The Lost Turkey
By Dillon Thomas
I'm writing this to convince humans to stop eating my fellow turkeys for Thanksgiving. Let me explain how I got to this point. Long before I knew how to write, I had escaped the crowded, colorless, turkey farm. I had lived there my whole life and watched many of my fellow turkeys be taken away by mysterious trucks. We lived through the numbing cold winters and scorching hot summers. I couldn’t believe my eyes once I got free and experienced the vast, colorful outside world. Once I got to the city I saw a huge luminous screen, and it displayed what looked like another turkey’s body being served for a human meal. My breath was taken away at the sight. From that moment, I knew I had to do something. From a distance, I started reading the letters on the massive screens scattered throughout the city, and matched them to the pictures being presented. I picked up trashed newspapers and tried to teach myself how to read this strange language. At first, I had no idea what I was doing and though I could never understand it, but over time I picked up on it and improved my skills. The whole time I had been avoiding you over-sized humans for my own safety. Thanks to my agile movements, I was able to avoid any direct confrontations. But my life was grim. The revelation that my species was being used by the humans in these savage ways greatly affected me. I walked melancholy through the booming city, all the while hearing the blaring noises of human society. Then I realized that Thanksgiving was coming around again. Back when I was on the farm, I noticed that a large number of us were shipped away around this time every year. That brings me to the purpose of this letter. I speak for my entire race when saying this: humans need to stop eating us turkeys for Thanksgiving. It may seem like an insignificant act to you humans, but for us it ruins our lives. You trap us in grimy, musty farms with no purpose except for being food. I know that most of my comrades have lost their pride as a race, but I have regained my intelligence and am speaking out against this tyranny.
Where Would I Be Without You, Feet!
Faith Birch
You are weird
You have an odd shape
You smell bad
But where would I be without you
Nowhere
I would not stand I would not walk
I would not dance
I love you, oh feet
Even if you are weird
I didn’t use you at first
It was scary to walk
Eventually you boosted me up Now I stand tall
I didn’t like you at first
It hurt when I walked
Eventually you got me to run
Now I do everything I can
You’ve all but carried me around the world
I thank you for giving me the life I love
By Tess McKinley
Against the Wrong Wall
By Marlene Brasco
“How are you?” asked the assistant, Mr. Pecunia, as he stared at his boss in the hospital bed. The endless tubes, ventilation machines, and IVs made the boss look much more mechanical than human.
“Not very well, I’d say, considering I’m still here,” puffed out a hoarse voice that still held the memory of former glory. This shrill whisper came from Mr. E. Gene Walker, a legendary screenwriter who had lived in the pomp and prestige of Hollywood. For weeks now he wallowed in his hospital bed, dying alone.
“Did you bring what I asked?” labored Walker, who began to wheeze. His hacking rattled the room as Pecunia uselessly stared down, ostensibly fascinated by his own shoes. Walker kept trying to breathe naturally, yet all his efforts were in vain as air struggled to reach his lungs in a desperate trickle. A cold sweat beaded upon his ashen forehead.
“Yes, boss,” stammered Pecunia, who reached into his valise as tattered pages spilled out from its top. Sifting through the chaos, he found what he was looking for. Carefully leafing through a stack of pages softened
from countless readings and handlings, he passed them into Walker’s trembling hands. He watched Walker take hold of it like he was holding a firstborn child.
“Yes…yes,” murmured Walker, as his eyebrows arched in wonderment at the words on the page. He turned to a page with a now-yellow coffee ring tattooed across the text.
“Yes, I remember this,” reminisced Walker, “when I stayed up around the clock working on this darn script. Bonnie would ask me to come in for dinner, to spend some time with the kids, and you know what I’d say? I’d say,
‘This here script’s putting that food on the table; every word I type pays for their schools.’” Walker looked towards Pecunia, but his assistant’s bulging eyes were now glued to the ocean painting on the far wall. Trying to clear his throat, Walker found it increasingly more painful to swallow.
“Well, make yourself of use, Pecunia,” grunted Walker, “and read me some of it.” Pecunia’s clammy hands took back the script.
I got it all, stammered Pecunia, and I got it all without you
“No,” rebuked Walker in disgust, “you have to do it as Yvette did in the film.”
“Sir, I don’t—”
“Read!”
Walker began again, speaking as though he just inhaled helium: I got it all, and I got it all without ”
“Just stop!” Walker shouted between coughs as his lungs were seized by yet another fit. “Stop if you aren’t going to read it with respect. I’ll read it.” But Walker closed his eyes; he knew all the words. They were written upon his heart.
I got it all, and I got it all without you. Because, if there is one thing that you have taught me, it is that I am worthy of so much more. I am worthy of myself. I am free to explore the depths of my soul. I am liberated from your orders, but not from all commands. Because I owe it to myself to make good on the promises I made to myself when I was just a girl…
“And then he watches her train roll into the distance as tears of joy slide down her cheeks,” uttered Walker, awakening from his reverie.
“I reached out to Yvette about a year ago, but I never heard back from her,” added Walker. “Do you know what became of her? Pecunia!” A distracted Pecunia jumped. He had been staring at his watch.
“She… she’s around, I believe. She…she got married. She still has that house in Glendale.”
He paused. “Oh, I…I had just figured she had moved and that she had never gotten my letters.” A dark cloud blew over his face. He pried his mouth open like that of a snake, but before he could speak, another wave of coughs crashed upon him. Fitfully, he paused, but he still could find no certain relief.
“So, why are you here, Pecunia?” questioned Walker, his voice crackling with embers of contempt.
