Skin Nation

by Joni Bing

I woke up the next morning in a rush, trying to escape from a nightmare of an unquenchable fire and burning bodies lying in the pile all around my scorched trembling body. When reality struck me and I caught a glimpse of the new morning light pouring in from the small window on the left of the bed, I took a sigh of relief, and held my hand to my chest as if doing so would calm my racing heart.

  I thought to reach for the third degree scarring across my back to check for signs of reality, but I rolled my eyes and stretched my arms in front of me instead. There was no need. I still reeked of warehouse and my body still burned like the electronic flames in my flat's fireplace on X-mas. Yep, it was real, but I didn't want to believe it. I couldn't.

  “Bro, hand me a Heineken out the fridge.”

  I knew that voice. That voice was all too familiar. Wild Eyes. Mindlessly, I stepped out into the sitting room to see who I'd find and found the worst nightmare. The three boys minus Lary sat in their places from the night before. Well, except for the cute guy who hadn't spoken yet. He was standing by the open fridge in the kitchen. I looked over at him and he stared back with that same uninterested look on his face. I wondered if that was once his Xi: emotions, maybe facial expressions. I wondered if the NRs had taken them away before he could escape. I looked down.

  “Morning, sunshine. You're up early,” Wild Eyes said with a brightness to his voice.

  I looked over at him sitting on the couch and smiled as little as possible. Maybe Cute Guy used uninterest as a shield, I thought. Maybe these idiots harassed him too.

  “Take a seat. Z in there's makin' b-fast-”

  “Where's Lary?” I asked Wild Eyes.

  “I'm Reno. Mar's still sleep,” he pointed at the door next to the kitchen. “And, in there's Z.We just call 'im Z.”

  “Where's-”

  “Lary's out.”

  “Where?”

  “Somewhere, I don't know.”

  I huffed angrily and passed him to sit on the couch as far away from him as possible. From what I remembered about the night before, Mar seemed nice enough before I tore him down, a lot less crazy than the Reno kid that was for sure.

  “You got a name?” Reno asked me.

  I didn't want to speak, but words came out anyway. “Bleu.”

  “Like the color?” he sat up in his chair as if the conversation had taken some interesting peak.

  “Sort of.”

  He fixed his face to look confused. I didn't blame him, but didn't care enough to explain.

  “What's up for b-fast, Z?” Mar asked as he stepped out his room and poked his head through the square space in the wall that separated the kitchen from the sitting room.

  “Just eggs and bread, man,” Cute Boy, well, Z replied.

  It was the first time I heard his voice. It was nice to know he had one. It was nice to know he had a nice one. Mar fixed his face like he wasn't happy about the b-fast menu. Like he wanted to say Again?! yet he held his tongue. He wasn't like me. He wasn't blunt.

  “Why so down?” I heard myself ask.

  They looked over at me as if they were hearing my voice for the first time. All three of them. I feared for my life.

  “We've had eggs and bread for three weeks straight,” Reno explained. “It's whatever. It's better than no food three weeks straight,” he said as he sat back in his chair with his hands behind his head.

  “Straight up,” Z agreed as he grabbed two Heines out of the fridge and walked over to Reno, handing him one.

  I looked at him and he stared me down again. I couldn't smile. I couldn't move my face.

  “Where'd you and Lar go last night? He tryta sell ya?” Reno asked.

  “What? No, he wouldn't do that!” I freaked, looking at the three of them, waiting for one of them to agree.

  Mar snickered for a moment. “C'mon, bro. Don't scare 'er like that.” He rolled his eyes over at me. “Reno's the prick of our troupe in case you haven't noticed,” he laughed.

  Z snickered from the kitchen where I started to hear sizzling.

  It was still too early in the morning to fully see them all. I was sure that Mar had brown eyes and short black hair, that I was wrong about Reno having brown eyes the night before because the early morning light revealed some strange shade of green, and that Z had similar features to Mar only his lips were fuller, and his skin was a shade or two fainter than my own. Still, I couldn't be completely sure. There was only one source of light filling the room and it was seeping from the white sheer shaded window near the couch where Mar and I sat. There were no lamps in sight.

