The room is enormous.

The window is enormous.

The walls are enormous.

Is this room meant to hold some kind of huge beast? This room could comfortably hold like 2 full grown dragons, and yet I’m just a small person who takes up less than .001% of the space. There’s no way I’m supposed to be in here alone. Perhaps I’m supposed to have a roommate or something.

Who am I kidding, no one else lives in this room. No one does yet, at least.

A blue jay flies near the window and sits perched on the ledge right in front of me. It looks at me curiously before flying away. I place the palm of my hand to the window. It must be nice to be a bird. We were right in front of each other, but the bird isn’t trapped. That bird can leave and fly wherever it wants. I wonder how it feels to see a confined human from its eyes.

I wonder if I look like a trapped to human to Gaia eyes.

I sigh quietly and drop my hand; I tear my gaze away from the gigantic window and blink a few times to fix my burning dry eyes. I’ve been staring outside motionless for hours now. The garden outside is enormous, enormous and utterly beautiful.

As expected of the palace garden.

Everything is just so very big and beautiful, and while it’s perfection is captivating it’s just adding more towards how terrified I am.

I’m terrified, it’s all so terrifying.

The bedroom itself is just as beautiful as the garden and the interior of the rest of castle.
Clean, calm, and gorgeous. The walls are a striking blue that looks like the same color of the ocean. The same color I’ve seen on TV and in pictures. It’s smooth to the touch and radiates a strange warmth that I didn’t expect from an average wall. It’s comforting only in the slightest way. The floor is smooth and tiled. Each tile a very light pearl pink, each one perfect and identical. Had I not stared hard at the ground in my first hours here, I would have thought it was just a strange shade of white.

In the middle of the room is a bed large enough to fit at least 20 people lying side by side. It’s round and littered with lots of decorative pillows. The covers are white with swirls of brown and the same blue as the walls. The pillows varying in shape, size, and shades of white, blue, and light brown. It was as soft as how I’d imagined lying on clouds would feel. Like sleeping on nothing. I’d only touched it once since arriving though.

I haven’t actually slept since I got here. The small naps at the window don’t count. I have fallen asleep only because my body could no longer keep itself awake, but I never felt like I actually slept. Each nap was more like a slip into a dark void. I didn’t dream. I didn’t wake feeling refreshed. I honestly felt worse after each time I fell asleep, but it’s impossible for me to not fall asleep even in my current stressed state. I just wish that I could finally find the motivation and exhaustion to really sleep, and dream, and reboot.

My body needs to reboot.

Why am I not a robot?

I’ve spent around 85% of my time here sitting here on the pillow-lined ledge that looks out at the expansive garden, not looking at the garden itself, but rather staring out into the sky. 5% went towards my slips into unfulfilling sleeps. The other 10% has been divided between using the restroom and halfheartedly exploring while standing up during my trips to and from the bathroom. It’s all so beautiful, and had I not been thrown into this situation so suddenly I might have actually enjoyed looking around and finding out the secrets of the room.

But I wasn’t in the mood. This isn’t my home, and this isn’t my room. So, I settle for staring out at the sky. It’s the only thing that hasn’t changed during this whole sudden life shift after all.

The sound of the door opening across the room doesn’t even startle me at this point. It’s just the human boy who comes in here to bring me my meals. He’s the only person I’ve come in contact with since coming to this room. The familiar sound of the metallic tray being set down on the large wooden table near the door is the only sound he makes. He only comes in to bring meals, and when I don’t eat them he silently carries them back out. He says nothing. And I’ve made no attempt to say anything either. What is there to even say?

Hello fellow human, you are here too? I am human as well. Are you well?

Fuck no. We both know our places, and we know that the other is doomed no matter what words of positivity we have to offer. He will die of unnatural causes after the Gaia in the castle no longer want him, and I will stay here until I fuck up something myself and die at the hands of my Queen.

My Queen that I have yet to actually meet.

I haven’t even gotten a good look at him. I glanced at him briefly when he came in the first few times, but I can’t get myself to take a good look at him or to touch the food he delivers. I can’t even find a reason to entertain the thought of eating a meal. At the thought of consuming anything besides crackers and water my body has the urge to fall on the ground and cry out in anguish.

So I decide not to eat in fear of falling apart. In order to keep myself calm all I can do is stare out of this window and get lost in my thoughts. They begin to drift back to the happenings of the week before.

---

The car pulls up to the large gate that leads to the last and innermost ring of the Capital. The first ring. The castle. The driver talks in hushed tones to someone out his window before the gate slowly opens. We drive in and pass houses that are each 3 to 5 stories high. It takes around 15 minutes before we reach another gate. It opens like the first, and I know that we’ve finally reached the castle itself. The car slows to a stop, and my heart thuds painfully against my ribcage.