“Why, because you asked me to come, you know, with the script…”
Walker’s eyes narrowed into dangerous, penetrating slits
“No! Why are you really here, Pecunia? Why are you here just to shuffle your feet and stare at the wall?”
Pecunia’s voice squeaked out like a sour note. “I just…I wanted to…to say, you know, in case you don’t exactly…recover…”
“Say it, Pecunia, say it!” roared Walker as his eyes twitched and fluttered like runaway dreams.
“In case you die!” uttered Pecunia, recoiling at the terrible power of his words. “In case this is goodbye.”
Now Walker was the one to stare at the wall. Suddenly, he raised his fist to pound it down, only to have it caught in an inscrutable tangle of wires.
“In case I die? Why, you’re even denser than I imagined!” His face contorted into a gnarled mass of rage as he screamed, “I pray for death! I hope to leave this world where I work endlessly for a family that can’t possibly understand what I do, where I take a nobody like Yvette and give her a career, where I—”
His face blanched as the elusive air hid from his lungs.
“Sir,” tried Pecunia, “why don’t I call your son, maybe he’ll—”
“He’s not coming!” hollered Walker as the walls rattled with his soul. Startled, a nurse from the room next over peeked into the room. Walker’s eyes glazed over with hot tears. He let his weary head fall back against the headboard. The tears dripped lethargically onto the script.
Pecunia lingered for about ten minutes, alternating between glancing up at his boss and staring at his watch again.
“Leave, Pecunia, please,” begged Walker with eyes strained shut, “just leave.”
Pecunia stayed a minute longer.
Mr. E. Gene Walker died that evening, alone. When the nurses and doctors found him dead there, they saw a pile of tattered papers, one with a coffee-ring stain, on his chest. The nurse threw them in the trash.
It Was Dark
By Tabitha Giaccio
Light. Dark. Light. Dark. A flash. The pitch blackness again.
Erratic with no time to map it. There was no time. Light and dark only marked more moments gone. Random spurts of light or veils of darkness filled life, whatever of that there was.
We spoke two languages: that of sound and sight. When the light came, we soaked in everything we could see, because we knew that when the darkness returned, that would be gone.
When I was younger, the darkness had scared me. The Elders knew how to navigate it, but I was locked in a trance of fear when it came. Not even the Elders knew how long it would last. Life was unpredictable and life was terrifying.
The first light I remember was really my first. By that point, I was old enough to speak well and think coherent thoughts. Before then, there had been what the Elders called a “light drought,” where there had been no light for much longer than usual.
When I woke up, it was still dark. The ground was hard under my back and I ached as I sat up. Besides the little puffs of air that sounded around me as others slept, it was silent.
I stood up and carefully maneuvered my way out of the cave, pushing my feet forward gently to see if anyone was there. Inside, especially in the back of the cave, the cold had been bearable, but, outside, it was freezing. I shivered and wrapped my arms around myself. The wind howled and whipped my hair around as it blew past. As I stood in place, snow began to seep through my roughly-made shoes. No other sound, no other sensation, besides the wind and the cold, pervaded the darkness. I knew that even when the others in the cave awoke, I would still be alone in my region of the blackness. So the darkness scared me, because it consumed life. Although I didn’t know anything else, I had been taught to wait and watch for the light flashes. I had been taught they were missing. I had been taught they existed.
Some of my friends who had also been born during the light drought had stopped believing that there was such a thing as light. “It would have happened already,” they said. “It's just a story they tell us to give us hope.” I didn’t know whether to side with them or take that hope and believe the Elders. So my faith in the light was frugal at best.
Still, every time I woke up, I left the cave and went outside, into the snow, rain, or wind, to look for the light. But it never came.
I walked back into the cave, feeling my way back to my spot near the furthest wall. I laid down and placed my forehead against its freezing stone.
“No,” I whispered.
“Really?” a sarcastic voice responded. “I told you there was no light.” I heard Marci’s rustling clothes as she sat up.
“Maybe there will be,” I defended weakly. “Just wait.”
“What else is ”
She was cut off as a shrill scream pierced the air.
I flipped over from the wall and sat up quickly. “Was that Mary Leigh?”
“I couldn’t tell.”
Mary Leigh was the oldest of the Elders. Her health had been “declining” for longer than I had been alive, but people still gifted her with all the usual responsibilities of an Elder.
I scrambled to my feet and ran toward the noise.
“Outside?” Marci called.
“I think so.”
Together, we bumped past people who were slowly getting to their feet, calling out rushed apologies. But something was happening. The closer to the edge of the cave we got, the easier it was to navigate.
By the time we got outside, I thought I could see.
Light. Nothing could have prepared me for it. The sun was bright and warm.
The ground was covered with snow that reflected the light. Light. It was beautiful. Trees surrounded the area before the cave, all tall and leaning with their branches outstretched. Color. Everything had color.
I turned and looked at Marci. She was already staring at me.
“Wow,” she breathed.
I opened and shut my mouth but didn’t have a response. Marci was colorful. She had hair like the trees and eyes like the sky. She was beautiful. My jaw dropped as I stared at her and I watched as hers did the same. But then, she disappeared. Blackness.
“No!” Marci wailed. She began to sob and I wanted to reach out to her, but I couldn’t make my arms move.
No. No, no, no, no, no. Where did it go? The sun, the light, the snow, the trees, Marci. I wanted to see again, I needed to see. Now.
I hunched down in the snow and covered my face with my hands. I rocked back and forth as silent tears began to stream down my face. All around me, people were crying, screaming, longing for the light.
“I missed it!” a few called. “I got out just as it ended.”
