SWAB (A Young Adult Dystopian Novel)

by Choate, Heather

  Nathan and Gray had a contest to see who could balance a walnut on the tip of their spoon the longest. I joined in, but Officer Reynolds beat us all. His booming laughter echoed in my ears like a gong. More musicians joined the lone violinist, and they picked up the beat with a lively Scottish-sounding tune. Saki got up after about our sixth course and tapped her feet to the fast beat. We dug into sweetened cherries and wild thistle cream. I wiped some of the white cream off Nathan’s chin. He told me I had some on my face, too.

  Hours must have passed, but it felt like only a few moments. The lights began to dim and beeswax candles were lit. I found myself laughing at something Derrick had said about how bad the food on the island was compared to this. Saki stood again, and I realized we were the last ones left in the dining hall. “Well, so much for training this afternoon,” she giggled with her familiar ringing laugh. “We will have to do better tomorrow, but oh, well. That’s the scarb way. Work hard, play harder.”

  A deep thumping sound vibrated the floor like a car bass turned up too loudly.

  “Ah, I almost forgot. The Rand is going on tonight,” Saki said with a glint in her eye.

  “The Rand?” I repeated.

  “Yes,” she clasped her hands and squealed. “Anyone feel like seeing how scarb really like to have fun?”

  My body felt energetic, and my mind deliciously content. “Of course, we do,” I cheered.

  Nathan took my hand and spun me around to the pounding beat.

  “Let’s go, then!” Saki laughed. “It’s time you really felt like scarb.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  The Rand

  A pulsing thud, thud, thud vibrated the halls as we followed Saki out of the dining hall and down a narrow passageway. “We’re going to the subterranean level,” she told us, tying her blue and black hair up into a sloppy bun. “It’s the lowest point of the colony, and I’m sure it’s unlike anything you’ve seen before.”

  She was right. The smooth, tiled floors gave way to simple concrete as the hall steepened. The bottom of it ended in an open black mouth, like the opening of a cave. Blue and green lights flashed out of it, and speakers throbbed with strange, loud music.

  “The music is inspired by Origin,” Saki said, smearing lipstick the same shade of purple as her eyes onto her lips. She offered it to me, but I shook my head. Mrs. Weatherstone, however, put it on.

  We stepped through the entrance. It took me a moment for my eyes to adjust. I saw everything at first through the flashes of light that came from strobe lights set high above into the earthy ceiling. Stalactites and stalagmites rose above and below like broken teeth. The ground was of raw earth and stone. Scarb were everywhere. The huge space was packed with them. An orange female spun in circles with two friends past us, whipping my face with her hair. Hundreds of scarb danced to the bizarre—but strangely hypnotic—music. Fliers dove and flipped in the air. Scarb dancing below; scarb dancing above.

  “Come on!” Saki encouraged us with a daring smile before she plunged into the crowd. Nathan and Gray were just a step behind her with shouts of, “Hey, ladies!” Mrs. Weatherstone and Officer Reynolds were already holding hands and dancing close. Travis and Jorge disappeared, as well. Only Derrick and I hung back. I gave him an awkward smile and he glanced back at me, looking as alarmed as I did.

  “You want to walk around?” he asked.

  “Sure.”

  Keeping to the outer wall, I followed him farther into the cavern. Lights intermittently came on from crevices in the rock, temporarily blinding us. The room smelled of sulfur, sweat, and cinnamon incense. Through the flashing hands and waving arms, I could now see a large altar in the center of the cavern where the music was being blasted from speakers the size of small cars. A dozen or so scarb spun as they operated the keyboard and electronic equipment responsible for producing the sound.

  Against the wall we clung to, I noticed a thundering waterfall pouring down from the darkness above. It pooled and ran off in a stream down into the crevices between the rocks. Pink and orange lights illuminated the falling water, and though it was quite beautiful, all the scarb seemed to avoid this section. Then I remembered that scarb didn’t do well in water. The spray dampened my hair and made the ends twist into tighter curls. Will I clam up now, too?

