Born Read online

  Her breath is still slight heaves. She doesn’t make a sound. She puts a shaking hand out and steps onto the platform. She cries harder as the robotic arm comes down.

  "Put your hand on. I promise it was like a fast little pinch and nothing more. Then you'll come to me."

  Her blue eyes are filled with terror. She shakes her head.

  I nod, "Do it. They won't let you come to me if you don't do it."

  Her left hand hugs herself and her right hand rests on the pad. I see her flinch when the small prick comes. She ducks when the sharp wind hits her and she looks like she might have a heart attack when the floor moves. She has never seen anything. She was in the womb when the world went crazy. Technology is not something us borderlander's see. Ever. In the borderlands nature has taken things back. This feels like a small corner humans still control.

  Before the floor stops moving, she leaps off and is under my armpit again.

  The lady laughs, "Okay you're both cleared."

  She brings us to a small white room. There is a white table in the middle of the room with nothing else but a door on the far side.

  "Please put everything on the table. It will be sanitized and given back to you if it can be."

  She stands and waits. I realize she is going to watch us strip naked.

  I want to have a fit. I want to smash her in the space suit face and run from the room but I look at the little blonde and take a deep breath. I pull my shirt off. I pull off my sports bra and stand with my breasts out, exposed. It is the first time I have ever been naked in front of anyone except my granny and my mother.

  I remember swimming in my underwear and bra with the naked people at the camp and smirk. The little blonde would love it there. The majestic swimming hole would make her happy. I decide she is coming with me when I run. My brain tries to think its usual 'look out for number one' excuses, but I can't. I think she's alone in the world.

  "The jewelry too."

  I look down at the silver bracelet and necklace my mom wore when she died. I remember my father removing it from her and putting it on me. I feel sick taking it off. When it touches the cold table I feel like I will never see it again.

  I nod at her and she starts taking her clothes off. We are naked and filthy and both doing our best to cover ourselves. Finally the lady walks to the door and slides a card on her wrist through a slot in the door handle. I need one of those cards. The door opens.

  "Now we need to clean you." She points into the stainless steel bathroom. The walls are metal, the floors are metal. There are several showerheads along the back wall and a drain in the floor. The little girl grabs my hand seeing it. She doesn’t want to cuddle naked, thank god, but she wants to hold my hand. The water starts by itself, making her jump a little. I smile. I've seen a shower before.

  I put a hand out and feel excited. The water is very warm. I step into it and sigh. The warmth of it is something I haven’t had in a long time. Not without heating it on a fire.

  She watches me and feels the water running from my hand to hers. She puts a hand out and smiles at me. It's the first time I've seen her smile. Her teeth are gleaming white. It doesn’t suit the rest of her face. She steps into the water and lets it rain down on her.

  "It feels great doesn’t it?"

  I glance back at the lady watching us. It makes me uncomfortable she is there.

  "I remember my first shower too."

  Her voice is hollow. She hasn’t been here since the beginning. She works here because she was captured. Her dark eyes give me a knowing look when she smiles under the space suit.

  "The soap is a special kind. It will wash anything off of you that you don’t want there. Do your hair too."

  I cringe. I can't help but wonder if she was one of the ladies who got to stay behind in the truck for a bit when it arrived at the farm.

  I pick up the bar of wrapped soap. I peel back the plastic. The girl watches me and does the same. I smell the soap and almost moan. It smells like lavender and tea tree. Of course it does. Natural cleaners for the body. Tea Tree became a hot commodity when everything stopped being produced.

  I lather and scrub. At one point I sit on the floor and scrub my toes out. I don’t even care how bizarre I look. I scrub the wound on my leg trying not to cry out in pain.

  Other women start to filter in. They cry with joy as the warm water washes them.

  Space suit points to a hallway, "This way." I walk with the girl holding my hand. I look back at the shower and miss it already.

