Laura Nolen - The Fall

“Hey, don’t look so down. It’s your birthday, after all. Why d’you think we got pink icing? The Lieutenant prefers chocolate.” He laughed, as if it were a joke.

I’m not eating his stupid cake. I don’t even want cake. I hate strawberry.

To my surprise, I lifted my fork. It was indeed covered in bright pink icing, and I shook my head a little harder. Birthday cakes should be blue. Like West’s.

I worked my mouth around the load of frosting. It was sweet—too sweet—and I forced myself to swallow. Fine: cake first, then stab. Surely that was a solid plan.

Wasn’t it?

“That’s better,” Adam was saying. “Now. Where were we? Yeah, your family. ’Fraid it’s bad news, Char. Let me see if I can remember exactly where we left off last year.” He shifted comfortably, and I got another look at his face. “Oh, right. It was the part where you let my sister die.”

I blinked. He was different. Not how I remembered him. The soft, round parts of his boyish face were now angular. Angry. “I didn’t kill—”

“Hey, hey. Cut it out. Every year, it’s the same thing. But Aah—dam! ” he whined, imitating my voice. “ I didn’t kill her! Blah, blah, lightning clouds. Blah, blah, mutiny. We haven’t even gotten to the good part yet!” His eyes flashed, and he waved at the woman. “Wake her up a little more. I need her to remember this one.” They exchanged a glance. “Do it, Lieutenant.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, a touch of strain in her voice. A sting spread through my right bicep, and I felt my heart speed up. I started breathing faster.

My mind began to clear.

I was in Central Command, and Adam was the Commander. He was in league with An Zhao, who had recently blown a hole in the Ark, destroying the Remnant, the group of free thinkers who’d built a city and organized a government in the bowels of the ship. And I had disarmed us to prevent her from doing worse. I had made us helpless. My fingers tightened around the fork. I had to get out of here.

Every year, we ate cake.

Every year, he woke me up to hear the story.

Every year, I had ten minutes to work on my plan. Tick, tock.

If only I could remember what it was.

I couldn’t remember much of anything, to be honest. “Are—are we there yet?” I asked.

“Where? Eirenea?” Adam laughed, but there was steel in the sound. “No. Don’t interrupt.”

He had the relaxed posture of a person in control, but he wore it uneasily, as though he were copying something he’d seen another man do. My head rolled around slightly while I tried to think. There was nothing easy in his face. His teeth were clenched so hard that he had to move his jaw around before speaking. “And so my sister died in your arms,” he was saying. “And I’m not sure whether we covered this last year, but she was all I had. And she needed me.” He leaned forward. “And you let her die.”

If I had made us helpless, Adam had returned the favor tenfold. I spent my days in a cloud of confusion, blindly following any instructions I was given. I wasn’t dizzy, exactly, but I had a hard time getting my bearings. Every so often, I came to my senses, and Adam would be there. Sometimes he just wanted to talk. Sometimes he didn’t speak at all.

But sometimes, he taunted me. On these occasions, there was cake. Always pink.

And I had to eat it. And he told me a story I shouldn’t hear while I plotted ways to kill him. Usually with a fork.

Not everyone on the Ark was drugged. Eren, as far as I knew, spent most of his days in InterArk Comm Con, sending and receiving transmissions related to the Ark’s operations. The last time I tried to contact him had not gone well. I stumbled into the amphitheater, stupid from the drugs. I saw Eren, his eyes wide, his head shaking back and forth, subtly at first, and then more urgently.

And then I awoke in the commissary six months later, half a sandwich hanging from my mouth, without even the slightest memory of any medication top-ups that must have taken place since.

I didn’t try that again.

So I was on my own. Adam sat back, warming to his story. “But all was not lost! Not quite yet. Not for you, Char. They say all’s fair in love and war, but that’s never been my experience. The Academy, for example, was not fair. They took me when I was five. Did you hear that? Five, Char. And my parents just let them.”

The Academy was a school for certain children from all over the world selected to survive the meteor. They were trained in science, medicine, or engineering at an early age, so that they would be as useful as possible on board the Arks.

Unbeknownst to the people set to die in their place, they were also trained in military strategy. And combat.

“Sounds rough,” I said. My voice cracked from disuse. I had a hard time feeling sorry for anyone chosen for a place on an Ark when all the rest of us were left to die in the meteor strike.

“They took her, too. Same age. What do you think they did to her at the Academy? They didn’t want students. I’ll tell you that. Because everything there was a weapon. Especially us. Tell me something, Char. What were all those weapons for if no one was supposed to use them?”

His voice trailed off, and he gave me a long look before continuing. “And I escaped. Obviously. And I found her. And I made sure she lived, Char. Because that was my job. To protect her.” He glanced around the room. “Eat.”

I ate.

“You should know something about that, Char. Being abandoned? Protecting your family? And you did a great job; you really did. They escaped!” He smiled darkly. “For a few minutes, anyway.”

This was the part I wasn’t supposed to listen to. Every year, same thing. Adam woke me up and told the same story. And I made the same mistake every time I heard it. First, the blood would rush through my ears, drowning my plan in panic. And then my chest would squeeze. And then I started screaming.

And then he’d smile and knock me out again.

But this year would be different. This year, I had a job to do.

If only I could remember what it was.

I needed one more shot of whatever the Lieutenant had given me. Then maybe I would remember.

I lowered my head and spoke in a soft monotone. “You knew about my father’s Arkhopper, and you blew it up. They’re all dead. My family is dead.”

Adam took a long pause, then slowly reached for the holster where he kept the drug. I braced myself for oblivion. Another year lost.

But instead, he straightened his jacket and shook his head, annoyed. “No. That’s not her. That’s not what I want. Wake her up some more. I want the real Char.”

The woman straightened. “But sir—”

“Now, Lieutenant. Do it now, or we can continue this conversation next year. When I wake you up.”

There was a rustling of equipment behind me as the Lieutenant rushed to comply. Another sting in my arm. Another breath, and it all came crashing back.

I was definitely supposed to stab him.

“So there I was, minding my own business in my new office on the Guardian Level, when I got news that the Commander was dead. Thanks for that, by the way,” Adam nodded at me. “I wasn’t sure I had the nerve until that moment. They need me, you know. This Ark.” He leaned in. “They know it, and I know it. They need someone who can keep a sense of order around here.”

The Commander had had control of the Guardians, and he’d wielded them like his own personal army in a failed attempt to retain control over the Ark and to crush the Remnant, a hidden group of survivors who opposed him.

Oh, and he was also Eren’s father.

Eren. Blue eyes. Security, like a thick blue blanket. A fleeting moment of happiness from a silver ring with a pale blue stone. But there was something dark in my memories of Eren, too. My thoughts pressed themselves forward all at once and without a coherent order. I rubbed my leg nervously, trying to clear my mind, but they kept coming. Green pins of light and a red expanse of blood. His father had died by my hand. Surely I hadn’t meant for that to happen, had I? I wondered where Eren was. Hadn’t I sent him away? I wondered if he missed his father in spite of everything he’d put us through.