The Chieftain

by V. K. Ludwig

  The tabletop quivered and trembled underneath my shoulder-blades, but it did little to distract me from not having any distractions at all.

  Everything around me, from the spotless floors to the petals of the artificial rose and the spoon right next to me, was covered in the same color — no color at all.

  They had sucked it out of my life, along with all stimuli, depriving my senses of their only purpose. There was no color, no sound, no smell. Hell, even the crap they fed me was tasteless.

  I rolled myself off the table and crashed into a chair which probably screeched across the immaculate rubber tiles, but I couldn’t hear any of it.

  My knees threatened to buckle underneath me the moment my soles touched the ground, and I began pacing back and forth between the sink and the couch.

  Like a nervous tick, my eyes peeked over at the door every other step. Today was the day, right? I knew it was because I counted the times I had fallen to sleep. Seven times. My counselor was supposed to step through that door any minute now.

  Any minute.

  The lights above me hummed their constant octaves of torture and confusion. I mean, I guess they did. They blinded the room day in and day out. Week, after week, after week.

  But what if she wouldn’t come today? My breath burst in and out so quickly, I gasped for air as if the oxygen had been sucked out of the room as well.

  Chances were, I got it all confused, and it hadn’t been a week yet since the last session. With the lights being on all the freaking time, how the hell would I know? In this room, wondering if it was day or night turned into a mind fuck. And that’s precisely what they wanted. Fuck. My. Mind.

  I paced by the mirror and caught sight of my reflection. My face wore a mask of insanity. No, I wouldn’t let them break me. Eventually, they would set me free. They had to, right?

  In the corner of my eyes, a dark gap appeared between door and frame, making me spin around. Her eyes skittered across my skin, wrapping me in a blanket of cold.

  Counselor Luan walked up to me, gesturing to tilt my head. I did as commanded, anxious for the sounds to blend back into my life. She pulled the soundproof plugs out from deep within my ear canals with a special tool, which disappeared back into her pocket. Slowly and gradually, the hum of the lights above us and the chirps from the keypad by the door tickled my senses.

  Wooziness overcame me at the sensation, and I listened to every single of the calculated and deliberate steps the counselor took toward the couch.

  “Darya, why don’t you sit down in your usual spot?”

  She had said it rough and demanding, but my ears feasted on every single tone of her voice, no matter how harsh.

  I strolled over to the armchair, pushing my soles flat onto the white rubber tiles beneath me and letting squeaks escape from them.

  Plunging myself down into the fat white cushions, I added a long, drawn-out mmh to my escaping breath, the vibration of it tickling my palate and eardrum at the same time. Who would have known bliss came in the form of a simple sound…

  Luan crossed one leg over the other, brushed her long, straight hair off her shoulders and leaned back into the couch. She was a tiny woman. Short and skinny. But the stare emanating from her almond eyes, cold and professional, had something sinister and intimidating to it.

  My eyes kept wandering to the gap in the door; my pupils devouring the pigments of the blackness it offered. I stopped wondering what was behind it thirty-two nights of sleep ago. Two armed defenders with wide grins on their faces if I tried to make a run for it.

  “I was wondering if you’d come today,” I said. “Even with counting the times I fall to sleep —”

  “Sh, sh, sh,” she said, pressing her index finger against her lips. “I understand how good it must feel to you. Talking. Hearing your voice as an actual tone instead of a vibration in your throat. But we want to keep stimulation at a minimum, don’t we?”

  No, we didn’t. But we didn’t make the rules. That was all her. Or perhaps someone above her. Either way, I couldn’t fight myself out of here. Patience was my ticket. Patience and strong nerves. It had to be. For Rose.

  “I spoke to the council,” she said, forming her hands into a steeple in front of her chest. “They seem to think that you are ready to become Isabelle again.”

  She placed a deliberate silence between us.

  Read my every movement.

  Doubt dripped from her arched brows.

  Then she continued, “I told them I am not sure if Isabelle still exists. Perhaps you sentenced her to death, just like you sentenced her infant daughter to death.”

