Authors: Eloise Dyson
46
Kayra
I lie on the grass next to Phillip watching the sunrise. We went to a waterfall with his friend, Nathan. It’s their tradition to go every year on the first night of the Festival. After swimming in the moonlight, we all sat with our feet in the river watching the fireflies come out. We then danced for the remainder of the night.
I watch the sun rising slowly, the sky turning into a lighter shade of blue. The sun is only just visible on the horizon; a thin orange line.
‘Kayra?’ Phillip asks me, turning his head on the grass to face me.
‘Yeah?’ I ask, looking at him, too.
‘Come with me,’ he whispers, standing up.
He offers his hand and I take it. He pulls me up. We leave Nathan asleep on the grass. Normally, it would be dangerous, but we’re so close to the Festival campsite with dozens of people on the constant lookout for Hunters, that he’s very safe. I take Phillip’s hand, and despite the major sleep deprivation, we both run through fields. We climb a hill slowly, going up the steep, muddy path steadily, holding each other for support. We finally reach a thin copse of trees, and walk through it, the low-hanging branches softly brushing against my skin. On the other side is a scene so beautiful that I have to open and close my eyes several times, thinking I’m dreaming. There is a vast lake, surrounded by trees. A stream runs down the hill, delivering the water to the main river that runs along the valley that the tribes are camping in. The sun is rising on the other side of the lake, and reflecting off the water. The clouds that are in the sky are reflected also, making it look like we’re standing on the very edge of the world. In the distance are the silhouettes of large hills, looking like mountains. And a very thin mist rolls peacefully over the surface of the lake. It’s so beautiful that it feels I could jump into the water and instead of getting wet, I’ll fall into the clouds themselves.
‘Come on,’ Phillip says, taking my hand in his and guiding me down a slightly sloping path. He takes his shoes off and I untie my boots, hiding the Unity emblem on the side of them with my hand, not wanting him to ask questions now. When I get them off, he takes my hand again and leads me to the edge of the lake. We sit with our feet in the cool water, the morning air smelling beautiful.
‘Kayra... I know your name,’ he says thoughtfully. ‘It isn’t a common name. Are you sure we haven’t met?’
‘I didn’t have a Tribe, so I couldn’t have met you here before. I was...’ I hesitate. ‘With others.’
I figured at least telling him half of the truth is enough for now.
‘Others?’ he asks. ‘Where did you live? I’m sure all of the survivors have at least heard of tribes, if they aren’t in one. You never tried to join any?’
He’s asking too much! I’m scared that he saw the Unity logo on my boot before I could hide it. I didn’t have to hide it last night, as we only had the moonlight to see by, so it had to have been this morning, and that explains the questioning!
‘I was surviving with other kids,’ I say, knowing that now I’ve said too much.
‘Kayra!’ he exclaims. ‘I knew I recognised your name! You’re the leader’s daughter, aren’t you?!’
‘Henry?’ I ask him. ‘I never realised he was the leader around here. Is he in your tribe?’
‘What?! No! I’m talking about the Unity leader! The one who sends the Hunters out to kill us! The one who took thousands of babies before the earthquake!’
‘What are you talking about?’ I say, relaxing now; he hasn’t caught me out. ‘My father is going to destroy the Hunters. It’s his plan, he’s the good guy. You must be thinking of another Kayra.’
Phillip stares at me and shakes his head.
‘You don’t even know,’ he says, quite distantly.
I stand up suddenly. I don’t understand what he’s saying, but there’s something in his eye that looks evil and I don’t trust it.
‘Don’t know what?!’ I ask him coldly.
‘I’m talking about your birthfather! Not your adopted father!’ he says, as if rewarding me with a treat.
I step backwards, slipping slightly in the wet earth. The lake no longer seems beautiful, and I want nothing more than to leave, but I remain rooted to the spot, the pull of the unanswered questions keeping me there.
‘My birth father is Henry,’ I say defensively, unable to accept anything else. ‘Not Victor Thorne.’
He was drinking a little last night; this must be his idea of a sick joke. He’s trying to scare me. He quickly gets up and grabs my arm.
‘Do you want to know the truth, or run away from it all your life?’
