open my eyes. Two people had just entered the room. One of them was the young woman I had seen under the flickering lightbulb. Then the room went dark. I had passed out again.