  We moved away from the water into the thicket of dancers. Bodies throbbed and pushed against us. A large black scarb saw me. He left his partner and slithered right up to me. “Aren’t you a purty little thang,” he purred, flashing white fangs.

  He grabbed my arm. I went to push him off, but Derrick beat me to it. He got right up into the big scarb’s face.

  “She’s with me,” he growled and put his hand on my shoulder.

  The black male took in Derrick’s size and decided it wasn’t worth the fight. He released me, but went off into the crowd muttering, “Hottest butterfly in this joint.”

  “Are you okay?” Derrick asked, his face aglow in lime green light for a moment.

  “Yeah,” I said, wishing I could have some more honey nectar to calm my nerves. As if at my request, a tiny, white-haired waiter squeezed her way towards us with tall glasses of the stuff. I didn’t hesitate to grab one. The nectar took effect almost instantly. My shoulders dropped into their sockets. The beat traveled up my legs, and my hips began to sway. My lungs demanded more of the humid oxygen. Faster. Hands up in the air. Moving free. Derrick danced too, his eyes closed as if taking the music internally. The crowd no longer bothered us. We moved with it, became part of it.

  Derrick’s hands were on my hips. My eyes flashed to him. His face was all danger.

  “Is this okay?” he asked, moving us together in rhythm. Damp from the waterfall mist, he smelled of ocean and wind. The bodies around pushed us closer together, demanding that no space be wasted.

  Our stomachs and chests were touching. The feel of his big hands on my back and hip sent tingles up my spine. His mouth was not more than a few inches from mine. The music switched to something a little sweeter, like a morning sunrise through the trees and the smell of sun-warmed hay.

  Suddenly, it was as if no one else was around us. It was just him and me, somewhere warm and bright, like the country fields he grew up in. Orange and earthy. But it was probably just the strobe lights producing some kind of illusion. There was a feeling of space all around us. Like the universe had opened to let us have this moment.

  A keening female voice pierced the air with an evocative melody. She sang for us, for right now, for everything we were feeling. Light. Floating. Falling. All of it. All at once. The look in Derrick’s eyes told me he meant every movement. He would never let me go. I was his. That feeling echoed in my chest. It burned in every cell of my body.

  “She’s glowing,” a voice said over the music. That brought me back. Actually, the music had gotten quiet, now just a background reverie. I looked around. That feeling of space wasn’t just in my head. All the scarb around us had backed away, leaving us alone in the center of a circle. A bright orange spotlight shone over our heads. Hundreds of scarb watched us. Derrick stepped back, still holding onto me, but his jaw fell open, and then he dropped my hands like they were too hot for touch.

  “What?” I asked, but when I looked down at my arms, I realized there was no spotlight on us after all. The amber light was coming from me. My skin was literally glowing. The light radiated several feet from me. All my veins had turned into bright golden threads. The liquid in my body had become electric.

  The crowd pointed and talked to their neighbors.

  “She moves the music,” I heard a woman say.

  “She commands the lights,” a male voice awed.

  Other bits of sentences reached my ears. “…too dangerous …”

  “…never happened before …”

  “…truly alarming.”

  From my far-right lens, I saw Saki and the others push their way to the edge of the circle. Saki looked about ready to run to me, but when she
saw why everyone was gaping, she stopped, her eyes as wide as moons. Nathan was behind her. At first, it was like he had just run into a closed door, but a moment later, I saw him mouth the word, “Cool.”

  This was anything but “cool.” I didn’t know how I was doing this, didn’t know how to stop it. I stared at my luminous arms and tried to think of how to turn the glowing off.

  The crowd started hushing. When I looked back at them, they were no longer looking at me, but above me. I craned my neck to see what had captured their attention. Descending from the high ceiling, I could make out the bare foot and leg of a female scarb. Her skin was a greenish tint of alabaster and smooth as porcelain. The flutter of her wings swept my hair back.

  “Iva,” the crowd whispered like a prayer.

  The smell of spearmint hit me. She stopped three feet above the ground. Her long, bright-red hair gleamed in the glow of my light. I instantly recognized her thin face, high cheekbones, and large, green, four-lensed eyes.