This is enough to get me to be able to move from my spot, and I throw him off me, tripping him onto the ground. My training kicks in and I put all of my weight on top of him, my arm to his throat. We’re inches from the lake, we don’t have enough room for an actual fight, and I think he realises this, as he just lays there, his eyes, which I now see are a bright green colour, staring at my face.
‘
Kayra!
’ I hear in my head.
I release him instantly. The voice wasn’t Arys’s, or my mother’s.
‘
Thought that would work
,’ the voice says. I look at Phillip on the ground, a smirk on his face.
I kick him as hard as I can, forcing him to roll over, even closer to the lake. The thought of how easy it would be to drown him comes into my mind, surprising me. I shake away the thought straight away. No one deserves that, not even Phillip.
‘How did you do that?! Who are you?!’ I scream at him.
He stumbles to his feet, standing looking at me, his face expressionless.
‘You already know, Kayra,’ he says. His voice, like his face, lacking any hint of emotion, like he’s a Hunter. ‘You’ve been hiding it away in your memory. Not looking at it, too afraid to face it.’
Then I see it. The colour of his eyes is the same as my own. I know my eyes well; I always stared in the mirror when I was alone in the Compound. Not out of vanity, but so I could imagine looking at my sister. I see my own eyes staring back at me in the light of the early sun.
‘You can’t be!’ I gasp.
I don’t know what else to do but fall to my knees. And suddenly I see what I was missing in the frequent nightmares. I always knew there was that one bit more, but it always ended with the door slamming shut. I finally see it again.
There’s someone else in the car, trying to talk to me, but I’m still screaming for Arys that I can’t distinguish his words. When Arys is out of sight, I turn to look at him, his bright green eyes and head of light blonde hair. He looks to be five years old. He speaks to me clearly now.
‘We’re going to daddy now, we’re okay,’ he says to me. ‘I know you’re different, like me. I hear you calling your name!’
Eventually the car stops, and I’ve run out of energy to scream for Arys, both in my head, and using my mouth. I‘m carried from the car by the driver, the same man who tore me from my family.
I wake up from the nightmare, crying. Phillip is holding me, looking unrecognisable from the five year old in the car with me.
‘You fainted,’ he tells me pointedly.
‘So it’s true?’ I ask.
‘I haven’t seen you for fifteen years,’ his voice is different than before. ‘Our father took me and enhanced me; he made me watch over you from a distance. Only you’re supposed to be Arys, not Kayra.’
‘How?! How are we related? Why was I adopted?!’
‘Your adopted parents were working for Unity. Heather and Henry were married and working alongside my father, creating and controlling the enhancements. Our father is Heather’s brother, and when he discovered his wife was pregnant again with twins, it was too close to the earthquake and plans were going ahead, so they agreed to leave them in the care of Heather, his sister. One of the twins was stillborn, but Heather still took the one. I was unlucky. I went up for adoption, I was four years old and I remember the agony it put me through! I still feel it!’
This is all too confusing now, and I have to sit down, trying to work out where I come in all of this. And Arys.
‘If this is all true, then what are you doing here?’
‘I was originally sent here by him to find you and bring you back. But when you said your name was Kayra, I knew there was more to it. Kayra was the name of our grandmother, and I thought you took it in memory of her, until you made the foolish mistake of mentioning your sister. There’s no sister alive in the records. In answer to your question, I’m here to look after you. You’re coming back with me to the Compound where your memory will be wiped of everything since leaving, and all you’ve learnt of the tribes along with it. You’re my sister, Kayra. I want what’s best for you, and you need to come back to where it’s safe. Where you won’t be hunted.’
It’s all absurd, and if he didn’t look like he believed it himself, I would have still thought this was a particularly nasty joke. His finger suddenly flies into his ear, and his eyes widen in horror.
‘What?!’ I ask coldly.
‘I’ve been called back to the Compound. They say Arys has gone back by herself. He doesn’t know that you are twins! They think she’s you!’
‘Arys? She’s at the Compound?!’ I scream at him.
‘You really are Kayra, a twin,’ is all he says, infuriatingly. ‘I thought you were taking on our grandmother’s name as a nickname. So you could stay true to who you were while in the Compound. You’re the baby who was supposed to have died. I believed you had died all along... Green eyes, my eyes...’