  My nerves are shot. I need to find Anna. I need to protect the girl beside me. I need to find out how to get us all out without casualties. I might need one more shower before we escape.

  I'm dripping wet as I pad along the cold cement floor. I shiver. She takes us to a stack of towels in plastic. She passes them to us. I tear the plastic and pull a white terry towel robe from it. I pull it on and instantly feel better. White terry towel slippers fall onto the cement floor. I turn them over with my toes and look at the girl. She has the robe and slippers on, but on her they are swimming.

  She grins and hugs herself.

  "Can she speak?"

  I shake my head, "I don’t know."

  "She isn’t yours?"

  I shake my head again, "No." I grin at the girl, "We found each other in the dark."

  Space suit walks through a weird shower. Her space suit is rinsed completely. She steps out and points, "Okay this way please." Space suit looks annoyed suddenly. We follow her through a huge white door and we are in the white rooms and hallways again. The cement and stainless steel is gone. We walk in our plush clothes to a waiting room, "The doctor will be with you in a moment."

  I go and sit on the white plastic chair that looks formed. Everything sparkles. It feels sterile.

  The girl sits in the chair next to me and space suit leaves us there.

  There are no magazines like a real doctors office or windows.

  "I'm scared."

  I look at the little girl who apparently can talk, "Me too."

  Two more ladies come and are seated next to us. I'd bet they're in their late twenties or early thirties if I had to guess.

  A chubby one smiles at me and speaks with a bubbly voice, "Has anything happened since you got here?"

  I shake my head.

  She frowns, "God. I hope this doesn’t take all day. I'm exhausted. I heard we get our own beds and rooms and food at every meal."

  The skinny mean looking lady next to her grimaces, "Did you see what they were doing to the women at the back of the truck? We aren’t here for a vacation. We're here to be raped and reproduce."

  I scowl. "Don’t." My eyes dart to the little girl.

  The mean looking lady rolls her eyes and crosses her arms.

  The little girl smiles at me. I smile back.

  A man comes holding something in his hands. He looks like a doctor. He is older and has glasses on.

  He glances up at us and smiles, "You." He points at me.

  I look around at the others. They all look frightened. The girl grips me.

  "She wants to come with me." I say.

  He looks at the little girl, "It's your choice. She should be with the other healthy children."

  I hug her to me as I stand, "She comes with me."

  He shrugs and turns and walks down the white hallway.

  He walks to a room with a bed, just like my doctor back home had. There is another chair and a curtain and a small desk. Everything is white. I feel like I can't actually see the depth of things because of all of the white.

  He points a hand toward the bed, "Have a seat. Are you sure you want her to see this?"

  I look up and frown, "See what?"

  "I have to give you an internal to make sure you're healthy."

  "Wasn’t that what the tube was for?"

  He puts the thing in his hands on the desk and pushes his glasses up. He closes the door, "No."

  I see the curtain, "Can you pull that around us so sh
e can see my face." I don’t want her traumatized. It's bad enough one of us is about to be traumatized. I know what an internal is. I read about it.

  I sit her on the chair across the room. I hold both of her shoulders, "It's going to be okay. Okay?"

  She nods. She looks scared but I can see her being brave.

  I walk to the bed and climb on. I lay back. He pulls the curtain around us so only my face is showing. I turn my head to her and smile. I'm dying inside but I can't show her.

  I look back as he places my slippers into a pair of metal grips. He slides something and I feel the bottom part of the bed is gone. My butt feels like it's sitting on the edge. He puts gloves on and smiles at me, "Relax okay?"

  I swallow hard and nod.

  He pulls my knees apart. I feel a tear slip from my eye. I can't look at her. I look up at the white ceiling. I don’t feel anything. I close my eyes and I'm high in a tree. The wind is pushing and pulling me, swaying the tree and me. I feel the breeze on my face. I hear the birds and the sound the branches make when the wind plays with them.

  Something stabs me sharp.

  I try not to cry out but it hurts badly.