Those born during the light drought cried with Marci, repeating “It’s not fair” over and over to themselves until their voices became croaky.
I crawled away from the group, my hiccupy breathing and silent tears worsening as I went. I curled into a tight ball and twirled my hair tightly around my fingers, trying to soothe myself.
“It’s not fair,” I whispered. “It’s gone. It’s gone. It’s gone.” My words garbled as my whole body racked with pain. My tears were no longer silent, but it didn’t matter. Everyone had left the cave for their own world of sadness. Just like I couldn't make myself help Marci because of all my pain, no one could help anyone else because of theirs. It was a strange concept: for everyone to be experiencing the same thing, but having no one to experience it with.
Time didn’t exist, and, for once, I was glad it didn’t. This way, I could go on crying until I ran out of water in my body without ever having to stop. Nothing was scheduled because it was impossible, so I filled that space with my own weakness, as everyone I knew did the same.
“What color are the trees?” I asked.
“Brown,” Mary Leigh responded.
“What color is the sky?” Marci wondered.
“Blue.”
“The snow?” I asked.
“White.”
“The sun?” Marci questioned.
“Yellow.”
“What does the sun do?” I asked.
“Gives light and heat,” Mary Leigh responded.
“Nothing else?” Marci asked.
“Else? Marcella, what more do you want from it?”
“Sorry, Mary Leigh. I just meant, doesn’t it have some more use to it?”
“I have no idea what you’re getting at.” Mary Leigh huffed before marching off.
“What are you talking about, Marci?” I elbowed her lightly.
Marci sighed. “I just… I mean, shouldn’t something that everyone thinks is so great actually do something?” She hesitated. “Don’t tell anyone, promise?”
“I promise.” I locked pinkies with her.
“I know we didn’t have much time with the light, but I noticed something that I don’t think is right.”
“What?”
“You know how Mary Leigh always tells us stories about lush fields of grass with huge, strong trees filled to the brim with leaves?”
“Yeah?” I thought back to the world I had gotten a quick glimpse of. “Oh. The trees didn’t have leaves.”
“Exactly! And there was snow, but she never tells us about snow during light flashes!”
“What do you think it means?”
“The world is dying.”
“Everyone! Come, quick!” There was someone shouting.
I sprang to my feet and helped Marci do the same.
“Quick!” I told her.
Could it be? I couldn’t let myself hope, but could the light have returned?
We ran and the cave became brighter and brighter as we reached its mouth. The sun had returned.
I stared up at the blue sky littered with white clouds. I studied the trees before my view snapped away to the people. Marci was just as beautiful as she had been before. Her hair danced in the wind as her eyes scanned the landscape.
Another woman stood at her side, staring at the world. She had a face full of
creases, partially hidden behind hair as white as snow. Her eyes were a shade I didn’t recognize, and her lips were curved up in what I understood to be a smile.
A smile, I thought. I had never imagined that it would be so beautiful.
The woman focused on me, her eyes no longer moving to see the world around her. The warm smile immediately vanished. “Who are you?” It was Mary Leigh’s voice.
It took me too long to find my own voice. “It It's me, Dawn.” She had known me since birth, but she didn’t know who I was. She didn’t recognize me. She didn’t know me. Of course not, part of me said. She’s never seen you. Still, I felt betrayed.
“Dawn.” She said the word as if she had never before. No words followed, so I slowly backed away just as darkness blanketed the world again.
This time, no one cried out, no one even spoke. All of us returned to the cave in silence, probably with our eyes closed too because there was nothing to see.
I sat alone in a new corner of the cave, not wanting Marci to find me. I couldn’t talk to her, not then. I picked at my clothes and twiddled my thumbs. Soon, I thought. The light would return soon.
I wanted to see again, now. I didn't want to wait, I didn’t want soon, I wanted now.
I went over the memories of light in my head and what I had seen. The fluffy clouds sitting in the sky, the sun directing its light all over the earth, the trees with their long limbs, leaning close to the snowy ground.
‘Huge, strong trees filled to the brim with leaves.’ Marci remembered what Mary Leigh had told us about the light flashes, and she was right. The description did not match up to what we had seen. The more I thought about it, the more I remembered. The trees’ trunks were splitting, with bark barely hanging on. Sticks littered the ground below them, and there were no leaves. No leaves. The trees were dying.
I raced outside, not hearing a single sound within the cave as I went. It was quiet. Too quiet. “Hello?” I called. Only the echo of my own voice returned.
Where was everyone? I found my answer as the cave began to lighten. Outside, the light was back. No one told me.
I rushed to a tree, leaning and leafless, and picked up its various sticks. I tried to stick them back on, in between the falling-off bark and splitting tree trunk. The sticks only fell back to the ground and bark fell along with them.
“What are you doing?” Marci asked. I turned and saw her and Mary Leigh staring at me.
I ignored her accusatory tone. “Marci, you were right! The trees are dying, we have to do something, quick!”
“What are you talking about?” Mary Leigh questioned angrily. Anger. It made her face contort into an ugly picture. Her eyebrows pulled into one another and her lips were firm. Even in just the expression, it was happiness's polar opposite. My instincts told me to back down, but I didn’t. I couldn’t “This isn’t what you described. There has to be something wrong.”
Mary Leigh didn’t respond, but Marci filled the silence that lingered between us. “Just drop it, Dawn.”
“What?”
“Stop with the dying world, you’re making it up.”
“But… But you said—”
“Don’t blame me.” I couldn’t meet her gaze. She was angry, so angry, and I thought if I ever looked her in the eyes, I would never be able to look away from all that terrible fury. “Just enjoy the light, Dawn.”