He’s talking more to himself than to me, trying to work it all out.
‘So you were in the Compound this whole time, pretending to be Arys. While the whole time, Arys is the one with the enhancements! The real Arys must have been out here this whole time. Genius...’
He turns away, a scowl on his face. He looks out over the lake, muttering to himself, working out the finer details now he knows that he has the gist of it all.
‘Arys is going to pay,’ he whispers to himself.
I lunge forwards and spin him onto the ground, I don’t know where the strength comes from, but I hold him down easily, and unlike before, he’s struggling.
‘She’s done
nothing
to you!’ I scream at him.
‘Nothing?!’ he spits from underneath me. ‘Our father could have kept me if you both weren’t born! I stayed out of the way! You ruined that! You caused hassle!’
I punch him in his face as hard as I can. I feel a satisfying crunch as my fist makes contact with his jaw. I let go of him and get to my feet, standing over him.
‘If you
dare
hurt my sister, you’ll wish I’d have killed you now,’ I snarl at him, turning, picking up my boots and walking back down the hill.
If his story is true, and a great part of me believes him, he could be contacting his... our... father right now. Telling him that there are twins, that I’m not Arys, and that the girl with the right enhancements is now safely in their grasp. Part of me still wants to kill him now to stop that, and if I hadn’t vowed to avoid killing if it wasn’t vital for my personal survival, I feel I might have.
47
Arys
I sit in one of the many offices of The Unity Headquarters. I’m waiting for one of the officials to come and meet me. The chairs are made of a fancy black material, and are the most comfortable seats I’ve sat on. A highly polished table is in front of me, with another chair opposite it, in front of a large window, overlooking the Compound. I try to make out people in the distance, but I’m too high up to see anything clearly. Files and folders are neatly stacked in small piles around the room and the papers in front of me detail my information.
The door opens, and a tall man with jet black hair walks in, his eyes darting around the room quickly before resting on me.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ he says. ‘You must be Arys.’
He has a strong, official voice, which instinctively makes me feel I have to answer to it. The old me would have, before I had that part of me removed. Instead, I just nod silently, not breaking his eye contact.
‘I heard you prefer the name Kayra now, though,’ he says, smiling slightly at me.
‘Arys is my birth name. Kayra is what my friends call me,’ I explain.
‘Your friends? The friends who ran off without you? What can you tell me about them?’ he takes the seat opposite me and faces me.
I didn’t expect this. I had been told what he was roughly going to say, but his questions weren’t what I was told. I’m tempted to press the button on my watch, but I’m scared that he’ll notice it, or recognise it, so I keep it hidden under my sleeve.
‘They didn’t leave me. They died saving me,’ I say, trying not to sound too rebellious, but at the same time, telling him that there’s no use sending more Hunters, or Unity agents to track the others.
If this works, I may have just saved them.
‘Aha!’ he says, his hand slapping onto the table. ‘So that is why their trackers stopped working!’
It sounds like Kai’s plan to get the trackers removed at the Festival has worked.
‘Well, Arys,’ he says, looking at me in what I think he thinks is a compassionate way. ‘I’m glad you’re back. There’s just one more thing we need to take care of, and then you can go to a new dormitory. We’re moving you from Unit 7b to Unit 5b.’
He opens the drawer under the table in between us, and removes a tiny wooden box. He hands me the box and tells me to open it. Inside is a single blue tablet, no bigger than a seed.
‘Take this and it will wipe your memory of ever being outside the Compound. We can’t have you knowing of the tribes, and the fact you came back shows that you know we’re doing this for
your
safety.’
I swallow the tablet without hesitation; I was given an antidote injection beforehand, so the tablet will have no effect on my memory. The second I swallow, a buzz fills me, and I shake slightly as the room spins around me. I briefly register my head hitting the table, before everything goes black.
‘Yoo hoo! Wake up!’ a girl shouts above me.
My eyes open to see silver bars above my head and the girl standing next to me, inches from my face.
‘Good morning, sleepy,’ she says as I turn to her.
‘I’m Lizzy, your new roommate!’ she says brightly, offering her hand.