  I look up at his face.

  He looks hardened and distant from me, "Sorry. I didn’t realize you were virginal. Most girls your age, well you know."

  I don’t know. Most girls what? My stomach hurts like a monthly cramp for a second. He steps back and removes bloody gloves and I see a glint of metal. "All done."

  He slips some thick cotton white underwear into my hand, "You will need these. Go back to the waiting room."

  I look at the padding in the center of them. They are like the rags I've made myself. I feel sick. He leaves the curtained area and then the room.

  The girl looks worried. I shake my head, "It's okay." She isn’t fooled. The tears streaming down my face tell her otherwise.

  I pull the underwear on over my slippers and lift my butt to get them underneath of me. They feel thick and heavy between my thighs. My chest is rising and falling rapidly. I don’t want to scare the little girl but I am a little girl too. In my heart I'm still the nine-year-old running through the woods. The nine-year-old who was lost and confused. I don't feel as though I've aged. I've grown cold and bitter but aged, no.

  I push myself up and sit on the bed for a minute. I see half her face through the curtain from where I sit. She looks scared.

  I step gingerly off the bed and walk around the curtain. My stomach hurts like I'm having my monthly. It's never hurt like this though.

  She stands and takes my finger. We walk from the room and down the hallway. The other women in the waiting room look me over. I see relief on their faces when they don’t see a difference.

  I am different.

  I feel broken for the first time ever.

  I sit back down and try to ignore the feeling of the warmth in my underwear. She snuggles into me. If we could join skin and become one person I think she would ask for me to do it. She is terrified.

  "You can come with me now." I glance up at a woman in a white coat and matching pale blue pants and top. The other women want to ask me things. I can feel the tension in the air from it. I look at them. I can't smile and tell them it will be okay.

  I stand. The girl follows and walks along in the crook of my arm.

  "So now that that part is over with we will assign you a room. This is where you will stay for your duration with us." She has short brown hair that’s styled with big round curls. She is shiny and clean. I've never seen anyone like her. Her skin glows. There is no old dirt anywhere.

  She is the whitest person I've ever seen.

  "I'm Gloria. I'll be here with you guys. We do a rotation, four nights and then four days and then four off. If you don’t see me for four days don’t panic. It's just my days off."

  I don’t know what she's talking about. Days off from what?

  "So you'll be in the wing where the women who are younger stay until they give birth. How old are you sweetie?"

  I look up. She is raising a perfect brown eyebrow at me.

  "Nineteen." I mutter.

  "Okay. So yeah the girls in your wing are anywhere from about sixteen to twenty eight." She lowers her gaze as she walks, "And how old are you honey?" The little girl ignores her and tightens her grip on me. The nurse shrugs.

  I can't place her age. She is ageless. She acts like the older women in the towns but she looks my age.

  I look down at the girl who is curled into me. "I think she's about twelve at the most."

  Her eyes don’t rise to meet mine. They stay fixated on the girl, "You sure you wouldn’t be happy with the other younger girls? They all live together. They have TV's and video games over there."

  I see her little head trembling.

  Gloria's eyes meet mine again, "Give her a little time. She'll be begging to get away from the lot of you hormonal women."

  I want to tell her I'm not a woman. I'm not.

  She uses her wrist card to bring us through a large metal door and suddenly the air is warmer. It feels like a nice night with the fire lit, but a cool breeze blowing in the window. Not stuffy but cozy.

  I almost jump as other girls are walking about as we turn a corner. I see swollen bellies and rosy cheeks everywhere. They look like Gloria. Shiny and clean. I look down at my hands and frown. Will those spots of dirt ever come out? Will I look like these girls if I stay here?

  The area we are in looks amazingly bright and clean. Everything is white. It's styled like a house I saw in a magazine at the cabin. There are couches and plush pillows and a fireplace with glass over the hearth. There is a kitchen like I've never seen before. It looks like a restaurant from the same magazine.