She turned to face Mary Leigh and the two of them walked away together. Darkness immediately enveloped the world. A light flash.
Darkness. Light. It lasted longer than usual. Why did no one call it a darkness drought?
Children were born, only knowing the light.
Then it was black.
There was screaming, crying. We mourned the loss of light, but why? Why didn’t the dark deserve our tears?
After that light flash, people stopped talking in the darkness. Once or twice, I didn’t go outside to see the light. The dark was constant, the dark was eternal. The light was hope, but I didn't need hope when I had my consistency.
I didn’t talk to Marci anymore. She didn’t talk to me either, not even during the light flashes.
Twenty-seven. I had hidden in the darkness of the cave for twenty-seven light flashes. During the twenty-eighth, I walked outside. The sun was bright in the sky and warm on my back. The clouds were still lying limply in the sky, the trees were still dying, the snow was slushy under my feet. I no longer saw anything in this world, and I didn’t understand how anyone could.
I saw two girls dancing and slipping in the snow. One was small and frail, the other as tall as me. Her hair was the color of the trees with eyes like the sky. Marci.
I stared at her, and she saw me too. She stopped dancing and stood rigid, staring back at me. Neither of us spoke, neither of us moved. Just as I was about to turn to go back into the darkness, Marci held up her pinky.
Memories flashed across my mind. ‘Don’t tell anyone, promise?’ ‘I promise.’
What had happened?
The dying world. It had been Marci’s idea, but I had believed it.
The light. It had been Mary Leigh’s idea, but I had believed it.
But now, I believed in nothing. Not light and not even amends. I didn’t believe in Marci. She didn’t believe in anything and she never had.
It was dark.
By Tess McKinley
Xovia
Kaylee Guilday
Viridian awoke early to the sound of her electronic alarm clock beeping incessantly. The digital numbers glowed bright green, burning her retinas in the darkly lit room. She grabbed the alarm clock, chucked it off the desk, and flipped back over, squeezing her eyes determinedly.
The beeping persisted, as she had known it would. Viridian groaned, drawing herself up and out of her small bed to grumpily pull the alarm clock plug from the wall. Rubbing her eyes, she peered over at the familiar golden light filtering through her heavy ashen oak blinds.
The thickly tinted window beside her bed filtered the violet light from outside to a shade of golden, as it would have looked on Earth. Viridian had never been to Earth, only seen pictures. It looked beautiful, but as she had lived on Xovia her whole life, she had never really desired to return to the place her ancestors had migrated from so long ago.
Sighing, she stretched and leaned down to pick the battered alarm clock from her tiled bedroom floor. She repeated this tiring cycle every morning. The only reason the alarm clock hadn’t broken by now is because she kept fixing it by following instruction manuals from the Valiv archives. It was late at night when she did this by secretly poring over hovercraft assembly books that she had stolen from the Valiv library.
In the Xovian community, there were five brackets: Lenest, Iclite, Crion, Valiv, and Agrifier. The two brackets that Viridian knew the best were her own bracket, Agrifier, and the engineering bracket, Valiv. Oh, what Viridian would give
to belong to the Valiv bracket. The Valiv bracket built and assembled all ideas formulated by Iclite, but they also came up with their own ideas on how to better travel across the terrestrial planet using different varieties of machinery. The Valiv bracket mainly consisted of the assembly of technology and most of their work was done in a pristine environment that helped better their abilities of telekinesis or metal-bending. The powers of telekinesis made it easier to screw in bolts and complicated parts of machinery using the mind, which was part of the reason why machines made by the Valiv bracket were so impressive. This power also made it easier to avoid being electrocuted or accidentally shocked when working around temperamental pieces of equipment. Metal-bending was also crucial to the function of this bracket. This power was used to create the bodies of hovercrafts, along with light switches, screws, and any other equipment needed without the use of a cast-iron. Combined, these two powers helped to keep the Xovian community’s technology functioning safely and properly.
On the other hand, Viridian belonged to the Agrifier bracket. Well, not that she really belonged. More like she was temporarily placed there, in her opinion.
The Agrifier bracket focused solely on agriculture. There were two separate powers available for manifesting in the Agrifier bracket, similar to the Valiv bracket. The powers that the Agrifier bracket included were chlorokinesis or zoolingualism. Chlorokinesis was the ability to manipulate and/or boost the growth of plants to one’s will, while zoolingualism was the talent to speak and/or control animals so that they would eat healthier, resulting in a better harvest. Both of these powers combined within the Agrifier bracket helped provide fine meals and supplies for the Xovian community.
Viridian set the alarm clock back on its resting place on the wooden end table and began to ready herself for the day. Tiredly, she ran a brush through her
long, silk, raven hair before tying it into a low bun and grabbed her rather unfashionable Agrifier uniform off of her small dresser. She pulled the pale green buttoned shirt that she wore every day over her head before grabbing tan, organic cotton overalls and slipping into them. She then plopped a wide brimmed straw hat upon her head and stepped into the dumpy, black rubber boots that were required for daily farming.
Two seconds after she had finished getting ready, there was a knock on the door. She opened it to find Maeve waiting there, smiling widely. “Morning! How’d you sleep?” She asked politely, even though she knew that Viridian hadn’t slept much due to her obsession with the hovercraft books. Viridian shrugged, smiling bashfully in response, and Maeve grimaced in disappointment. “Really? Again?”
“I know, I know,” Viridian responded tiredly, stepping out of her sleeping quarters into the slightly crowded Agrifier hallway to walk to the cafeteria with Maeve.