  I heard keys knock against the door and the boys, Reno and Mar, hid their Heine bottles. Z continued to fill the room with cheesy smelling eggs and possibly week old bread.

  “Morning, troupe,” Lary grinned toothlessly.

  “Lary!” they all shouted.

  I shrunk from the loud sound. It made my back scars upset.

  “Check out the bag,” Lary smiled as he tossed a plastic bag of small metals onto the table upfront.

  Everyone got up and raced for the table. Mar was first to get there and Reno looked upset as he stood behind Mar's shoulder to see inside the bag. Z stayed in the kitchen.

  “Check it out!” Mar exclaimed as he widened the bag and drove his head inside.

  “We can't!” Reno laughed as he pulled him back by his shoulder.

  I laughed beside Reno and he looked at me. He smiled. I didn't know how I felt about that.

  “Sweet!” Reno exclaimed. He took out one of the small metal cans and showed it to me. I stared at it. I had no idea what it was.

  “Veanna saws?...”

  “They're Vienna sausages, Bleu,” Reno replied, careful not to hurt my feelings. Mar bust out in laughter and I heard Z stifling his laugher from the kitchen. Suddenly, I wasn't all that hungry.

  Lary exited a room not far from the hallway to the entrance of the flat. “I grabbed as many as I could before people went crazy.”

  “Lary, you cease to amaze me,” Reno smiled as he and Mar high-fived Lary.

  I looked around the room and observed all of the unlit empty space, trying not to show how mixed up I felt. I examined the small black can after grabbing one from the bag, unlike Mar and Reno who each grabbed five when Lary said divided up we each had five of our own. I slid my finger into the can opener tab and when I tugged back the can's top, I immediately regretted my decision.

  I stared down inside the can, trying with all my might not to vomit, as pink slimy bars of mystery meat stared back. I inspected the label on the back for the ingredients and gulped. I must've made a puke face because Lary frowned when he looked at me.

  “You have any idea what I accomplished?”

  I wanted to shake my head and apologize. I wanted to be polite about it. But I couldn't fathom words of reply.

  “In this commune, in this nation we live in, meat is a scarce source to come by. You're probably used to the ingredients in these sausages in whole portions, aren't you?”

  I hesitated, but nodded in agreement. I couldn't lie to him; not even for the whole world.

  “Well, that ends here. Soon, you'll feel lucky to hold these cans in your hands. Soon, they'll be the only source of protein you know.”

  There was no brazen loud inflection to his voice yet I found my arms goose bumped from unexplainable shivers. The shaking was minimal, hardly visible to the boys maybe, but I was shaking. And, my teeth? Trying to withstand uncontrollable jolts of chatter.

  He walked to the front room next to the entrance door hallway. “Eat up and prepare yourself.”

  I stood there silently in my place even after he disappeared from sight into that room, wanting to drop to my knees. Feeling and wanting to cry, but I couldn't because of the pain throbbing in my back and the urge to stay strong in front of the on staring eyes crowding the small room surrounding me. I couldn't show these guys that I was weak, not that weakness was ever a failing attribute of my character. It's just that I had already screwed up when I showed them pa
rts of the ignorant and ill-spoken person The System tried to create me into.

  At the time though, I didn't know to blame The System. Instead, I blamed myself for skipping school, for not trying hard enough...all I could think was: How would I have turned out if I had tried just a little bit harder? If I had cared a little bit more about my “promising future”?

  But, no. I didn't think to care about my future or sit through every class like my mother thought I had every day. I should've, but I didn't because the NNB announced that before graduation day, we would take the Promise Test, which would tell the Gov what type of job to pair us to after YA. We would be the first class to do it; to take the test which decided our fate and matched us with the perfect university, or trade school, or field where we would forever pick fruit for the fortunate top collars. Part of me rejoices when I think about the fact that I never took it, but the other half wonders where I would've fit in the mix of it all. How things would've turned out. How I would've turned out. If Josh and I would've turned out...

  But that didn't matter, did it?

  Point being, I didn't see the need to try anymore. The Gov was splitting us into sections. They were boxing us into tested options. They selfishly omitted the purpose behind people moving to Central Union centuries ago from their currency governed, power tripping minds.