  “You,” I said, and suddenly everything came back to me like a knife in the stomach: Ray, the island, this scarb taking Ray high over the mountains away from me. A sick feeling crept up my insides. What had I just been doing with Derrick? Was I really going to forget about Ray that easily? It was the effect of the nectar, I tried to tell myself. I’ve been drugged. Not acting like myself. But deep inside, I knew that wasn’t entirely true. None of this would’ve ever happened if she hadn’t taken Ray. I wouldn’t have had to go after him, wouldn’t have been turned into a scarb. It was all her fault.

  She arched her left eyebrow. “Well, you certainly know how to command attention, don’t you?” her clear voice said distinctly in my mind.

  “Iva,” the crowd murmured again.

  “That must be your name,” I said back. “Iva.”

  “It is.”

  I wasted no time. “Where’s Ray?”

  She didn’t flinch. “I don’t know.”

  Heat rose up in my chest. “What do you mean, you don’t know? You’re the one who took him!” I felt Derrick and Nathan behind me. The light emanating from my skin took on a reddish glow. Iva’s eyes reflected it.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” she said, and her words felt sincere. “You truly are unique.”

  With that, she beat her wings and lifted herself back up into the air. “Wait!” I yelled. “You have to tell me where he is!” But she had already disappeared into the darkness above. Blackness seemed to surround me, as well. I’d found the one person who could help me, and now she was gone.

  I turned back to Nathan and Derrick. The glow around me faded and my skin resumed its original paleness.

  The crowd hummed around us. They whispered and shared thoughts of every nature to one another. I didn’t have to hear them to know just from their sharp expressions that what had just happened wasn’t a good thing. They glanced at me sideways, distrust crinkling their eyebrows and tensing their lips. A few looked at me with softer expressions. Pity? Some were still in awe. A few tried to come shake my hand, but then Saki was at my side, leading me out of the room by the elbow. “A new recruit,” she muttered a few times to the curious scarb, as if that explained it. “Got to get her some rest.”

  “What’s going on?” I asked her, but she shushed me and shooed the other scarb away.

  “Let’s just go get you some rest for now,” was all she said. Her fingers were stiff, though. I felt bad. She’d brought us here for fun, and I’d spoiled the party. The throng parted for us like we had conducted the black plague or something.

  I knew Derrick walked behind me. I could feel his presence like a bright sun, but I tried to ignore him. Sharp desperation filled me. More than ever, I knew I had to find Ray. And soon, before being scarb ruined me and I lost all chance of being who I was before. Ray deserved at least that much. As I moved through the sea of alien faces, I determined that I would find Iva again, no matter what. She was here, and I was coming for her.

  “Easy now,” Derrick’s cautioned me in a low voice, but I threw him out of my thoughts. I didn’t care about discretion. Let the whole bloody colony hear me. I was getting Ray back. That was all that mattered.

  We left the underground cavern and fluorescent lights, and tiled floors were soon all around us. The music from below started up again, the booming bass rocking the ground. I felt lightheaded and weak. Was it just my double-vision, or were there really two paintings of a fat orange cat on the wall?

  “You okay?” Nathan said, taking my other arm.

  “I’m just tired,” I answered and tried to clear my spinning head. The floor came in and out of focus. Saki and Nathan supported me until we were back in the room where I first saw Nathan and the others, the one with the little water fountain.

  “Let’s let her rest in here,” I heard Saki say. They brought me to a small room. There was a dresser, a mirror, and a white bed. I felt my body lifted and set onto the bed. My eyes instantly closed, and my body relaxed. But before I let myself be overcome with unconsciousness, I heard a scarb whose voice was unfamiliar ask, “Do you think she has any idea?”

  Saki gently tucked the blanket up under my chin. “No. I don’t think she does.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Glowing and Gliding

  That night, I dreamed of Ray. He was floating over me like an angel, or a moth, but he had no wings. That was good. That’s how I knew he wasn’t scarb. But he was floating. That was strange. No stranger than my skin glowing or me dancing with Derrick. Derrick! Guilt instantly swept through me.

  I didn’t want to meet Ray’s eyes. His face was just above mine, making that difficult.