Maeve shot her a look. “You need to stop staying up so late.”
Viridian met her gaze. “Why? It’s not like anything’s going to change if I stop reading the books.”
Maeve didn’t respond, knowing that it was true. To be honest, she was growing worried about Viridian. Viridian seemed to almost resent their bracket, instead focusing all of her interest into a bracket she didn’t belong to. She peered over at Viridian’s slightly rumpled appearance. Her black hair seemed hastily combed through, and she had dark circles beneath her dark brown eyes. Her tan skin was beginning to take on a slightly pasty shade, probably from lack of sleep.
They reached the cafeteria, and Maeve decided to drop the topic, knowing that no matter what she said, she wouldn’t change Viridian’s mind. Quickly, they ate
lunch before heading to their first class of the day, Mathematics. Mathematics was in the Valivian quarters, so they’d have to travel through the Erian hallway.
As they made their way to class, Viridian’s mind whirled with thoughts of how she could build a miniature hovercraft model if she swiped a few metal scraps from the science lab.
“Hey.” Maeve’s voice snapped her out of her thoughts. Maeve gestured to the goggles around her neck.
“Thanks,” Viridian responded, before pulling on the heavily tinted goggles. Passageways between brackets didn’t have tinted glass, due to it being more expensive and some of the materials that went into the windows had to be imported from Earth. Because of this, when traveling between the different brackets, they were required to wear goggles in order to protect their eyes from the strong violet light.
Maeve cracked open the heavy door leading into the Erian passage and as soon as Viridian caught a glimpse of the hallway, bathed in violet light, she smiled slightly at the familiar sight. “Alright, let’s go,” Maeve said, striding into the empty corridor. Viridian followed her into the artificially oxygenated space, and within two minutes, they reached the door to the Valiv quarters. Viridian opened the door, and as soon as they were inside, both girls peeled off their goggles after shutting the heavy metal door behind them. Together, they made their way to mathematics class.
As soon as they reached the door to the classroom, a girl with bright blonde hair turned around to spot them. She rolled her eyes dramatically and shot an illnatured smile directly at Viridian, clearly having noticed her eye bags. “Sleep well, weed-puller?”
Viridian felt her stomach plummet as the rest of her classmates turned around and surveyed her run-down Agrifier uniform. “Actually, yes, I did, Echo.”
Echo was a spoiled girl from the Valiv bracket, and she never seemed to get enough of exploiting Viridian’s apparently absurd desire to become a hovercraft mechanic. She was the daughter of one of the most important officials in the Valiv bracket, which gave her the privilege of commandeering those around her.
Echo snarled back at her, eying the dark circles under Viridian’s eyes as proof against this claim. “Sure thing, weed-puller.” She cocked her head, and her shoulder length curly hair moved with it. “Let me guess,” Echo pretended to think. “You’re still hung up about joining the Valiv quarters?”
At this, the other Valiv students cackled. The thought of an Agrifier girl being anything but Agrifier was ridiculous. The Agrifier bracket was the poorest, and everyone knew it. Viridian froze. “I don’t want to join your bracket,” she lied.
“I want to build hovercrafts.”
“Yeah, and Earthens have powers,” Echo scoffed sarcastically. “You’d have better luck trying to breathe our atmosphere without an oxygen mask.”
The atmosphere on Xovia caused detrimental effects to humans due to a poisonous toxin called hezade. Within minutes of breathing it, it could knock any human unconscious, and if exposed to this toxin for too long, the toxin could result in death. To overcome this challenge, when the first Earthens migrated to Xovia, they had built living quarters designated for each particular group with a certain range of powers. To this day, these buildings still existed.
Instead of responding to Echo, she ducked her head and slid dejectedly into her assigned seat. It wasn’t fair. Echo made fun of her, but Viridian knew that Echo had no talent whatsoever when it came to building hovercrafts, even though she was a Valiv. The girl may as well have been a brick wall, in more ways than one.
Viridian bit her lip angrily, hot tears threatening to spill from her eyes. Why was it so ridiculous for her to want to do something outside of the limitations of her powers? She could be just as good as any of the Valiv students without having to use telekinesis or metal-bending, and she knew it. No matter how much Viridian wanted things to change, she also knew that they wouldn’t.
It wasn’t possible for someone from Agrifier to join Valiv.
The mathematics professor started the lesson, but Viridian was barely able to listen. Her mind was elsewhere, where she wasn’t judged by her bracket, but instead judged for being herself. Somewhere where she could build hovercrafts with her bare hands without having to worry about needing a power beneficial to Valiv. Her mind would be enough. If only that was true.
Two hours later, Viridian was uprooting weeds in a stuffy room, sweat pouring down her back as she squinted through the headache-inducing red light to spot any plants that she had missed. She deemed that she had done a sufficient job and clambered to her feet, her legs groaning in protest from the squatting position she had been holding for the past half hour.
She wiped sweat half-heartedly from her brow with a soiled glove before sliding them off to begin her true work. She eyed a citrus plant and stretched her hands out towards it, letting her fingers mentally take hold of the stem. She shut her eyes in concentration and felt her consciousness wrap around the plant, before spreading her fingers up in a blooming motion. Her dark brows tilted downwards as she did this, the familiar and painful sensation of pressure pressing on her temple
as she envisioned the plant’s leaves unfurling to reveal small yellow orbs of fruit. A sharp headache split through her mind and she lost her focus.
Viridian cracked an eye open to find that the only difference was that the small tree had grown a few centimeters and that a few more lemons dotted the tree’s slender branches. Huffing in disappointment, she glared at the plant as if it was the plant’s fault that she lacked plant-growing abilities.