  I fled for my room to prepare myself for the day until Z called my name. I froze with excitement and felt something blossom inside me.

  “Yeah?”

  “You might want to eat first.”

  “Why?”

  “Trust him,” Reno butted in.

  I shrugged and walked to the table where someone-probably Reno-placed a plate of fluffy eggs and crumbling bread on a styrofoam plate. I sat in the middle seat on the left side of the table. That was my seat for the remainder of my time in Borealia with the boys. I can't complain about the food. It actually didn't taste too bad.

  By the time I halfway tore through my plate, metaphorically and literally speaking, Reno, Marco, and Z sat down in the chairs around me. Reno and Marco sat on my sides, Z sat in the middle seat in front of me. It was like that for awhile at b-fast, lunch when we were fortunate to have any, and dinner.

  “So?”

  “It's really good,” I smiled at Z.

  He grinned like I imagined Lary would if he ever tried before I actually saw his smile, and took a bite to test the food for his own discretion.

  I watched him take a bite and he sucked in his lips and lowered his eyes in disgust. “Needs more salt.”

  “There should be a few packets in the sink counter,” Marco said after he took a bite of the eggs with his white plastic fork, the only utensil we ever had for our food.

  I picked up my piece of bread and it crumbled back onto my plate. No bread. I was fine with that, at first. My stomach longed for so much more. It reminded me of my soul once I discovered that I had one. I stared into my plate. There were still bits of eggs left here and there on it that could be scraped together into a pretty decent bite. I thought to lick the places clean where any bits lingered and make it out of a game, but realized how weird that would be to watch. The boys already thought I was loon. Maybe I could-

  “You want mine?”

  I looked over at Reno and he pushed his plate closer to mine. “Really?”

  “Yeah. I don't want much today,” he smirked.

  Right after he spoke, I heard his stomach grumble wildly beside me. As the other boys laughed, this rush to cry fell over my eyes and my chest tightened. If any of them broke my strong will to never show another emotion other than confidence, I knew it would be Reno. I just hoped it wouldn't be for a long while.

  Without another thought, I dug into the remainders on Reno's plate. Reno left the table for the room Lary disappeared into awhile ago. I wondered if that was where he chilled...but I didn't care enough to ask.

  “You know he wants you, right?” Mar laughed.

  I looked over at him with a grin and felt myself blushing. I had no idea why. I mean, I'm always honest with myself about my feelings. I was feeling nothing for the kid. I figured for awhile that it was what Lary used to say. It's the heart that counts, or was something like that. I guess that makes sense.

  Yeah, because it was Reno's heart-his care for me-that I was blushing about. It was the fact that he was being so nice and didn't have to treat me that way. He did it without even trying.

  “I don't know why Lary's hiding her here. Reno's new to this. She's gonna make it hard for him.”

  “Maybe that's why he is hiding her here,” Mar snapped.

  I shut my eyes, begging myself internally not to cry. For some reason, I was expecting Mar to defend me, not say I was a problem. I didn't want to be a problem. I wanted to be accepted. I wanted to a solution.

  There was a strange tapping at the door and the boys looked up from the table. I turned my head, and Lary came from the room with Reno. Lary walked out in a bold red T-shirt and long black pants, and rushed madly to the door, tugging urgently on the back of his shirt as if Carl Dickens was standing outside the entrance doorway.

  Reno walked past me and sat in the chair he beckoned me from just the night before and the other boys Followed. I remained seated at the table alone, afraid to rise, and too afraid to ask what was next or who was at the door. Then, I heard coming footsteps.

  “Dr. Ben's here. Reno, guard the door.”

  “Aw, man, I wanted to watch,” Reno said as he took stubborn steps to his room.

  Reno disappeared into his room for awhile and came back out holding a large black object with a sharp silver blade installed below it. The massive object filled both of his hands and still stuck out in length. It looked like something I knew about because of Josh's Old Nation memorabilia collection. Something I remembered from...somewhere.

  I heard Reno's smooth voice echo in the hall with another voice I didn't recognize and probably couldn't I.D. if I heard it ever again. He stepped in tall with short brown graying hair, small brown eyes, and in an orange suit with brown undertones I had never seen before. In all honesty, I had never seen a suit before until I met the guy. Not in real life, at least.

