Quietus Intellect

It smelled like pig’s liver.

My feet cried their brick weight song and my nose recoiled in disgust. The shuffle of my bare feet against the wet black pavement was the only sound pressing the night air, save for the timid beat of my heart. My breath made pretty clouds in front of me as I walked, Daddy's black raincoat concealing me from visibility.

No one was out passed this time. No one was allowed to be. Mama warned me almost every day to come straight back after school. It's her fault I was out there, really. She knows I'm too curious to resist the investigation of Dark Sky. I want to know. I need to know.

A lone bike past curfew raced faster than legal to get home, blindsiding me. I dove behind a brick wall, scraping my knee. It took every ounce of emotion in me not to cry as I cradled my leg to my chest. The silence enveloped me into its arms, babying me back into a quiet state of mind and sound. It slowly calmed me down, the uniqueness of it all. My whispering whimpers of pain were gradually snubbed out by my eyes drying and staring in awe at the emptiness. There was always noise. It was so strange as a young girl in a society such as the Regime's to hear nothing but her own body. Nothing but slight sounds of insects crawling against the damp cement. No obsessive speech or the sound of bicycle bells. No small-rimmed tires moving in synchronization.

Though it wasn't too bad, the noises. After all, people are only allowed to go a certain speed to certain places on their bikes. You're only allowed to speak when you are spoken to by a Victor, someone of higher status who is clothed in colors other than beige, grey, or black. So, there isn't much "obsessive chatter." However, right then, there was nothing.

There were no lanterns or lights lit along the streets like I've secretly read from Mother's journal. They used to do that before they were obliterated a decade and a half ago. That's what she wrote. Lights along the side of the streets so that you could see. And if they were provided so you could see, that must mean you were also once permitted to walk at night.

Out at night?

It was almost as if being outside during the Dark Sky meant that there were no rules. The Regime could not harm any of us. It was so safe. So why would they not want us out here? As a small child, I could only come up with one answer:

They did not want us safe.

The people who promised to keep our health and happiness in their hands, who would control how we would spend our time-designated lives, and who told us that we could trust them...destruction. They only wanted power and destruction thrusted upon us all.

This I could answer. This I understood. But what I didn't comprehend, and what I still do not, was why. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason as to what the Regime was doing to us all.

I glanced down at my wrist. Burned and branded into my skin with scalding silver metallic material was my date.

1200M103278

In direct translation, I would be assigned to my day of death at 12:00 a.m on October 20th, 3278. No one has the knowledge of how they die. The reason we stop breathing is under no one's comprehension except for the Regime's. We simply are to walk in with our families on Deathday and say goodbye. Afterwards, the Tins take us by each arm. They are officers – Victors – of the Regime who can manipulate metal and read minds. They drag us into the Red Room. The giant red door. Inside is soundproof. No one knows what lies inside until their Deathday.

Everyone is usually accepting of their Deathdays. The extremely fortunate ones are the elders. They have had entire lives to live. But the youth deaths, such as me, have to accept our extinctions without living through friendships, marriages, or having children. I will be seventeen when I die. There are exceptions, however, where somebody becomes terminally ill or is murdered or gets into an accident. The Regime handles this by simply burning a new metal band into the opposite hand on the corpse and causes perpetrators to disappear. In this way, the Regime is still in control. There is no escape.

I touch the locket stashed in my coat. The silver is molded into the shape of a heart with a thin crack through the front. When Grandmother gave it to me, she warned that I am to never let anyone see the precious gift; love – or even a symbol of love – should be the one thing we protect from powerful hands. It is the only thing the Regime can't touch.

I let go of the locket and tap the band stuck to my wrist. Before Grandmother died, she told me a story of when the Regime first began the blessed dictatorship. A friend of hers refused to obey or bow down in fear. She would never allow the Regime to burn a day of death into her wrist. So, when I asked what was so insane about this friend that made history, her response turned my guts inside out.

She killed herself, paid the butcher to cut her arms off, and had her body buried somewhere far away where no one would ever find her grave or her body.

It's sick for me to even feel it, but I was almost relieved to hear that there was at least one person to fight back. It was awful the way she did it, but to her it seemed like the only way for her to not be controlled by the Regime. But from what I gather, it also wasn't truly fighting back, was it? She died. She ended her life to rebel the Deathdays, but she didn't rebel the power itself. She didn't fight to live her life the way she deserved. Living like this isn't living. We're simply walking wooden stalks with strings attached to our limbs.