Viridian yawned and forced herself to stay upright as a slight dizzy spell overtook her. Using powers was exhausting for everyone on Xovia, no matter their bracket placement. Viridian sighed again and squinted through the hazy red light that helped improve plant growth to the glass door leading to the livestock department. The ventilation vents kicked up overhead, thankfully projecting some fresh air into the stifling room.
Viridian decided that she’d go visit Maeve and take a small break from her Agrifier duties to see how she was doing with the animals. She stretched and carefully made her way through the neat rows of over to the clear glass door, ignoring the disapproving looks that a few other Agrifier students gave her.
Quickly, she opened the door and scanned around for her friend, who was probably working with the goats or chickens around this time. She didn’t find her in the chicken enclosure, so she traveled deeper into the incredibly expansive zoo. As she traveled further through the area, she realized that she hadn’t been here in a while. Grass spread over the dirt floor freely in large patches. Small ashen oak sheds were placed randomly in certain areas, where grain and feed were kept.
Large, leafy trees blocked gigantic tinted windows from view, providing fresh and comfortable air for the zoo. A golden glow filtered through the colossal leaves, casting a slightly golden haze upon the area that was much brighter than Viridian’s seemingly gloomy growroom.
Viridian sighed. In her opinion, anything would be better than working in the growroom. Her desire to become a hovercraft mechanic was only made stronger by the dull conditions she was forced to work in, but she could only fantasize about working in a bright, clean-smelling, sanitized environment.
Up ahead, Maeve was grinning as a brown and white goat snarfed down the raisins she held in a flat palm. Once the goat finished the raisins, it head-butted her and she giggled before pulling a medium-sized salt block from her pocket and dropping it upon the ground. The goat bleated in satisfaction before lowering its head to lick the salt block resting upon the soiled ground of its enclosure.
“Are you supposed to be feeding them raisins?” Viridian asked, leaning over the corralled enclosure where Maeve was standing. Viridian knew well that she was a sucker for giving the animals treats, even when she wasn’t supposed to.
Maeve jumped, her green eyes widening as she spun around to find Viridian perched lazily on the wooden fence. “Viridian! What are you doing here?” The goat next to her startled at the erratic movement, bleating frantically. Maeve consoled the goat, placing a comforting hand on its back, and it quieted its bizarre yelling.
Maeve turned to meet Viridian’s gaze, choosing to ignore her statement about treating the goat to raisins. “Aren't you supposed to be growing lemons?” She raised an eyebrow, placing a hand on her hip.
Viridian hung her head in mock exhaustion, groaning dramatically. “Can we not talk about that?”
Maeve grimaced, knowing well that Viridian was neglecting her Agrifier duties. Again. “Okay,” she said, climbing over the gate to hop down next to where Viridian was standing. “Let’s talk for a bit, but then you have to get back to the growroom.”
Viridian sprung up, seemingly cured from her spell of exhaustion. “Okay!”
Beside her, Maeve sighed.
“Could I tell you about my new idea?” Viridian asked. Maeve nodded in response, readying herself for another one of Viridian’s extravagant mechanic ideas revolving around the Valiv bracket. “Okay, so I was thinking that if we…”
Suddenly a large ear-splitting siren shattered the air, and with it, everything slowed down. Viridian and Maeve whirled to look at each other, eyes rounded in fear. They were both thinking the same thing: one of the brackets had hezade poisoning.
Xovians were trained relentlessly for this moment, in case they had to actually endure such a disastrous situation. And they had been lucky enough not to have to experience that terror in all the one thousand years that humans had inhabited Xovia. That was, until now.
Maeve panicked, her green eyes widening in horror. “We’ve got to get to our sleeping quarters!” She yelled over the blaring siren. She reached for Viridian’s hand, but Viridian pulled away, her mind swirling. “What are you doing?” Maeve hissed at her, reaching for her hand again. “We’ve got to go! What if it’s already in here with us!” Maeve scanned her surroundings, eyeing everything like it was out to get her.
Viridian rejected Maeve’s gesture again. “The issue would have already been fixed by Valiv if it had been any other bracket that had been polluted.”
“What are you on about?” Maeve spat, her stomach churning with fear that the poisonous toxin was already in the livestock department. She was frustrated at Viridian now because if they stayed here much longer, they could be in serious danger.
Viridian turned to her. “The Valiv bracket’s been poisoned.”
Maeve paused, her stomach doing somersaults. “No, you’re wrong.”
Viridian had to be wrong. There was no way that the Valiv bracket could be poisoned, because if they were, they were all doomed. No one else knew how to fix machinery that technologically advanced.
“This is my chance,” Viridian breathed. “No one else knows how to fix machinery like that without powers.”
Maeve caught on. “No. You’re not going anywhere near that bracket. We don’t know anything about which bracket’s been contaminated, and I’m not about to let you become some martyr.”
Viridian shook her head, backing away towards the door of the greenroom, which led to the Erian hallway and down to the Valiv bracket. “No. I’ve got to do this Maeve. This is what I’ve been waiting for.”
Maeve watched in disbelief as Viridian whirled around, dashing into the greenhouse and towards the Valiv bracket. --------------------
Viridian’s rubber boots skidded noisily on the tiled floor as she shoved her tinted goggles on and sprinted through the Erian hallway. This time, instead of the violet-magenta light filling the hallway being comforting, it seemed eerie. Ignoring the odd sensation, she lifted up the collar of her shirt to cover her mouth in case hezade had infiltrated the Erian corridor and continued down the long hallway. She rounded the corner and nearly tripped when she saw Echo frantically trying to mess with the oxygen controls to the Valiv bracket, her cheeks stained with tears. “What?” She began confusedly and Echo whipped around to find her staring. Viridian froze, the familiar feeling of inadequateness invading her mind as it usually did when Echo looked at her.
