He comes yesterday...
Shyva carried her tray of food into the cafeteria. Her gaze roamed around the place, looking for a place to sit. There were hushes and whispers, as she didn't miss the menace in the eyes of the sisters or the shock in the eyes of others. It felt like the moment she stepped into the cafeteria, a veil of silence and discomfort cloaked the atmosphere.
Unsure of whether she was feeling the best or the worst, she turned her head to the side, having found a spot away from the crowd. It had been a week since the fight. Her opponent, Oleila, also one of her sisters, hadn't woken from the coma.
She sighed. I knew I was wrong, but I couldn't control myself like other times. Is this a gift or a curse?
The purple apple (her best fruit because of its high sugar content), rounded pastry, and a fruit juice box weren't helping as she stared at them, shrugging her shoulders. She was lonely, and it hadn't always been that way.
In the reminiscing of five years…
Otolyt had been her friend from the moment they stepped into that world. They had been real sisters. The Dome knew of their genuine bond, which was stronger than any other on the premises.
The first time they had bonded was when she defended her during their first arrival at the Dome, but she couldn't remember. The memory wasn't important, so it was erased.
At fifteen, Otolyt made a scrapbook of fantasy drawings she had made all by herself with coloured pens and coloured papers she found in a store room. In the pieces, she cut out drawings of beautiful parts of a city they had never seen, heard of, or stepped foot in.
There were vehicles she had created, even more advanced than their airship, aircraft, and air buses. Many nights, she would tiptoe to Otolyt's room past lockdown and listen to Otolyt tell her fantasy stories about which she was self-absorbed.
It was one of those days they had their conversations that changed her life.
"What's your purpose?" Otolyt asked jokingly behind Shyva in the queue.
It had been after combat, on their way to the washroom.
"What?" Shyva asked, not fully paying attention to what she had heard.
"You heard right?"
"I just like fighting, getting rid of the anger within me, I seriously have nothing to think of. We've been here all our lives, and I like it here."
"Like fighting?" Otolyt smirked.
"I guess," Shyva shrugged, pouting her lips.
"I have dreams, and they feel real." Otolyt began. "They are of things I am sure I have never seen."
"Tell me about it," Shyva asked. "It felt real, another great world beyond the walls and even better…"
"Otolyt, keep talking, and you'll be the first to set a sampling exercise." The guard warned, observing and ensuring all equipment was returned safely after combat to avoid catastrophic consequences.
Otolyt wasn't too happy she was kept shut. Her dreams were all she believed in, and she wanted Shyva to believe as well, even when she felt unsafe talking about them.
Sirens blew loudly around every hall of the girls in the Dome, awakening them in their personal rooms. They all acted immediately, dressed in suits without knowing what lay outside their doors. The boots of the soldiers could be heard, many of them running.
It was the cry of Otolyt that alarmed Shyva; she opened her room door despite protocols and ran as fast as she could to the lying body of Otolyt in the hands of a male soldier. She was convulsing, froth forming all over her mouth, and her eyes opened wide like she had seen what she wasn't supposed to see. Her skin was pale because all the blood in her blood vessels vanished.
She was stabbed twice with vials of adrenaline to shoot her level of hormones, but it wasn't helping.
The corridor of the second floor was filled with soldiers. Shyva managed to pass through the crowd of guards, whose existence among them was unnoticed as their priority was saving one of their own.
"Shyva…. Run…." Otolyt mouthed, which barely came out as a whisper. Shyva had read the first words from her lips, but she couldn't hear the second due to the blockage by another soldier who tried tending to Otolyt.
"Her nerve impulses are low." A female soldier informed them, "We need to get her to the lab immediately."
"Adhered." They hurried with Otolyt to the lab unit which was on the east wing of the building.
Shyva had been curious to know why Otolyt was taken to the lab instead of the infirmary or medical centre.
"It is the nightmare again." The female soldier who was left assessing Otolyt's data on her digital board shook her head with pity.
Shyva had stayed rooted to the floor, her hands trembling as she could see her sister fight death. Shyva's lips were parted, eyes alit and breathing rapid at the image of Otolyt she would never be able to forget.
Her pale olive skin had lost its colour. She looked almost ashen as if her presence in the other world had prolonged her time living in the true world. Her neck hung loosely, her head bent backward, and her falling brown hair was messed up from the struggle to get her to the laboratory.
"What nightmare?" Shyva trembled.
At hand-to-hand combat between two of her sisters, Shyva was told to watch and not participate as it was part of her punishment. She felt incomplete with the tension building in her, but it seemed to be another way to train her patience.
In the locker room, Shyva was taking out her uniform from her locker at the distal end of the room when she was cornered by Sula, an excellent fighter almost as good as she was.
"Killer," Sula called to her, chewing and popping her gum to make a click.
Shyva knew the words were intended to hurt her, but she wasn't interested in picking a fight since she was as notorious as her anger was trying to get the best of her.
"You heard me." Sula moved closer with the three dogs she called friends behind her. Those sisters worshipped her and stood by her.
"I am not a murderer, Sula; I will never be to my sisters. It wasn't the right time for me." Shyva tried explaining herself, but Sula spat on the floor in disapproval.
"It is never the right time for you. If your anger or whatever." Sula rolled her eyes, "Maybe the monster in you isn't beating people helplessly to death or almost killing them. Just so you know, you aren't the only one who gets angry. We all have our ways of dealing with it. You continue this way, and you'll kill everyone in here. Killer!"
"I warn you, don't get me angry," Shyva begged, gazing at the floor, her grip tightening on her locker door.
Shyva hoped what Sula insinuated wasn't true.
"Or you do what? Kill me?" Sula hissed, walking. Her dogs shook their heads from side to side, pouting their lips as they eyed her from head to toe and followed Sula.
"Mishaq" (bitch), Shyva cursed in Yondi language.
Sergeant Neyshad's session could have been more interesting. Shyva was absent-minded most of the time. Her tutors always wondered how she outsmarted other scholars, but they couldn't decipher, so she was often ignored when her mind wasn't in the sessions.
Etiquette wasn't her best course. It made her see a lot of flaws in herself, for she lacked etiquette. Over the years, every girl had been sent on assignments with soldiers to guide them or alone, but Shyva had only gone on assignments once, which wasn't the memory she liked to remember.
When the other sisters talked about their escapade and how different the places were from the Dome, Shyva pretended not to care, but she eavesdropped most of the time.
Should my competence be questioned? Hm!
The movement of fast colours caught her attention as ojoroc had begun falling, descending on the closed windows of the session room in light streams.
Shyva looked around the class for a while, hoping she wouldn't be noticed. She lowered her gaze even further through the window. She didn't notice anything unusual and assumed there was nothing.
My mind messing with me.
Her senses were alarmed; something or someone was right outside the window. She had slowly turned her head, and there it was. Quickly to her memory, his face appeared like an image in a moving stream, where all features were stretched almost immediately until you couldn't make sense of the image anymore. His dark eyes trapped hers for a Picosecond.