It feels like it’s going to jump out.

I reach for the door handle before pulling back. I have to wait until the door is opened for me.
Not even 5 seconds later my door is pulled open by the man who drove me here. I swing my legs out of the vehicle letting my heels touch the concrete of the ground. Standing up to my full height I shade my eyes from the sunlight. Sitting in that car with its heavily tinted windows for almost an hour had made this sudden exposure all the more difficult. I squint and blink a few times hoping that my vision clears up soon. After giving my eyes a moment to adjust I can finally see the exterior of the castle up close.

It takes my breath away.

I have to crane my neck just to see the top from where I’m standing here at the entrance steps. It looked big from afar, but here right in front of me can I really accept how truly grandiose it is. An exterior that I thought was light blue turns out to be shiny and silver. Not metallic like the buildings in the 3rd, but like rock with the same reflective quality as silver. It just reflected the color of sky and appeared blue from a distance.

Looking behind me I can see that my driver has already taken the limo and begun driving back down the long driveway off the castle property. Now, I’m truly on my own. I close my eyes and picture the faces of Tao, Kris, and Luhan. I let the thought of them motivate me to move my feet forward.

I focus back on the front of the castle. At the top of a set of wide stairs is an entryway guarded by 8 women wearing deep purple outfits that look a lot like protective clothing. Their faces are stoic and they pay me no mind even as I walk up the stairs and right passed them.

The chill from outside vanishes as the warmth from within the castle encompasses me. Tall pillars hold up the structure. Each one a beautiful and pure white with flecks of a light pearl pink. They stretch up to the roof nearly 6 stories high and stand strong and proud. The floor sparkles, and looking down it appears nearly transparent. Small glimpses of color being the only indication that it isn’t just glass. It must be some kind of mineral. The stairs are the most noticeable thing upon initial entry. They’re wide like the ones outside but are covered by a cream rug with purple trimming similar to the outfits of the women outside. The lead up to a second floor hallway. I can’t tell what’s beyond that.

A woman in a dark grey pantsuit greets me. Her red hair is slicked back into a tight bun that pulls her facial features back. Her straight face looks even straighter than I assume it is when she lets her face loose.

A nod of her head is all that I’m given before she wordlessly leads me to a different location. From just her demeanor I can tell that she doesn’t like me. Probably doesn’t like my kind either. She seems irate, but is working through it to appear polite. She looks as though she doesn’t want me here.

Trust me lady, I don’t want to be here either.

After traveling around the stairs and to a foyer with the same shining floor as the entrance hall I notice the 6 figures kneeling before a large chair. A large chair is in front of them and in it sits a woman who I don’t think is the Queen. She doesn’t seem like it at least. She scowls at the lot of us and looks entirely disinterested in this whole meeting. She couldn’t be the Queen. The Queen wants us here right?

I glance around the room and see frail men around the room along the walls. They look weak and small. I can only see the crown of their heads, their faces are parallel to the ground. I rip my gaze away from them and catch the eye of the woman in the chair. I bow at the waist and then look her back in the eyes. Eyes that are a piercing blue. Her hair is long and blonde and cascades down her shoulders in tight curls. I swallow and transfer my gaze to my white heels.

I situate myself at the end of the row of girls, and kneel next to the 6 who are already here. I hope I’m not the last.

Assuming that she isn’t the Queen, I don’t fear looking up at her like some of the others in this row do. It feels as though we are being observed like fish at a market. It’s nerve wracking and I feel lower than I ever have under her emotionless gaze. She just stares at the 7 of us before directing her attention behind us. “2, 3, and 6.” Her voice is loud and commanding. All of us jump at the sound. Hearing her finally talk makes me realize that I must have been the last to arrive. How embarrassing.

The sounds of snapping resound in my ears and I blink rapidly at the sudden sound. The next thing I know, the girl next to me -and 2 others- collapse lifelessly to the ground. 3 female guards stand behind their unmoving bodies after having silently come up and broken the girls’ necks. I’m stunned speechless. My mouth drops open, and I quickly snap it closed. What just happened?

The woman waves her hand allowing the guards to drag the motionless bodies away. She rolls her eyes. “I really despise when these kinds of women pretend to be humans just to get into the palace. Pathetic.” My eyes widen slightly.

They weren’t even human.

I risk a glance to my right to look at the other girls. The 3 others were shaking, some more than others, while I realized I had barely reacted at all. I was shocked…but I wasn’t scared. I knew that this is what I was getting in to.

