Steven Santos - The Culling

Digory and I exchange glances. Even though I’m burning with fever, I feel colder than ever.

Ophelia turns and strides up to the podium.

The lights inside the enclosure brighten.

Inside, her mother and her sister stand with their arms shackled above their heads. Unlike Gideon’s parents, they don’t seem to be afraid. Mrs. Juniper looks uncomfortable in that position, almost bored. Madeleine, on the other hand, seems fascinated with everything around her, the type of wonder that only the very innocent can have. She smiles at all of us, but when she sees Ophelia, her eyes grow wide and sparkle like twinkling stars.

“Mama! Maddie!” Ophelia bounces up the steps and presses her hands against the enclosure.

Her mother and sister are separated from each other by a thick glass partition, just like the Recruits are. Except for coils of black tubing snaking into each of their sections from below, the enclosure is barren-no furniture, no instruments, nothing. My eyes fix on the ends of each tube, covered by gleaming metal flaps.

Whatever horror the Establishment’s thought of this time, that’s where it’ll come from.

Recruit Juniper. You have sixty seconds to make your selection.

Madeleine beams. “Are you going to play, too, Fee-Fee?” She tugs at the shackles like it’s all a game.

Ophelia waves to her. “Maddie, sweetie. I’m right here, honey.” She claps a hand over her mouth.

Madeline lifts her legs and swings from her chains. “I knew you’d come!”

Mrs. Juniper clears her throat. “I wasn’t expecting it to be this soon.”

“Oh, Mama! I’m so sorry,” Ophelia wails. “I tried . I really tried, just like you taught me. I hope you’re not too disappointed in me.”

Mrs. Juniper shakes her head. Her lips purse. “I don’t want to hear any of that sniveling, Ophelia. It’s unbecoming for a future Imposer.” Her expression softens. “And you will become an Imposer, darling. I just know it. We’ve just suffered a minor setback. Nothing you can’t course-correct.”

Ophelia buries her face in her hands. “I can’t … I can’t do it … ”

Madeleine stops swinging. “Why are you crying, Fee-fee?”

“Pull yourself together, Ophelia!” Mrs. Juniper barks. “You can still triumph! You’re a good girl. I understand how hard this is, but you’ll do the right thing, I know it.”

Ophelia looks up at her mother, her eyes puffy, tears streaking down her face. “You mean …?”

Mrs. Juniper nods. “You’ll do exactly what we talked about. Kill your sister.”

Ophelia clutches her head with both hands, her face a mask of anguish. “Mama … ”

Mrs. Juniper shakes her head and tsks. “ Look at her.” She nudges her head toward Maddie, who’s now humming to herself. “She’ll never even know … ”

Then Ophelia bolts up and glares at her.“My mother !” she shrieks. “I choose her !” She bangs a fist against the glass, her eyes cold, defiant.

A moment of shock registers on Mrs. Juniper’s face. Then she smiles. “So headstrong. I taught you too well.”

The flap covering the tube in Mrs. Juniper’s section grinds open. There’s the sound of buzzing. A lone bee zips from the tube and circles the room until it settles on her exposed arm. She flinches.

The tube begins to rattle. A loud vibration pierces the sound system, creating grating feedback. Mrs. Juniper’s eyes look like they’re ready to leap from her skull.

The shackles holding Madeleine’s arms above her head spring free, dropping her to the ground.

Ophelia beckons her close. “Maddie, baby. We’re going to play a special game. Close your eyes and cover your ears until I say you can look, okay?”

Madeleine giggles. “That’s funny!”

Ophelia gets down on her knees. “Just do it for me, pretty please?”

“Okay, Fee-fee!” Madeline squeezes her eyes shut and clamps her hands around her ears.

A dark cloud bursts free from the tube, billowing like smoke, growing, until it practically fills Mrs. Juniper’s section. Only this cloud’s teeming with life-insects, bees, hundreds upon hundreds. The light strobes as they swarm, settling on the only other living thing, covering every inch of her flesh like a shroud.

Mrs. Juniper screams, but her cries are muffled by a living clump that jams into her mouth, piercing her tongue and throat with poisonous barbs until she’s choking, no longer able to get air, flailing helplessly like a fish on a hook.

“Can I look now?” Maddie shouts over the frenzy.

“No, Maddie!” Ophelia shrieks. “ Don’t open your eyes !”

I slump against the glass, unable to peel my eyes away from the horror, sinking to the floor.

In a matter of minutes, it’s over.

Swaying from the ceiling is an unrecognizable slab of meat that Ophelia once called Mama.

Only now she’s a thing , a bloated hunk of purple flesh covered in pustules. Magnified on the speakers is the sound of a constant plop as the sickly yellow secretions seep from the wounds and douse the floor, now entirely carpeted with dead bees.

They sacrificed their lives for the will of the Establishment, just like our loved ones.

The lights in the enclosure dim, finally obliterating the gruesome sight.

The locks on our paddocks click and the doors slide apart.

This Trial has ended. Follow the markers to the next holding station.

Collecting my things, I hobble out of my pen and collapse into Digory’s waiting arms.

“I got something for you,” he whispers in my ear. I pull away and stare at his smiling face.

He opens his palm. In it rests a small, familiar pouch.

The antibiotics.

I’m overwhelmed-with relief, gratitude … and so much more.

My hand cups his. “But you might-”

“You need them more than I do. Take them. Please .”

I hug him as tight as I’m able to with my trembling arms. “Thank you.”

Behind him, Ophelia stares at the now dark enclosure that houses her sister. “I’ll see you soon, Maddie. I promise.”

Her eyes find mine and cut right through me. “And no one’s going to stop me.”

After resting several hours at the next holding station, we resume the trek to our third Trial, plodding through the winding corridors of the Skein in near silence. The quiet is broken only by the occasional grunt that barely penetrates the white noise of our wheezing breaths, which lulls me to the brink of exhaustive sleep before the panic of failure jars me back to my senses.

Despite my fatigue, the burning in my eyes settles into a low simmer while the chill in my blood turns lukewarm. Could the medicine be working already? Or am I just so far gone that my body can’t feel anything anymore?

The only thing that still burns is my mind, bristling with images of Ophelia’s mother, swollen beyond recognition, and the stump of Mrs. Warrick’s neck, a broken fountain jetting streams of blood. Every so often the images shimmer like waves of heat baking the horizon, and it’s not Mrs. Juniper or Mrs. Warrick I see but Cole and Digory in their places.

My breath catches in my throat.

I look around at Digory trudging along beside me, followed by Cypress and Gideon, with Ophelia bringing up the rear. From their vacant eyes, cradled in dark circles, and the new creases burrowing into the corners of their thin and cracking lips, I have no doubt their brains are infested with similar thoughts.

A geyser of pain shoots up my leg on my next step. I lurch to the side. Digory is beside me in an instant, hooking my arm around his shoulder and holding me upright.