  Her statement rammed into my chest like a dagger, tearing up an artery and making me bleed into my lungs. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t as much as rasp an answer. She never mentioned Rose before. Now she took my baby girl's name into her mouth along with death.

  The chair pulled out from underneath me. Was Rose dead? My question sent me into an emotional free-fall. No, it couldn’t be. They made it out, and so did my daughter.

  I took a deep breath. I am not Isabelle.

  “Yes, I am ready to become Isabelle again,” I said short and to the point, leaving no room for hesitation, stutters or tone breaks.

  Luan eyed me warily, the only detectable movement the slow and steady up and down of her chest. The contrast her dark hair offered on this all-white background, while first appreciated, now burned my retinas. Bet my brain couldn’t manage the visual input anymore, but I had to stay focused.

  I had the urge to rub my burning eyes, but I folded my hands into my lap instead saying, “I think the council was right to send me here for a month. They said it would help me to reflect on my actions, and it did. What I did was… wrong.”

  Wrong wasn’t even close to cutting it. Guilt gnawed on my insides. Embarrassment chipped away on my sanity.

  What I did was selfish.

  Childish.

  Perhaps even outright evil.

  Not the part of helping my infant daughter to escape this place, of course. Though, that’s what Luan wanted to hear.

  No. Coming here was wrong.

  Having myself inseminated was wrong.

  Leaving my husband behind without a word to have him deal with the mess that was our life?

  Shit. The word evil didn’t cut it either.

  “Two months,” Luan said, a taunt audible on the undertone of her voice. “You’ve been here for two months. Almost three.”

  “But, b-but…” I stammered, my eyes frantically chasing the white walls for my sense of time. “But I counted the times I fell to sleep.” And chewed dents into the edges of the wooden table, too.

  What had been a straight line of a mouth now had something tugging on the corners, and the hint of a smile moved onto Luan’s face. The malicious kind. The kind that got a kick out of my confusion.

  “What month is it?” I asked.

  Luan unfolded her legs, pressed her knees tightly together and leaned forward, the steeple of her hands remaining in place. “Why is Rose dead?”

  The blood sucked out of my limbs, leaving the tips of my fingers cold and numb. What did she say?

  “Rose is dead?” I asked, my voice sounding unfamiliar and strange as if it had detached from my body. Panic made my heart pound against my ribcage, but all Luan did was staring me down like a boring commercial.

  I jumped up from the chair, its legs running across the rubber floor with a squeak. “Tell me where my daughter is!”

  A gut-wrenching cry came from the dark gap in the door, making me spin around. It hollered through the hallway, again and again, high-pitched, and with a throaty gargle at the end of each scream. A baby? Goosebumps skittered across my skin.

  “Is this Rose?” I asked, my soles fused to the ground.

  “Isabelle…”

  Isabelle. The name alone made me cringe. An identity I bought for a bunch of weapon magazines and an old assault rifle, conveniently bundled with a top-notch genetic profile.

  “I
sabelle…”

  “What?” I asked sharply, gazing back at her over my shoulder.

  “Think logically, Isabelle,” Luan said, falling back into the couch. “What you hear can’t be Rose, because Rose is dead.”

  “My daughter is alive,” I hissed, taking a step into the counselor’s direction.

  She didn’t shrink back. Didn’t as much as blink. Luan just sat there, managing to gaze up at me in a condescending look.

  “I am not a mother,” she said. “I won’t pretend to know how difficult it is to give up a child. But considering you have done it before, it doesn’t seem too hard. Not for you, at least. I’m sure you can do it again.”

  Her words stung like acid underneath my tongue, making bile rise at the back of my throat. I didn’t give Rose up. I made sure she would escape this place. And so would have I, if I wouldn’t have twisted my ankle on the run.

  “The council has decided to let Isabelle leave from here today if…” Luan got up, walked right past me and over to the door, her steps once more deliberate and calculated down to the pressure on each heel. She placed one hand onto the door handle, the other she put onto her hip. “If Isabelle tells me how Rose died… because people will ask.”

