Steven Santos - The Culling

My throat starts to burn, and I think Slade’s blade has turned on me until I realize it’s just the strain I’ve inflicted on my vocal cords. I stop yelling, clearing my throat. Before I can stop myself, my eyes flicker open.

Just in time to see Slade’s hand slicing the blade-across Ophelia’s hair. She saws into the curls, pulling, ripping the hair away, hacking away at the girl’s scalp until there’s nothing left but ragged patches clumped unevenly around the skull. When she’s done with the last cluster, she throws Ophelia to the ground.

The girl’s cheek smacks the floor, her face buried in a cushion of her former curls that barely deadened the sound of the impact. She reaches out a blood-smeared hand, groping the deforestation of hair surrounding her. Grabbing a cluster, she examines it with her one visible eye, as if trying to make sense of why it’s no longer on her head. Then that eye turns to me. But it might as well be an index finger pointing right at me, rigid, unforgiving.

I try to look away but I can’t, held captive by the unspoken questions that Ophelia stares at me. There’s one that hammers into my brain, over and over again, as if her lips are pressed to my ear and she’s screaming it at the top of her lungs.

Why?

“Cole,” I whisper. I can’t tell if she hears me, but if she does, it’s an answer that doesn’t satisfy that unblinking eye. Stop staring at me. There was nothing I could do , I think at her desperately. My fists curl, but I still can’t break contact with that loathsome eye. All I want to do is gouge it out of its socket and grind it to pulp beneath my boot, anything to make it stop. Anything to smother the evidence of my cowardice.

I breathe in deep. I have to keep myself together. If this is how unraveled I’m feeling now, before the Trials have even begun, I can’t imagine what it’ll be like when we’re forced-when we have to choose which one of the people we love-

Slade stoops and pulls Ophelia to her feet, breaking the eye’s hold on me. She’s not as brutal as she was a few minutes ago, brushing some strands from Ophelia’s face and shoulders. Does the monster have an ounce of compassion? No. This must be just another one of her sick games, designed to keep us off balance.

“A valuable lesson has been learned here,” Slade says smoothly. She prods Ophelia toward the center of the line so she can get a better look at all of us. “Take a good look at these four faces, Recruit Juniper. Not one chose to come to your aid. During the Trials, remember that when the time comes-these four are all prepared to let you and your kin die.”

After how I fared under the scrutiny of the one eye, I know I’ll be completely defenseless against two. My gaze drops to the floor.

“And you four Recruits,” Slade continues. “Take a good look at Recruit Juniper. Remember that she could be any one of you .”

My eyes dart to Gideon, who meets mine for a second before he shifts his stance and looks at the dark monitor. Cypress is staring at Slade, her gaze unflinching, not caring about the rest of us. I can’t bring myself to look Digory’s way, not sure if I’m more concerned about whether or not he’s looking my way than what I’ll see there if he is.

Slade lets go of Ophelia. “Rejoin your fellow Recruits.”

Ophelia obeys without a word, moving back to her position beside me. As she passes in front of me, I no longer see fear reflected in that eye, but something even more unsettling.

Hatred.

“Now that you know what brand of loyalty you can expect of the others,” Slade continues, “I suggest you get a good night’s rest. Tomorrow morning you begin Initial Entry Training. First Call is at oh five hundred hours, followed by Physical Training at oh five hundred thirty, Breakfast at oh six hundred thirty, and your first day of Basic Pre-Trial Prep Exercises at oh eight hundred thirty.” She walks down the line again, glaring at each one of us. “You have been selected to become Imposers, the best of the best. I don’t tolerate failure. For the next ten weeks until the Trials begin, all of you belong to me . Dismissed!”

As we scramble out of the briefing hall, I can’t help but think the next two and a half months are going to be the worst of my entire life.

The first night in the barracks seems endless.

All of us Recruits are crammed into the same small quarters, barely large enough to fit five beds. Cypress and Ophelia’s cots are on the opposite wall from mine, which is sandwiched between Digory’s and Gideon’s. Through the gloom, I can make out the peaceful expression on Digory’s sleeping face, hear the gentle purr of his breath escaping his slightly parted lips in time with the rise and fall of his chiseled bare chest.

Can I really trust him?

I force myself to turn my back on him.

Despite surrendering to exhaustion, I end up tossing and turning for hours, waking up several times bathed in sweat, my mind filled with nightmare images that haunt long after I’ve opened my eyes.

The Culling. Before I was recruited, the phrase had little meaning-two words shrouded in vague foreboding, like a half-remembered dream. Now, the term’s sharp as crystal, stabbing me deep, shocking each nerve ending as I fight to control the spasms. What horrible trials can they have in store for us, worthy of such an unthinkable decision? And how will I be able to pass them all? We were told there are at least six rounds … SIX whole rounds to make it through. Just one mistake and Cole … Mrs. Bledsoe … My eyes squeeze shut, but the what ifs just batter through my brain, pounding against my skull … screaming … crushing …

Moaning from the other side of the barracks.

I snap back to the now.

Gideon writhes, half out of his cot. Like me, he’s covered in sweat. It seems I’m not the only one who can’t get any shut-eye. I slip out of my own bed and kneel down beside his, grateful to focus on someone else’s tortured mind.

During his thrashing, I catch flashes of something snaking up his bare back-a thick band of knotted flesh.

Scar tissue?

Then he rolls over and it’s gone.

I reach out and tap his shoulder. “Gideon, it’s just a bad dream,” I say softly.

He’s mumbling something. I lean in closer so I can hear.

“I didn’t mean it,” he murmurs. “Please don’t … I promise … I’ll be good … ”

I slump on my haunches.

His thrashing ebbs and dies. I pull the threadbare blanket over his still form. I’m not sure how long I stay there, but I watch him, listening until his breathing becomes a light snore.

Eventually, the door to the barracks bursts open and the lights flare on in a blinding burst.

“Rise and shine, maggots!” Slade’s blurry silhouette calls from the doorway. “Time to get your lazy asses out of bed.”

Ophelia moans. “Five more minutes , please .”

Slade rips the blanket off her. “Move it!”

The five of us practically fall all over each other, scrambling to hit the communal showers in the adjacent building. Ophelia, especially, makes sure to give Slade a wide berth.

Digory catches my eye as he jogs alongside me.“Mornin’.”

I nod and pull ahead of him into the showers, picking a spot at the opposite end.

If Slade’s gentle wake-up call didn’t do the trick, the ice-cold water jetting from the spigots sure does.

“Holy crap!” Gideon wails from under his showerhead. He’s trying to keep his back to the wall so no one will see what I saw last night. “This is colder than the water back home.”

Cypress snorts. “You don’t know what cold is.”