2 of the girls burst into tears on the spot and begin to beg for their lives. I wish that they’d just be quiet. It seems riskier to make noise than it is to sit silently in this situation. They don’t seem to realize their pleas are only making our situation worse. It was obvious that the 2 of them had never even seen mutants before. I honestly don’t even know if they really knew what they were. Their clothes are so similar to what I can remember wearing before coming to the capital. Brown. Comfortable. Unnoticeable. They must have been taken directly from a village and brought here. Their cries seemed to not affect the woman in the chair at all.

The other girl, well she wore rags. Much closer to the clothes I was wearing not even 5 months ago. She was shaking, but it was clear that it was from anger rather than fear like the other 2. She must have been dragged here against her will from the 3rd ring.

I could see the hate in her brown eyes even from my spot, and I’m the furthest away from her. She looks tense, as if it’s taking every ounce of control that she has to hold back from doing something stupid. I wonder if this is what I looked like to the boys the first days I was there. Hateful. Angry. Hell, I was afraid of her. Or at least I would have been if I thought that I was in danger of being at the receiving end of her hatred. I turn away from the others and look down at my hands that are resting on my knees.

I stand out, that much is clear, and it makes me feel even more anxious. My clothes are clean, colorful even. The bright lavender shows that I’m not from some random slum in the city, even though I am. Had I not been dragged to the 2nd ring I’d look just like the girl with the hate in her eyes. The girl who shows as much hate as I felt. The hate I still kind of feel, but have push away for a select few Charmers. I look and feel the least apprehensive out of the 7 of us…erm well I mean 4. I feel like a traitor.

Willingly here.

Trying to get into the castle.

I’m a traitor to my own kind. It’s humbling in such a painful way that I have a brief thought of getting up and walking back out. Going back and taking back my promise to do this. They would understand right? How can I go in with a clean conscious after seeing that I’m the only human girl here that wants to do this? Had there been at least one other, then I wouldn’t feel as burdened. But there isn’t. It’s just me. I swallow my saliva.

What am I doing?

The woman in the chair just stares at us in silence for 30 minutes. 30 long minutes filled only with the sporadic sobs of the 2 crying girls taken directly from their villages. Her eyes land on me and she just glares. I blink back. I just wish I could calm my pounding heart. Am I going to be the next to die? Without removing her eyes from me she says, “Take the rest of them to
the Southern Preparatory for Girls.”

The girl that reminds me of myself stands up on her feet at that and looks as though she’s going to fight back. I look at her with wide eyes. She’s going to get herself killed! The sound of the guards moving into action leads to her pull a large piece of glass out of her boot. And before the guards can get to her, she slits her own throat.

I see the glass slicing through her skin roughly and my stomach twists in revulsion.

Some would rather die than be under their kind. I understand that feeling well. I felt the same way. I turn my head away to spare myself the sight of the blood and paling of her face. It’s never fun watching someone take their own life. Her body thuds to the ground, and the girls go into hysterics. I look back to her limp body and suddenly all I can hear is static. It all begins to move in slow motion. The guards come back up to us.

I’m tossed over someone’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes. The other 2 are dragged away thrashing and sobbing even harder than before. I can’t even get myself to react. I look back to the woman who was supposed to be in charge of the judgement in terror.

How could she just sit and watch this all happen?

Shouldn’t she be doing something?

Her eyes lock with my own. Her face doesn’t change as she looks at me. Slowly, exhaustion overcomes me, and I fall into a deep sleep.

---

I woke up here in that bed a week ago, and I haven’t touched it since. I didn’t want to lie on that thing in fear of falling asleep as unwillingly as when I arrived. When I woke up I thought that I had just dreamt everything up. I thought I was waking up in my bedroom at Kris’s house, and I kind of wished that I was waking up in my village. After such a horrible nightmare of an experience, I was hoping that everything was just a figment of my imagination. Life would be so much easier if it was all a dream.

But it wasn’t.

When I realized the bed was too soft to be my bed back home, I jumped off and stared around the room. It took a handful of moments to focus my eyes and clear the haze in my brain. After realizing I didn’t know where I was, I ran directly to the closed door that I knew had to be the way out, but it didn’t budge. I had to force myself to breathe slowly and calm down. I knew I wasn’t hurt, and I have plenty of space.

But I still felt trapped. I still feel trapped.

My instincts told me to scream out for Tao or Kris or hell even Luhan, but I caught myself. I wasn’t supposed to blow my cover. If I start yelling out their names, then I would end up doing just that. It’d all have been over before it had even started.

So for now, I’m stuck here.

I’m stuck in this room with no communication with the outside world except for the quiet boy who comes to bring me my meals.

I had hoped I would have at least been able to tell them all goodbye, but by the looks of it…I don’t think I will ever be able to.

Notes