  I looked down to examine his shoes. Shiny, brown, Nation residue free. An examiner, a liar, or a professional. He was one of them, I was certain of it. Nice shoes-nice anything-came at a high price in The Nation; a price that only people who stepped on the overworked fingers of those socially inferior of them could afford.

  “Fellas, and lady,” Lary began with a smile. “This is Dr. Revolta. He's our examiner.”

  “It's a pleasure to meet you all,” he smiled.

  “You'll be examining this one today,” Lary said as he lifted me from my place at the table in front of the entrance hallway where they stood.

  I snapped my arm away from him and the right side of my body burned harshly. I stared into the man's squinting brown eyes and fixed my face to look emotionally unaffected by the age lines scarred onto the sides of his eyes like engraved eye lashes or the small brown spots on every area of his face.

  “Pleasure,” Dr. Revolta smiled crookedly as he placed his hand in between the space that separated us.

  I stepped back without thinking over the consequences, and immediately turned my head beside me at Lary who frowned when I didn't accept his hand the moment Dr. Revolta reached out to me. He moved his eyes toward Dr. Revolta and then back at me. I may have been naïve to a lot about life back then, but I interpreted body language pretty well, thanks to my mother's inability to choose decent friends or coherent two-night standers. I gave Dr. Revolta my hand and he shook it one time. That's when my first impression of the guy were official. I really didn't want this guy touching me.

  “Alright, Ms...” Dr. Revolta looked to Lary.

  “Lady. Just Lady,” Lary grinned as he stared me down. I didn't speak a word.

  “Right, well Lady, Lary sent me in regards to your back issues.”

  “...What?” Oh, no.

 
“He told me of your little incident.”

  I looked down, feeling death finding my place in the room.

  “You can use the back room. It's hers now,” Lary instructed him as he pointed his thumb backward.

  “Okay, then,” Dr. Revolta started his walk into the room then turned, staring directly into my eyes. “Lady?”

  My feet felt melted to the ground. Moving felt like an impossible task. That is until Lary stepped closer to me and pressed his hand into my shoulder with a devious simper on his face that I wanted to smack into an eternal frown.

  “It's either here, or on a platform,” he said through his teeth.

  I looked away, wishing I had done the unthinkable. Wishing-as a Purist-that I had joined the Mass. Maybe I would've known how to intelligently escape my first capturing or at least had Mass Protection. The only bright side I could uproot from the cave of my thoughts was that I had survived the capturing. I ended up in a completely different land of The Nation and took some pretty bad blows to my whole body from the escape, but...I made it. And, it was all because of Lary.

  I walked into the room where I found Dr. Revolta standing over my bed, and rummaged through thoughts that entered and left my mind in the same second.

  “What are you gonna do?”

  “Take away your damage, of course,” he replied as he placed a black bag on the foot of the bed.

  “I don't know if I like you.”

  “Well, luckily this procedure doesn't require you to,” he said with a raise of his shedding gray eyebrows.

  I covered my eyes with my hands as I slowly sat down beside his bag while resisting the urge to curl into a ball as the painful memory of my inflamed spine the night before came to mind.

  “I'll try to make this as easy and painless as possible, okay?”

  As he searched through the bag, I stared into its insides and my eyes pulsed sorely to the beat of the obnoxiously shiny objects clashing into one another.

  “Ah, here we are,” he said.

  I looked over and he was holding up something that looked almost identical to the laser claw contraption hanging above me when I woke up before my skinning process the night of my capturing. I leaned away from Dr. Revolta as he neared me then I rose up from the bed altogether when he came too close for my personal comfort with the object just inches from my chest.

  “Lady, you've got to do this. It's the only way you'll survive.” I shook my head and continued retracting toward the tan wall a few feet from the bed where only a small brown bordered window decorated its center. “Lady-”

  I ran for about three seconds. I felt someone grab me by the collar then push me backward so fast that the release caused me to run into the wall wedged between the sitting room and my room face first.

  “Hey!” I looked up into the eyes of the same person who I held so much respect for, who didn't apologize for ramming me into a wall. I couldn't believe the anger in his eyes. “You want to survive?”