  So that was the problem. I needed to have an excuse for why I returned to the community home — without my child. I knew Rose and the others made it. Hearing it from Luan’s straight-lined lips somehow offered a weird kind of reassurance.

  My daughter was safe. Back home at the Clan. With my husband. Most likely ex-husband by now. That part sounded all kinds of messed up.

  “How did Rose die?” Luan asked once more with her back toward me, walking through the door.

  Ok, you can do this Darya. Rose is alive. Just come up with a story and get out of here. She isn’t dead. It’s just a lie. Just a lie.

  “She, um, my daughter…” I hesitated, my stomach convulsing. No lie ever tasted more rancid on my lips. “Rose contracted a virus and passed away a week after.”

  “Not good enough,” Luan said and disappeared into the darkness of the gap.

  “Wait,” I screamed. “She, um, she, she contracted a virus from the clanswoman. A dangerous strain of influenza which is fatal for infants. She ran a high fever for days. I cried, begging her to nurse. The clinic put her on IV’s but… it was too late. She fell to sleep in my arms, her little hand resting on my chest, never to wake up again.”

  “Better,” Luan’s voice sounded from behind the door, followed by a long pause. “But still not good enough.”

  Bam! The door fell heavy into its lock. For the first time, she left me behind without my earplugs. Left me back with nothing to listen to but my wails, screams, and sobs which sounded from the white walls and echoed through my brain. Over and over again.

  “They killed her,” I screamed, sinking to the ground.

  Tears dropped onto the rubber tiles, making my cheeks slip across the surface with every sob that trembled through my exhausted body.

  “The Clan killed her,” I screamed once more, the words burning my throat as if I vomited hot coals for a lie. “When they invaded the Districts to get the clanswoman out and kidnap one of our scientists. I got in the way. And they… they grabbed Rose from me and snapped her spine in two. Just like that, as if there was nothing to it. They are a danger to the Districts and everyone living in it.”

  The sobs continued, pushing waves of tears over the rim of my already flooded eyes. My mind recited a mantra: I am Darya. I am a clanswoman. I won’t let them break me. I am Darya. I am a clanswoman —

  The hinges of the door stuttered underneath moisture and rust, pulling me out of my thoughts. Blackness once more appeared from it, but no face followed.

  Instead, Luan’s voice slithered its way through the gap, the tone of her voice suddenly warm and kind. “Come with me, Isabelle.”

  Chapter 3

  The Woodlands

  Rowan

  I sat cross-legged on my bedroom floor, staring at the assembly guide between my hands. No matter which way I turned it, the piece of paper made no sense.

  “Uh-uh, no eating screws little fart,” I said, my fingers fumbling the metal hardware out from between Rose’s lips. “Know what? I liked you a lot better when you couldn’t sit yet. You’ll get this old man in trouble one day, I could tell by the way you sucked the styrofoam earlier.”

  She answered in a croaky “a-wha,” smiled her biggest smile and slapped her hands onto her thighs. Her head plopped back. Her body swayed. Two seconds later, she slipped sideways off the pillow I had propped her against and rolled onto her tummy. Her hand reached out for me, and she let out a whimper.

  “Oh, it’s alright baby-girl.” I dropped the useless piece of paper and the Allen key for what felt like the tenth time, picked Rose up, and placed her onto my lap. “It doesn’t matter how many times you fall, as long as you can still get up. Trust me on that, ’cause I know a lot about falling.”

  We walked over to the baby-swing by the window. The moment I detached her from my hip, legs kicked, and warning shouts bellowed through my room.

  “Not that shit again.” I immediately plopped her back onto my hip, and her face settled once more into pure sweetness. “You’re really clingy lately. How am I supposed to assemble this crib if I have to carry you around all day?”

  “Da-a,” she babbled, brushing her nose against my ribs.

  I gazed over the nuts, washers and white slants which lay scattered across the room. Two hours of work. Nothing to show for.

  My mind wandered to the closet and far back into the darkest corner, where a solution with a pretty flower print dangled from a nail. Shit no. I’m not gonna use that thing.