Echo furiously wiped away the tears and tried again to fix the oxygen levels using her telekinesis, but her efforts were fruitless, just as they had been the first three times before Viridian had arrived. “Well, don’t just stand there, do something!” She wailed after her fourth attempt was unsuccessful.
Viridian jolted into action, suddenly remembering what she was here for. She produced a rectangular temperature gauge from her pocket that she usually would use to monitor the optimal temperature for the growth of plants, and used the edge of it to pop out the screws that Echo had already loosened.
After she had done that, she pried open the cover and stared at the tangle of wires within. If this oxygen filter was anything like the hovercar diagrams then the plug she’d have to attach to the blue one would be… green? By attaching the green plug to the blue one, special machines would suck the toxic, polluted air into machines and pump the oxygen contents back out long enough to restore the whole Valiv bracket to consciousness.
Viridian thought harder, her brow furrowing in stress. Or maybe if she activated the nitrogen machines and upped the oxygen fans, there’d be enough atmosphere to dilute the hezade so that she could get them out of their quarters. Once they woke up, someone more experienced could completely fix the atmospheric imbalance in the Valiv bracket.
She bit her lip nervously, the underwhelming amount of options terrifying. If she didn’t fix the oxygen levels in time…
Viridian shook her head. No. No time to think about that. She was here now, and she had to fix it to save the Valiv bracket.
Behind her, Echo choked out a sob. “They’re going to die, aren’t they?”
Viridian chose the first option.
She rummaged around in her pocket and pulled out the thick, rubber gloves that she usually used for pulling weeds. Hopefully they’d keep her from being electrocuted. ‘Weed puller,’ Echo’s derogatory statement from earlier today resounded in her mind, but Viridian ignored it. Echo’s opinion didn’t matter right now.
Her heart pounded in her chest, and Viridian was suddenly painfully aware that time was running out. Her mind struggled to carry out the tasks that she knew she had to do. Taking a deep breath, she disconnected the blue wire from the nitrogen machines and attached it to the green wire that symbolized the oxygen filters.
Viridian stepped back nervously, already hearing the machines from inside the Valiv quarters kick to life. Hopefully she didn’t mess this up.
“Did you fix it?” Echo’s hoarse voice interrupted her thoughts.
Viridian turned around to find Echo, blue eyes puffy with salty tears. It was strange to see Echo like this, since she always had been higher up than Viridian had. Echo normally found joy in exploiting Viridian’s absurd hovercraft mechanic ideas, but now she didn’t mention it.
Viridian’s expression softened. She couldn’t even imagine what Echo had seen behind those doors. Images of people lying motionless on the ground flashed through her mind and she shook her head, trying not to let herself think about that. “I think so,” she replied.
She thought for a moment, before holding out her hand to Echo.
Baffled, Echo glanced up confusedly at Viridian. She had always been mean to her, so why was Viridian being so nice? Echo decided not to dwell on it, and instead focused her attention on her parents, who were still trapped in the Valiv quarters with the toxin hezade. Echo took her hand gratefully. “Thank you.”
Viridian nodded in response, and it was then that the adults from the other brackets finally made it into the violet-bathed hallway.
*** Two hours later, everyone in the Valiv quarters had finally awoken, thanks to Viridian’s quick thinking. Everyone was currently crowded in the Agrifier cafetorium, as it was one of the largest meeting places in the whole Xovian community. After the hezade scare in the Eridian hallway, everything had snowballed.
Echo was crying, embracing her parents desperately while Viridian stood with Maeve, who had been furious with her for acting so rashly, but was now relieved that she was okay.
“So what’d you do to fix the oxygen filters?” Maeve questioned, peeling her eyes away from the strange sight of Echo crying.
Viridian thought back to earlier, but she couldn’t really remember, as she had been so panicked at the moment. “I think I rerouted the oxygen filters to the machines that filter the air through the ventilation system,” she thought aloud.
Maeve held up a hand. “On second thought, nevermind,” she sighed, shaking her head. “I’m just glad everyone’s okay,” she hugged herself before turning to shoot Viridian a pointed look. “Especially you.”
Viridian felt awful, knowing that she had scared everyone half to death. She stepped forward and embraced Maeve, who still looked worried. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Maeve said, before pulling back and grabbing Viridian’s forearms. “But if you ever do anything like that again, I will personally kill you myself.”
Viridian giggled. “Okay, okay. Point taken,” Viridian held her hands up in mock defeat.
“Viridian?” Worried shouts echoed through the large cafetorium.
Viridian froze at the voices, instantly recognizing them. “Mom and dad?” She shouted, standing on her tiptoes to search over the large mass of heads. Across the cafeteria, she spotted her parents making their way towards her through the cloud, clad in their dumpy Agrifier uniforms. Viridian startled, quickly pushing her way through the crowd to find them. The crowd parted and Viridian ran into her parents’ open arms, ready to burst into tears.
“We were so worried!” Viridian’s mom sobbed, smoothing Viridian’s tangled hair back from her brow. Viridian hugged her frail mother tighter, hoping that after today, things would change for the Agrifier bracket.
“Where were you?” Viridian’s dad questioned, his dark eyes troubled.
“Where were you?” Viridian responded, wondering why her parents hadn’t been in the Agrifier cafetorium to begin with.