Nonetheless, I remain grateful for what Grandmother told me. Her words serve as a constant reminder that human nature spins endlessly in the same place, taking for granted the most blissful part of the experience and becoming too dizzy to stand when it abuses that peak like a drug. At one time, there were people walking under Dark Sky. There were conversations between strangers in public. It made the world ignorant of evils lurking until one by one, those good things were stolen from them. The Regime is the puppet master and we are the puppets. I wanna go outside when the day is black. I wanna talk without being spoken to. I wanna choose who has power over me, or if I want any power over me at all.

Mother told me these are bad thoughts, that I could be imprisoned for thinking such things. I should have a collaborative, cooperative, and compliant mindset. The three C's that we were taught in school should be followed through our entire lives.

I stood up again, taking my hand away from the band as if it would burn me. It scared me to think about having to cooperate and adhere and obey. It wasn't like listening to Mommy. It was taking a hold of a hand only to realize the fingers are jabbing hooks, dragging you to a path of pain you would never escape.

"Hey!"

I jumped, head flashing over to where the sharp, whispering voice had come from. A boy. My age. I should have run away or been afraid, but his beige shirt and jeans did not match his icy grey eyes. I've never seen someone with grey eyes. Uncle Gale had blue eyes, as Mommy told me. But how does someone have striking grey?

I stayed immobile in my tracks, as did he. We both knew silently that neither of us should be out, and both of us should run. For it is an ethical and moral duty to report anyone seen after dark to the Regime. Being caught in front of the boy would have meant eternal solitary confinement, just like any other consequence. But neither one of us willed the first step away. It was strange to see another single person in the midst of a whole world. Just two people. Not the three million population that is supposed to surround us every day.

"You're not supposed to be out here," he finally hissed, blinking out of an entranced and bewildered state.

I crossed my small arms. "Neither are you."

He tightened his lips together and seemed to be battling in his own mind for a moment. Then he looked back and forth across the street, behind him, and left again. To my utter shock, he sprinted toward me and grabbed my banded wrist, yanking me behind an alley with him. He released a sigh of relief after checking if anyone had seen.

"Where's your mommy and daddy?" I asked, shaking his grip off of my band.

"I am Individualized," he said, no emotion in his voice.

I stared at him in surprise and sympathy. His family is completely eradicated. Once you have no adult to care for you by blood, you are left to fend on your own. Whether you understand the rules of the Regime or not is on you. You learn as you go. My immediate thought was that this boy didn't understand that he could not be out, but he told me I wasn't allowed to be either. He understood entirely. The cause of his disobedience was unclear. Was he only curious like me? Did he desire to know too?

"How long have you been alone?" I asked softly.

He shrugged. "Where's your parents?"

I looked at him carefully. He seemed so smart and mature. But despite his clear intelligence on the street and probably in school, he had hurt. So much hurt inside. It had to explain why there was ice in his grey eyes.

"Home," I said. "Sleeping."

He nodded. Then he looks up at the sky, gazing at the twinkles that wave to me every night.

"I'm Crynn," he told me.

I smiled a little, holding out my hand while rocking onto my tip toes and back. "Eulalia."

"Okay," he said, returning the slightest grin and grabbing my hand. "I'll see you later, Eulalia."

I nodded, smile fading as he checked his surroundings before running away. My eyes had briefly scanned over his band. He wasn't to die until he was forty-eight.

It was hard to make friends. It always had been. I hadn't met a single person who died even near the same age as me. The Regime was kind enough to make most Deathdays middle-aged to elderly, but there were us exceptions. I felt even worse for the children my age of six and younger. It was so heartbreaking.

I couldn't help but feel like I could have my first friend. It wasn't as if it were illegal, although it had been discussed among the Regime workers to make it so no one would have free will to visit whoever they wanted under no schedule or important reason. However, despite wanting Crynn to be a potential candidate, it was terrifying to wonder.

Walking back home that night, the world fell silent once more. All that was left was my own breathing and heartbeat again. The déjà vu of quiet.

What would Mother say to me this time, I had wondered...