  I looked down and muttered under my breath.

  “What?!”

  I looked up into his eyes, wanting to spit in his face. “I said, I don't know anymore.”

  “Don't be dumb! We're not having this discussion,” he replied. I pressed my body forward to walk away, but he grabbed my wrist and pushed me back into the room. “Boys.”

  Z and Mar Followed us into the room and I started to shake, just waiting for the worst thing I imagined to occur next.

  “What do you need her to do?”

  “Now that I think about it, I'll need all of your assistance,” Dr. Revolta said as Lary pushed me back onto the bed. I looked up at him, mentally compelling him to drop dead, but it didn't even force him to his knees let alone make him look down into my eyes. “She'll need to remove her shirt.”

  “No way! In front of them-”

  “How else do you suppose we anatomize you?” “It's not like it'd be anything we didn't see yesterday.”

  “Wait, what?” Lary asked in an angry puzzled tone as he turned to face Mar who spoke simultaneously with him.

  “She...she-”

  “You unclothed yourself?” he asked, looking at me with stretched eyes and a gripping hand wringing my wrist.

  “I only-”

  “So, that's why you knew about her back. Which one of you put her up to it?” he asked, scanning the room as the boys stood with their heads down and hands hidden in their jean pockets.

  “We all did. Collectively,” Mar responded after some time, continuing to keep his eyes on the deep tan carpeted floor.

  I noticed Dr. Revolta check his wristwatch and my attention diverted when Lary eyed Z for a deeper explanation out of the corner of my eye.

  “I was just there,” he shrugged.

  “And, did nothing to stop it. Who verbally suggested it?”

  “Unfortunately, my time is up here.”

  “What? We have a half an hour slot scheduled.”

  Dr. Revolta started packing his overly shined tools into the bag and shrugged. “You may have realized by the clock, if you owned one, that your hour is up.”

  “What?” everyone shrieked as they looked around for reassurance that they weren't going crazy.

  “And you, Dr. Revolta, may have realized from the clock you have that it's only been thirty minutes and you have thirty left. Plenty of time to perform her procedure.”

  “I will not be harassed into performing my livelihood, especially by a dirt collar patron. Sixty minutes is overwhelmingly up.”

  “I suppose it is,” Lary shrugged as he sat on the bed beside me. “I also suppose the thirty minutes you could be performing her procedure could be your last.”

  Dr. Revolta stopped at the door of the room and I could see the veins in his hand gripping the bag bulging below his saggy pale skin. “What are you implying, Mr. Singleton?”

  “I'm not implying anything. Rather warning you that the time between when you first stepped into our commune and the current time in which you plan to leave are dangerous times here. But if you wish to still leave and get your head blown up or better yet skinned and bred, be my guest.”

  Dr. Revolta turned with an evil smirk that showed the honesty of his age. “You're bluffing. Requesting occurs between 2-4 in OYZ Stats.”

  “People who don't live here think that, huh? I'm not stopping you anymore. Go 'head and take a chance,” Lary said with a shoo of his hand.

  Dr. Revolta stood at the door for another good minute as if he were actually giving Lary's words significant thought. “You. Shirt. Now.”

  I nodded at Dr. Revolta and removed the shirt from my body as if it suddenly caught fire. I started sweating piggishly, internally wishing that the fight that transpired between them lasted a little longer. Then suddenly, before I could take a calming breath, hands began to press me down toward the bed.

  “What are you doing?! No!” I yelled.

  “They'll need to restrain you, trust me,” Dr. Revolta replied as he quickly took out his tools again.

  I closed my eyes. Quit it now! Don't you dare cry!

  The clanging of the tools grew unbearably louder and the longer I waited to feel the cold of the tools on my back, the more my back burned from the anticipation.

  “Alright, here we-”

  “No. Don't warn her,” Lary said in a shaken voice.

  Dr. Revolta took a moment to breathe and I felt pressure on my back until all I felt was an even fiercer burning sensation traveling up and down my spinal cord, and I jumped from the surprise of my own terrifying screams that followed when Dr. Revolta made the first cut around the deep empty scarring on my back. I knew it must've been similar to death for the boys.