“They told us to go to our bunks and wait,” Viridian’s dad said, his thick brows drawing downwards in distaste. Viridian mirrored his reaction, knowing that the Lenest officials had most likely gone around telling everyone what to do before actually addressing the problem. This normally happened whenever something was wrong, and every time it did, the Agrifier bracket was told to stay in their bunks.
“You were working in the cafetorium again?” Viridian asked, already knowing the answer.
Her parents exchanged a look, knowing that Viridian would be upset to hear their response. Viridian’s mother nodded, her green eyes worried.
Viridian huffed in disbelief. “They know about Mom’s allergies, why would they make her work in that environment?”
Suddenly Mr. Dikela, Echo’s father, injected himself into the conversation and the topic was dropped. “You are Viridian?”
Viridian’s parents' eyes grew wide at the sight of the Valiv official acknowledging their family. Viridian gulped and nodded. Echo suddenly appeared at Mr. Dikela’s side, her blue eyes focused on Viridian’s dark ones.
“And these are your parents?” Mr. Dikela questioned.
Viridian nodded timidly again, before realizing that she should probably respond verbally. She cleared her throat. “Yes, these are my parents,” she nodded to her mother and father.
Her mother and father shifted awkwardly, clearly confused, before Viridian’s dad stretched a hand out as a greeting. “I’m Victor Illea, and this is my wife, Sakura.”
Viridian was suddenly aware of her parents’ seemingly haggard appearance compared to Mr. Dikela’s pristine aura. Her parents were deathly thin, their baggy clothes hanging off their bony frames despite all the food they helped make for the other brackets, while Mr. Dikela was nearly all muscle. His outfit was one that was fit for a king, lavish gold embellishments hanging off the shoulders of his clean white uniform.
“Pleasure to meet you,” Mr. Dikela shook their hands politely before respectively stretching out a hand to Viridian. “I’d like to thank you, Ms. Illea, for saving my life and the lives of the others who reside in the Valiv bracket.”’
By now, the majority of the brackets in the cafetorium were crowded around their group all waiting to see what happened. At Mr. Dikela’s statement, there was a collective gasp before murmurs of doubt traveled through the crowd.
Viridian went tense at all the attention on her. “Um, you’re welcome,” she lamented dumbly.
Mr. Dikela noticed her discomfort and held up a hand, silencing the crowd. He looked back at Viridian, his silvery-gray eyes concerned. “How did you do it?”
Viridian shrugged modestly, not wanting to admit that she had stolen books from the library. “I rerouted the oxygen filters to the atmospheric vacuum machines.”
Mr. Dikela watched her, baffled. “And how did you know how to do that?”
Viridian decided to opt for the truth. “I know the basics of some of the machinery, because I had to use some of the hovercraft assembly books to help repair my broken alarm clock.” She peered at the ground in embarrassment. “And I ended up finding them really interesting, so I studied them.”
More shocked whispered traveled through the crowd and Viridian bit her lip. Again, Mr. Dikela held up a hand and the murmurs were silenced. “Well, even if this is a little unexpected, I am very grateful that you find our bracket intriguing. You saved several lives today, and for this, everyone in the Valiv bracket owes you a large thank you. Is there anything we could do to repay your generosity?”
“Can I be a hovercraft mechanic?” Viridian blurted, before immediately flushing red in embarrassment.
Mr. Dikela paused in surprise, causing a long stretch of silence where Viridian chided herself on her outburst. “Of course,” he responded, and Viridian’s head snapped up in surprise. “Consider it done. Anything else?”
Viridian thought for a moment, and it was then when she realized what she wanted. “Two things if you wouldn’t mind?” She asked tentatively, hoping that she didn’t sound greedy.
Mr. Dikela nodded, signaling for Viridian to continue.
“I’d like for the rest of my parent’s life to be paid so they don’t have to work any more. My mom and dad both work too hard, and they hardly get any of
the rations for themselves,” Viridian gestured to her thin parents, who looked astounded at what was happening. “And one more thing. I’d like for anyone to be able to join whatever bracket they’d like, regardless of what powers they might have. I’ve gone nearly my whole life being judged because of my group instead of my personal desires, and I don’t want anyone else to have to experience that.”
Mr. Dikela paused. “I’d have to consult with the rest of the board on that last decision, but your first two requests can certainly be granted.” Mr. Dikela clapped, and the rest of the directors on the Xovian board immediately convened and began discussing the matter.
Viridian turned happily to her parents, ginning nervously. Her parents were embracing and Maeve shot her a thumbs up from the crowd.
The board of directors dispersed, and Viridian quickly turned to face them, wondering what they had decided. There was a long stretch of silence before Mr. Dikela nodded and Viridian gaped, shocked that they had actually granted all of her requests. “Alright!” Mr. Dikela announced, his voice echoing regally in the large room. “From this day forward, no individual shall be judged based upon which bracket they are born in. The change will not be imminent, but gradual,” he added, eyeing Viridian to make sure that she understood what he was saying.
Cheers erupted through the cavernous cafetorium. Viridian paused in shock, watching in awe as Maeve and her parents ran forward to embrace her. Even Echo came forth to congratulate her.
From that moment forward, no one was judged based upon their group. Instead, their personal preferences were taken into account, and everyone lived happily ever after.
--------------------
By Isabella Merhi
The Panther Collection, Volume Two of Paul VI High School designed by The Literary Magazine Club.
By Tess McKinley
By Isabella Merhi
By Tess McKinley
By Isabella Merhi
By Tess McKinley
By Tess McKinley
By Isabella Merhi
By Tess McKinley
By Isabella Merhi
By Isabella Merhi
By Tess McKinley