She has shockingly bright red hair, causing me to blink several times. I don’t remember ever seeing anyone with hair that bright and wonder if it’s an illusion or dream of some sort.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed, and while trying to get out, hit my head on the beam above me. Holding my forehead in pain, I take Lizzy’s hand while she roars with laughter.
‘Memory wiped and you’ve already gone back to hitting your head!’ she says, still laughing and slightly red in the face. ‘Don’t worry; we’ve all done it at least once!’
‘Memory wiped? Have you had your memory wiped?’ I ask curiously.
‘What?! No of course not!’ she laughs again. ‘We’ve all hit our heads when we’ve been unlucky enough to be on a bottom bunk. What’s your name?’
‘Arys,’ I say, after thinking carefully. Still clutching my head; I have a headache and my mind can’t figure out how I got here.
Trying to remember how just makes the headache even worse.
‘So I guess you don’t remember me after the Swipe, do you?’ she asks casually, sounding a little hurt at the same time.
‘Err... I don’t, sorry. What do you mean by the Swipe?’ I ask a little too awkwardly.
She laughs again, pulling me to my feet, her hand on my head to protect it from being hit by the beam.
‘I was joking! You don’t know me at all, but you will soon, don’t worry! And the Swipe is your punishment for something you’ve done. You lose the memories of the things they want you to forget.’
She confuses me a little, but I go with it and smile, pretending to understand her personality. It must have been a powerful Swipe for me to forget where I even am, or how I got here. As I try to remember, I see flashes of memories, including a cell and one friendly face whose name I can’t recall. Maybe that’s the person who did this to me.
‘Oh! We’re going to be late! Get dressed; we’ll meet again after close combat training if you want?’
She leaves through the door before I have time to answer. I watch as her red hair vanishes down the corridor. I turn and look at the room I’m in. The carpet is thin and grey, and there are several beds around the room, most of them, like my own, with another bed on top of it. There are six sinks around the room, all with plain mirrors above them.
What training was Lizzy talking about? Other people have had their memories wiped by the sounds of it, I still don’t know this lifestyle, or why I’m here. I barely know what’s going on, but other kids have managed to get used to it, and so will I.
I look in the mirror at my reflection after quickly getting changed. The person looking back at me is unfamiliar, yet familiar at the same time. After staring at my appearance, I follow Lizzy’s steps out of the door, slamming it behind me.
I run through the hall, unsure of where to go, but trying to find anyone who could direct me, as I’m sure I’ll be late. I accidentally bump into someone, causing me to stumble a little.
‘Sorry!’ I say quickly, spinning around to look at the person I’ve hit.
A tall boy stands, looking panicked. He has square glasses and his short brown hair sticks up messily all over the place.
‘No, I’m sorry!’ he says, looking at me, faint recognition on his face. ‘I’m late for training, I didn’t see you. You’re Kayra, right?’
‘I think I’m called Arys,’ I tell him. ‘I had the Swipe? I don’t remember much about who I am anymore.’
He smiles at me. ‘Nice to meet you, Arys. I’m Dan, but most people call me Danny.’
He extends his hand and I shake it.
‘I hope you know the way, Dan, because I’m already lost!’ I say, laughing.
‘You can call me Danny, most people do,’ he says, as we start to run down the corridor.
‘I’m not “most people”, you know’, I say.
I stand in the training room. It’s the biggest room I can ever remember being in. From what Dan told me, this is only one of the many floors of the Training Building, and I already feel out of place as the much more muscular people are around me. A young looking man strides around the room, authoritatively. His voice sounds more of a bark as he shouts numbers out, partnering people up. He notices us walking in the room, late, and strides up to the two of us.
‘Think this is a joke?!’ he barks at us.
Dan seems to wince away slightly, but I stand my ground.
‘No, Chief Frost!’ Dan shouts loudly next to me.
I turn to face him; his eyes are forward, not looking at either me, or the chief.
‘And you?!’ Chief Frost shouts at me, standing over me intimidatingly.
All the eyes in the room are upon us, making me feel self-conscious.
‘No, Chief Frost!’ I say, adopting the same mannerism of Dan.
‘Well then?! Explain yourselves!’ he roars.
‘It’s my fault,’ I say quietly. ‘I’ve had the Swipe and lost my way. I needed Dan’s help to guide me.’