  “What’s the matter, Cat?” he asked.

  “I,” my throat felt as thick as honey-nectar, “I danced with Derrick last night.”

  Ray frowned but he didn’t look surprised. “You’re scarb now, Cat, that’s okay.”

  “No, it’s not,” I instantly shouted. “I still love you.”

  Ray nodded, his black hair swaying like seaweed. “Do you have feelings for him, too though?”

  “I,” Do I? “I don’t know. I do feel something when I’m around him. But—it’s not like when I’m with you.” He reached his hand down and brushed a cool finger across my lips.

  I sighed, realizing how exhausted this dream was making me. The weight of Ray seemed to press down on me even though he stayed floating.

  Tears squeezed out of my eyes. “I miss you so much, Ray. Where are you? You should be here with me. Everything is changing so fast—I’ve never not had you. Since the first day we met—you’ve always been there, protecting me. Telling me to be strong. I tried to find you. I came here, but you’re gone. I’ll tear this entire colony down by my hands to find you.”

  I reached my hand to touch him, but he was suddenly much further up above me and my hands reached only air. He looked distant. “You have to be strong, Cat. You were made to stand on your own. Despite this, you can pave your own way. You’ve always been my little fighter.” Sadness clouded his eyes. “I miss you, Cat. I went back to the island. The columbines are starting to bloom. They made me think of you. I would’ve put one in your hair. I pretended I did. I tucked the blossom behind your ear. Your hair was light like sun on the snow. I put your body in a boat and then I shoved it into the lake. In my mind, I watched it burn. Your smoke made orange clouds in the sky.” He looked up and I could almost see it. “But you weren’t really there. So, I put the columbine into a boat and told you goodbye.”

  He moved higher, his image flickering and fading. “Ray! Don’t go! I’m right here. I’ll find you, I promise!”

  I reached up to kiss him, but he was gone.

  *****

  Nathan was there when I awoke. He sat on the end of my bed, playing with a shoestring. I could smell Derrick’s lingering scent as well, which meant he had been in the room recently, too.

  Nathan looked ten years old again when he asked me, “How are you feeling?” I hated to see him
worry.

  I sat up and tried to figure out how I was feeling. “I’m…fine.” There was a dull ache in my head, and my hands were sore, like they’d gripped the bed sheets all night. “How long have I been sleeping?”

  “Almost fifteen hours,” Nathan said. “I’ve been waiting forever for you to get up. I only need about four hours of sleep a night, now.”

  “You?” I frowned. “You usually sleep until one or two in the afternoon every time you can.”

  “I know, weird, huh? Being scarb changes a lot of things.” He leaned toward me. “Speaking of weird, that was pretty wicked last night.”

  I tried to swallow away the sticky feeling in the back of my throat. “Is wicked a good thing or a bad one?”

  He thought about it, twisting the shoestring around his fingers. “Good, mostly.” He got a mischievous look in his eyes. “Can I call you ‘Worm’?”

  “‘Worm’?”

  “Yeah, you know, short for ‘glow-worm’?” He had a dumb smile on his face, like he thought he’d come up with something pretty clever.

  “Glow-worm,” I repeated. I guess that was a good description for it. Like the lightning-bugs we’d seen in Ohio when we went to visit our grandparents. I remembered how they moved through the dark trees and grass like tiny yellow lanterns. Nathan would catch them and squeeze their stomachs and smear the bursted yellow goo onto his arms. “I’m an alien! I’m an alien!” he would yell running around the house after me until the glow faded.

  “No, you can’t call me ‘Worm’,” I told him, frowning. But the satisfaction on his face told me I’d sealed my fate.

  “How did you do it?” he asked, like he wanted me to teach him.

  “I have no idea,” I replied. His face fell a bit. “It’s not like speaking, or even flying.” I could see his wings beating slowly behind his shoulder. “I didn’t have any control over it. It just happened.” I thought back to the night before: the music, the feeling of floating, Derrick’s hands on my hips, warm sun and orange grass. “I didn’t even know I was doing it until people started talking. Then I opened my eyes and…” And Ray would kill me if he ever saw how I lost myself with Derrick…