Steven Santos - The Culling

She smiles. “I choose to believe that.”

Woosh!

The door to Cypress’s chamber slides open.

Recruit Goslin. You will now enter your Incentives’ chambers.

“Don’t do it, Cypress,” Digory calls.

Her face contorts into a mask of anguish. “You know it’ll be worse for them if I don’t.”

The divider between the children sinks into the floor.

Cypress steps out of her chamber on tentative legs and weaves like a drunk over to the children’s chamber. It’s so unlike her determined walk up to the dais on Recruitment Day. The door to the children’s prison slides open. Cypress wipes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and grips the edges of the threshold, pulling herself inside. The door slides shut again, sealing all three of them inside.

“Hello again,” Cypress says to the children. Her voice sounds hoarse through the speaker system, as if she’s been screaming.

The boy stops jumping and bounces over to sit next to his sister. “You’re the soldier lady.”

The girl elbows her brother. “What’s she doing here?”

The boy stares at Cypress, then cups his mouth to whisper something in his sister’s ear.

“Sssh!” The girl nudges him. “You’ll make her upset again.” She turns to Cypress. “Do you wanna play?”

Cypress wipes her eyes and smiles. “I’d like that very much.” She sits on the cot beside them.

A round slot in the panel before me opens up, and a sleek, dark lever, like a small dagger, rises from it.

Recruit Spark. In a few seconds, a pack of starving Canids will be set loose in Recruit Goslin’s Incentive Chamber. As victor of this Trial, you can choose to override this method of shelving by pulling the lever yourself and releasing a painless toxin into the air vents instead. As always, the choice is yours.

Memories of blood-curdling screams and tearing flesh coming from that alley back in the Parish drown out Slade’s voice and my throbbing heartbeat. The idea of those vicious, horrible beasts pouncing on Cypress and these innocent little ones is too much to bear.

My shaking, sweaty hand grips the ice-cold lever and pulls it. “Forgive me,” I whisper, collapsing against the panel.

A faint hissing comes through the speakers.

The boy shifts on the bed, moving next to Cypress. “Do you have any children?”

I bite into my lip.

Cypress’s eyes glisten. She shakes her head. “I … I never … did … but I always wanted to.” Her lips curve into the saddest smile I’ve ever seen. “Maybe you two can be my children now.”

My fingers scrape the glass. I can’t bear to look anymore, but I can’t tear my eyes away.

Cypress pulls the children close. “I think you’re both pretty special,” she whispers. She kisses each of them on the forehead.

Both children yawn and huddle closer to her.

Then Cypress starts to sing.

Her voice is melodic, echoing softly through the speakers. A bittersweet song of love lost and found again. Each lyric tugs at my heart, sometimes gentle, sometimes wrenching through my chest. I think of my mom, my dad, Mrs. Bledsoe-all the warm memories of them, carved out of me by the Establishment, leaving me hollow inside except for the single flame that still burns.

I’m hugging myself, rocking back and forth.

Through a blur of tears, I can see Digory, glassy-eyed, as if staring at another life.

Even Ophelia seems touched, her cheeks like dewy leaves.

By the time the song comes to an end, neither child is stirring.

Cypress pulls them closer and kisses them again. “Sleep well and have wonderful dreams.” Serenity washes over her face.

She smiles and closes her eyes.

I wake up curled into a ball on the floor of the next holding station. Digory’s sitting cross-legged beside me, his hand stroking my hair. I barely remember half-walking, half-stumbling here after that last Trial.

After Cypress was-

The memory of Cypress and her children lying there with closed eyes, perfectly still, jolts me fully awake. I replay the scene in my mind-the entire pen containing the bodies sinking into the ground as it were being swallowed by quicksand. My hands are still sore from pounding on the window, my throat raw from crying out. When our pens were unlocked, Digory wrapped his arms around me, but I broke away and staggered toward the next holding station. As soon as I reached it I collapsed into a fetal position, and exhaustion gave way to sleep.

Cypress and her children had just vanished, as if they’d never existed. And once again, I did nothing to stop it.

Unlike with Gideon, the Establishment robbed us of our chance to say goodbye to Cypress in our own way, just like they’ve robbed us of everything else. Grieving is a weakness-too human, too mired in compassion, and we can’t repeat that mistake, can we?

My eyes finally wander. Ophelia’s lying on the ground a few feet away, sound asleep. A soft, rhythmic purr bleeds through her parted lips, which look curved into a smile. I can just make out her eyeballs rolling beneath their sheaths before she turns on her side, away from me.

A shudder penetrates the numbness.

How can she actually nap, after what happened? What’s still happening?

But even more disturbing is the thought of what dreams lie coiled in that mind, hidden deep, waiting to spring.

Digory stops stroking my hair. He holds out a ration bar.

“Lucian, you really should eat something. You don’t look well. You need your strength.”

My eyes finally connect with his. A shard of anger stabs me. Why does he care what happens to me? Why keep pretending when he already has someone?

I sit up. “I’m not hungry.”

Instead, I swallow the sour clump lodged in my throat. My fingers dig out the crud from the corners of my eyes. There aren’t any tears left to spill, nothing left to feel except the longing to see Cole, to hold him one last time, make sure he’s okay before I, too, take my last breath. I’m so tired of fighting, tired of surviving.

I think of that empty space where Cypress and her children disappeared into the ground and stifle a cynical laugh. Instead of grieving for Gideon and Cypress, there’s a part of me that actually envies them.

Digory wraps a hand around my arm. “I’m gonna have to insist-”

“ Let go of me !” I’m barely able to wrench my arm free of his grip and knock the ration bar away.

He recoils as if I struck him. A film of hurt coats his eyes. “Sorry. I’m just … worried about you. It’s getting down to the wire and … and I know how hard this must be for you … with your brother and all … ” He looks down, his fingers fidgeting, tugging on the thumb of one hand with the thumb and index finger of the other.

My anger dulls. I rest a hand on his knee and give it a squeeze. “Look, I didn’t mean to snap at you. It’s just … with everything that’s happened … I … ” I remember that empty space again. “I can’t believe Cypress is gone . And Gideon … ” I look back to find Digory’s eyes waiting for mine. “Besides, you have your own troubles, someone else to worry about.”

I state it as a fact, but the masochist in me is grasping for confirmation or denial of something I don’t want to be true.

Digory’s gaze is so intense I forget to breathe. “Yes,” he says at last, looking away.

Is that disgust? Regret? I can’t be sure. And it really makes no difference. Nothing will change, regardless.

He engulfs my hand in his warm palm. It feels so comforting, yet painful at the same time. His face kaleidoscopes with emotion: sadness, regret, anger, longing, all facets of the blue gems fixed on me. “Just because I have a commitment … a duty … to someone else … doesn’t mean I don’t … care … about you.”