  I dived my hands underneath Rose’s armpits and pulled her away from my body, but her fingers dug into my shirt and her thighs stuck to my side like velcro. The industrial type. The type that made her eighteen pounds feel as if I was pulling against a full-grown donkey.

  “You’re driving me nuts, child.”

  I stomped into the closet, shoved our bodies through jackets, thermal shirts, and jumpsuits. “You won’t rest until I embarrassed myself in front of the entire village, will you?”

  My hand darted for the dreaded baby carrier. I dragged it back behind me, the plastic buckles clinking against the dented brown baseboards with each step I took.

  I propped Rose against the wall on our bed. She observed me patiently, her greener-by-the-day eyes following my every movement. Bright pink and yellow, the flower print scratched my eyeballs out, but I continued with my journey through straps and buckles.

  The wide strap was supposed to go around my waist; I had that much figured out. From there it turned from fifth-grade math to quantum physics, and I shoved and punched the dangling pieces in all directions.

  “This freaking thing has more gadgets than a Swiss Army Knife,” I said. “Alright, baby-girl… I think we’re ready. Wanna try it out?”

  She let out one of those heart-warming laughs I loved so much, followed by more baby babble. I scooped her up and placed her onto my hip, leaning a good bit forward. Then I put my arm through one of the shoulder straps, rotated the waist strap, and moved her slowly from hip to back. Once there, I punched my other arm through the second shoulder strap.

  “That wasn’t so complicated,” I said and stood up straight. “What do you think? Is it something you can live with?”

  I walked over to the mirror, catching a glimpse of Rose’s reflection with a satisfied smile on her face. After a few adjustments on the buckles, I could actually breathe and crouched back over to the pieces of crib laid out in front of me.

  With Rose out of the way, everything of this dinged white crib came together like pots and lids. Ten minutes later, I attached one slanted side to the elaborately carved headboard.

  “Rowan,” a familiar voice shouted from the kitchen.

  “Right over here.”

  “We’re done loading,” Oriel said, leaning his side against the doorframe. “Au
tumn said they’ll head out soon and…”

  His pitch had shifted a gear higher, followed by an abrupt stop. A gaze over my shoulder revealed Oriel with his hand in front of his mouth, his head cocked enough to make his long stray-dog-blonde hair bunch up against his neck.

  “What?” I asked, turning the Allen key clockwise using my entire palm. “Never seen a man assemble a baby crib before? How about you stop hiding that grin of yours and put your hand to better use? Bring me that footboard over there.”

  His feet remained rooted to the ground, the only movement about him the chuckles which went through his chest like exaggerated hick-ups.

  “Truck’s waiting.” River joined the assembly, a small banged-up moving box nestled underneath his arm “Let’s get this show on the road before … what the fuck is that?”

  The moving box dropped onto the floor, the clinking and clanking explaining the red fragile sticker on all sides. Glass broke into what sounded like a sweet orchestra of destruction, and Oriel’s hick-up-giggles spilled over the rim of his palm.

  He pressed his hand onto his mouth to swallow them whole, but they burst through his fingers and resonated the room in a belly-deep laugh.

  “What the hell are you wearing?” River asked, and shot me the kind of look that punched you in the nuts. “Is that… is that Rose on your back?”

  Heat climbed up the back of my neck and turned the contraption into a sauna, making my earlobes itch worse than a rash.

  “What are you guys? Twelve years old?” I threw the Allen key at them which bounced against River’s arm and dropped to the ground, making him slap his hands onto his thighs followed by a loud chuckle.

  I tugged on the straps. “Seriously, how is this any different from my double shoulder holster? Got a baby in it instead of my guns. Big deal.”

  “Haha, you look… you look like…” Oriel’s exhausted lungs drew in a sharp breath. “I swear you look like someone tried to put a nightgown on an elephant.”

  “Hey, um, um,” River stammered, struggling to draw in the air between each giggle. “Think they got one with heart print in stock, too? Like… for my wife?”