‘Ha!’ Chief Frost says, with a triumphant sneer on his face. ‘Rule breaking, no doubt! Fancied yourself sneaking into a government building did you?’
‘I don’t remember,’ I say, staring straight ahead, like Dan.
‘Of course you don’t!’ he yells, making me jump slightly.
‘You, boy!’ he says, rounding on Dan. ‘You’re partnered with the rule breaker!’
With one last glare, he marches off back into the centre of the room, barking numbers out once again.
‘That,’ Dan whispers. ‘Is possibly a new record.’
‘What do you mean?’ I ask quietly.
The few people who were still watching us have finally looked away and are now focused again on the training session.
‘I’ve never seen a single person get off without a punishment from him before,’ he whispers. ‘Let alone two people!’
He leans against the wall casually, slightly smirking. Everyone else has already begun training, yet he watches me with interest.
‘What are you doing? We’re supposed to be training!’
He just stares at me, still smirking secretively. The sound of teenagers fighting behind me forces me think on what’s going on. We’re here to train. But the training is for what?
‘You’ve forgotten how to fight, haven’t you?’ he says superiorly.
‘Of course not! That type of thing doesn’t go!’ I say.
‘Fine! Fight me then,’ he says casually. ‘Make the first move.’
He throws me a metal stick from the wall suddenly. I drop it almost as soon as it hits my hand, landing with a crash on the floor. It rolls to a stop, making a piercing sound, causing the people near us to watch and laugh. I feel Chief Frost’s eyes on me as I foolishly pick up the stick and face Dan. He raises his eyebrows, and I swing it at his shoulder. He moves incredibly fast as he ducks, holds onto the other end of the stick, pulls it easily from my hands, and then swings it at my feet, tripping me to the ground.
‘You can’t fight!’ he says triumphantly, as I try and catch my breath, completely winded.
‘Teach me then,’ I growl, trying to get to my feet, but the pain in my back, growing more and more intense, is keeping me down.
‘That I can do!’ he says eagerly, offering me his hand.
I take it and he helps me to my feet. The pain in my back is less severe now I’m stood up.
‘Lesson one!’ he announces importantly. ‘Never let your guard down!’
He swings the stick around in an arc, and taken by surprise, I get hit again in the stomach and fall helplessly to the floor as Dan laughs at me.
‘You’re going to need a lot more training than I thought!’ he says gleefully.
I don’t accept his outstretched hand, but instead stand to my feet quickly, ignoring the pain in my back. I look around at everyone fighting swiftly, their arms moving at speeds so fast that I barely have time to distinguish one strike from another.
‘Follow me,’ he says, pulling me by my arm towards the door.
A tall man blocks the exit, a guard I’m guessing.
‘Where do you think you’re going?’ he asks, his voice is rough and deep, making me know that we shouldn’t be leaving.
‘Arys, my opponent can’t remember the way to the toilets,’ Dan says, as if embarrassed. ‘She’s had the Swipe, so I said that I’ll show her!’
‘I’ll take her,’ the guard says, and I suddenly regret agreeing to go with Dan. ‘You get back to training.’
‘Thank you!’ Dan says, turning and winking at me.
I stare after him, watching him stride back over to where we were training together and I suddenly feel foolish, as if it was all set up to make an even bigger mockery of me in front of people I don’t remember meeting before. I follow the guard down the hall to the bathroom door.
‘You’ll remember your way back?’ he says.
It’s not a question, it’s a threat. I nod and he looks at me suspiciously before turning sharply and marching heavily back towards the training room. I have no other option but to go into the toilets. There is a line of doors next to each other opposite me, and instead of individual sinks, two incredibly long sinks stretch across opposite sides of the room. I just walk to the sink and look again at my reflection in the mirror, trying to remember anything of this place, or who I was before the Swipe, but I can’t recall anything and whatever I would normally do is hard for me to think of. Natural instinct tells me to look for the taps, to turn them on in case the guard is listening, but there aren’t any. Instead, there is one long black strip stretching out along the top of the sink. I run my hand along it and suddenly a small gush of water comes up from the holes along the centre of the sink. Slightly amazed, I smile to myself, before walking back to the exit. I walk out to find Dan staring at me, grinning.