  Girls are sitting and eating at small tables in the kitchen or on the couches. Some are walking and rubbing their bellies. They're all dressed in white robes and pants and tops. Everything they're wearing looks fluffy almost. The entire open kitchen and living room is surrounded by glass. A small garden is on the other side. There are windows on the other side of the garden. It must be a private garden and surrounded by the building we are in, except the roof. Real sunlight filters in from the roof of the garden.

  Out of the corner of my eye I see her.

  Gloria is talking about a room where we have to spend a certain number of hours a day listening to music and a gym and a pool. I don’t care about any of it. I see her.

  She is sitting at a table. Her hair is the first thing I recognize. It's dark and shiny in a way that looks like she's run oil through it. Her white skin is bright and clean. Her lips curl into a smile as she speaks to the blonde girl next to her. I can't imagine the transformation she has undertaken in such a short amount of time. She looks like a person from a magazine. She looks like she belongs in the white room with the white girls everywhere. I notice suddenly everyone is white. There are no other nationalities. The borderlands are diverse. This is the only group of all white people I've ever seen. It's creepy.

  The girl curls into me.

  The girls in the room start to take notice of me. Their eyes look haunted as they see me. They bite their lips and try not to cry. I see it in their faces.

  Anna's dark head turns slowly. Her eyes recognize me and pain crosses her face. I give a subtle shake of my head. Her lips tremble.

  "So where do I sleep?" I ask.

  Gloria's lips curl into a big grin, "This way." She points to an open hallway. I walk through the room, never letting my eyes fully take Anna in again. I float across the room and ignore her, even though I know exactly how many running steps it would take me to cross the room. I know how long it would take to stab the cooking knife on the counter into Gloria. I know how much force it would take to break the glass that surrounds the room. I know how long it would take for me to climb the drain spout leading to the roof.

  What I don’t know is how fast the girl could do it all. I know how Anna would do. I can see the fight in her eyes, even though I'm not looking at her.

>   I follow Gloria down a long wide white hallway with wooden benches that stand out against the white everywhere. They are covered with white pillows and nestled next to huge potted plants. The greenery is bright compared to the white pot the plant is in. The brown dirt inside of it makes me miss the forest.

  "So this will be your room and since you have her, you won't be getting a roommate."

  She opens a white door and reveals a room with two beds covered in soft looking blankets. There is a closet that's open with white fluffy clothes inside. They are robes and gowns and fuzzy looking pajamas that I would have worn as a child. I imagine the sight of a girl running across the brown borderlands in one of these stark white outfits and I know why they’ve made everything this way.

  I step into the room and feel exhausted instantly. The bed is inviting. The clothes make me want to stay. It's a fleeting feeling of someone taking care of me. I let it sit inside of me for a moment.

  "Well if you need anything you just push the red button just here." I turn to see the only thing with any color. A red panic button on the wall. I'd seen them at the hospital in the bathroom. Dad said they were for sick people who fell while going to the bathroom. The idea of it always made me shiver. Being on the floor with one the cruel backless gowns spread everywhere, unable to get up.

  Gloria touches my arm and I resist the urge to break her long manicured creamy white fingers with bright red nail polish, "I will have someone down to re-hydrate you two."

  She lets go and is gone.

  The girl has walked away from my armpit. I close the door and turn to her.

  "I'm Emma. What's your name?"

  She looks at me with her bright blue eyes that seem muted without the filth all over her face.

  "Sarah."

  "How old are you?"

  I go and sit on the bed on the left hand side.

  "Eleven."

  She sits beside me. I guess we are sharing a bed. I lie down and stare at the bright white ceiling. I wonder if it will dull in the night or if it glows in the dark. Everything is too bright and too clean. I feel exposed.

  Our door is burst open and Anna leaps in, scaring Sarah into a ball. Anna closes the door and fights the tears that stream down her cheeks, "You came for me?"