  “Lady, you have got to keep calm. Overreacting will cause bad repercussions.”

  “Like what?” Lary asked before I could.

  “Like her body creating a chemical to stop the removal of the damage.”

  “Take some deep breaths, Lady. Please,” Mar said.

  My eyebrows were confused b
y the sound of his voice uttering those words. Still, I followed his advise. I closed my eyes and thought about two days prior when everything was perfect and things hadn't changed.

  I could feel something rip from my back like that bandage I ripped from my knee a week after I cut it when I was six. I thought I was such a Xi running around with Josh back then. Back then being one wasn't dangerous or taboo like marriage or any other type of commitment, for that matter. I would've never imagined that years later, what once trended in our Nation would cause your demise, socially and physically speaking. A flow of warm blood ran down the sides of my back onto the bed and I cried out in fear of my own demise drawing near.

  “This may take longer than the time given to me.”

  Lary shifted toward Dr. Revolta and placed a hold on his tool free wrist. “You're finishing today,” he said in that soft yet affirming tone he used more often than not.

  “Of course! I'm no Requester. I won't leave her for dead.”

  I yelled out again, feeling rushes of pain rip throughout my shivering perspiring body. It was pain that I couldn't control, but could trace down my back by its tension. Another rip, another trail of pain and warm blood. This was my punishment for the ignorance of those who survived before me.

  “WAIT!” someone yelled.

  I couldn't identify who yelled out or even the direction of where the voice called out from me, but all of a sudden, my conscious started fading. It was heavier than the feeling that came over me when I was on the verge of falling asleep. A dangerous weightless feeling rushed to my head.

  “Oh, man! Oh, man!” “Hold her down! Hold her down!”

  I started fading fast. My vision started dimming, closing in until I only peeped light and parts of their faces in a small hole of vision that my eyesight left available as my body started shutting down. It appeared like I was looking through a keyhole—exactly like the one I looked through the night my eyes uncovered what my mother and her guy friends really did during their sleepovers.

  “She's bleeding everywhere! No more!”

  “This one section needs to be zapped.”

  “You disintegrate that and her body will fight back with toxins that'll kill her.”

  “NO!”

  Black. Darkness. I'm lost for hours. I can't find anybody and I'm blind. I have no rule over my eyes to make them open. My mind begging them to open keeps them shut longer. I felt myself running out of...my eyes opened. Damn.

  “GUYS!”

  “Don't yell!” I thought I yelled at Reno. It really came out as a cough ball of cold-red blood and spittle to the room's floor that made me quiver after. It sounded like that thing you do when you use that cup that comes with your toothbrush kit after brushing your teeth. You fill it up with water...that word my mom used to say um...google?

  I looked around to identify who stood where, all I could see was shapes because of the poorly lit room. The scope of the room immediately sent a dizzy rush to my head.

  “Bleuuuu, you heeaarrrr meee?”

  I'm fading again, but my sight gets lighter somehow. For some reason or no reason at all. I nodded to affirm that I heard his voice and he smiled.

  “Bleeuuuu....”

  Another voice. A touch to my arm. I shivered and sweat trailed down my face. So cold yet so on fire.

  “Drrinkkk...”

  I looked into the black glass and saw a trail of red from my mouth drop inside the even blacker substance.

  “Bleuuu, now!” the voice grew meaner from my hesitation. The voice didn't grow louder than a hand clap though. Lary. Another second passed and I still refused.

  “Tilt her head,” the voice said to Mar/Reno.

  Hands that felt as if they had just left an oven burned against my face. I didn't cry, but tears escaped onto my cheeks and the pain worsened. Then, all of a sudden, a shot of the thick black water filled my mouth. The first bodily impulse that ran through me was to regurgitate it as the bitter gasoline aftertaste made its way down my throat. My body grow limp and my burning stomach churned even more uneasily.

  “One more shot. Almooost dooone.”

  The fading feeling came and went like Death and Fate were having a tug-of-war with my mortality. I took the last shot from the cup. I could see then. Purple spots colored the corners of my keyhole eyesight while the center remained clear and blurred.

  “Sleeeeppppp....”

  He didn't have to tell me twice.

  Black. For hours.

  EIGHT