Disorder

by Martha Adele

  Emily pulls out her seat and slides in, sitting at the other end of the table. “Okay, then you are in for a history lesson.” She swipes again and pulls up a picture of a town being built. People on the ground, on ladders, and on top of buildings are all working on a common goal.

  Rebuilding.

  Emily clears her throat and looks over to us. “A long time ago, our land was destroyed by a war between men. A squabble that could have easily been solved destroyed a countless number of lives and killed billions more. This is one of the first pictures taken of us attempting to rebuild our lives after the nuclear war was over.”

  She swipes her tablet once again and leads us back to the picture of the men in suits, fighting. “Sadly, the peace we fought so hard to try to keep was short-lived after our population segregated naturally. We split into two groups. One, we called the Diligent.”

  The screen changes to show the crossed-hammers seal. “The Diligent believe that you should get what you work for and that anyone who doesn’t put in the effort shouldn’t reap the benefits.” Emily swipes the tablet, and the screen changes again, this time to the gold seal with the ant.

  “The other group, we called the Amiables. The Amiables believe that no matter how hard you work, everyone should be given the same benefits.” Emily sighs and turns back to us. “It is an idealistic mind-set. As good as the Amiables’ beliefs sound, they aren’t realistic. They claim that this method would keep everyone equally rich, but in reality, they are just keeping everyone at the same level of destitution.”

  The image in front of us changes from the picture of everyone arguing to a picture of a map—a blob, really, that had certain areas marked off and labeled. The northern portion is labeled “Diligent,” and the southern portion is labeled “Amiable.”

  Emily clears her throat and folds her hands on the table. Her voice—quiet and calm, but authoritative enough to make an impact—floats through the room. “The two groups decided to split up to avoid conflict, but inside, trouble was still brewing. The survivors of the nuclear war continued on with life by starting families and making their own governments. Almost fifty years after their separation, a civil war broke out, and the two groups fought for thirteen years.”

  Images of the war flash before us. Gunfire, swordplay, cannon fire, bombs, and so much more. Buildings being blown to bits, along with forest fires burning nature, people, and animals alike. I see Sam beside me twitching as the images pass by, and I listen to Mavis’s breathing. Her breaths have become longer and heavier, and her eyes have focused on the screen in front. Emily swipes slowly and watches our reactions.

  My eyes lock with Emily’s. She sends me a sympathetic head tilt and continues, “The war ended with an Amiable victory.” A picture of their ant on a flag comes into focus. “During the war, the Amiables wasted no resources. They killed off anyone who refused to fight, even those who couldn’t, just so that they wouldn’t be supporting those who couldn’t support them in return. The Diligent, on the other hand, did not. They supported those back home who couldn’t fight, and they showed mercy to many Amiable soldiers whom they should have killed. The Amiables showed no mercy and ended the war by forcing the Diligent to surrender.”

  An image of Metropolis flashes onto the wall. Emily turns back to us. “This is where your homeland comes into play. After the civil war, a dictator rose from the ashes. This dictator’s name was Lance Meir I. He and his council instituted a state of socialistic causes where everyone is assigned a different job in which they have to comply, or they will be arrested or killed. Nobody gets to have any input in their desired career—they just have to do what they are told. They are only educated for the specific jobs they are assigned when they are children, and nobody is ever taught history. Lance Meir was very determined to keep all of his citizens uneducated and have them blindly follow his rule.” Emily pauses and looks back to us as if she is waiting for a comment or some sort of answer.

  In this moment, my mind is running wild. Everything she is saying makes sense, but at the same time, they all seem so ridiculously unreal.

  “Without a proper education, you never really learn to think for yourself. You just learn to blindly follow and listen to what you are told.” Emily pauses and turns her head back to us. Mavis is scratching her arm but pauses the moment she sees me watching. She avoids eye contact with everybody while Sam looks from me to Mavis to Emily. His puzzled look is almost laughable, but definitely understandable.

  Emily takes our silence as a cue to continue explaining. “Lance Meir I passed on his rule to his son, Lance Meir II. Both men share similar views. They both believe in assigning careers at birth and educating citizens for that one career in order to save resources. They both believe in free health care per se, and they both believe in geven.”

  Emily pauses again and explains to us that “geven” is the term they use to describe the economic system where everyone shares everything. For some reason, she seems to think that we completely understand everything she says.

  She turns back to the screen and changes the image to a picture of Meir II. “Though he claims he is following his father, Lance Meir II’s views on everything are much more radical than his father’s. For example, when Lance Meir I came into power, what was one of the first things he did for the health-care system?”

  Emily swipes her tablet and pulls up another picture, this time of Lance Meir I giving a speech on one of his podiums. “He and his team of scientists came up with a serum that prevents any and every sort of disorder in the human body. They began to administer it to every infant within hours of its birth so that it could grow up and live without any sort of restriction caused by a disorder. As wonderful as this sounds, the beautiful and amazing program was quickly trashed when Meir II came into power. As soon as he began calling the shots, he decided that they were spending too much money administering their miracle serum, so he cut the funding for the program.”

  Sam, Mavis, and I all exchange a baffled look. None of us have ever heard of any of this, and to be honest, I find this quite difficult to believe.

  Emily looks to us for answers but soon picks up talking again. “As the generations continued to come, the effects of the serum slowly began to fade out of its people. What I mean by that is that the children born in the last twenty years have not been granted the same good fortune as those who had been born previously.”

  Too many thoughts are running through my mind. I don’t know what I want to ask first, but Sam does. He slides his hands onto the table in front of us, cocks his head at Emily, and squints. “Why?”

  Emily smiles at him. “I am happy you asked that, Sam. Meir II and his new team of scientists created a serum that delays the disorders rather than destroys it. This serum is cheaper to make and administer, and they only have to administer it to certain people. The serum will delay the disorders for eighteen years after it is injected.”

  I manage to force out a question in between the rubbing of my fingernails. “Which people?”

  Emily smiles again. “Good question …” She tilts her head at me, waiting for my name.

  “Logan,” I say. “It’s Logan.”

  “Good question, Logan. When Stellens are born, they go through a screening process that helps the nurses and doctors figure out what disorders they will have in the future and how severe they will be. Some disorders that aren’t extreme they let go by, while others that are more unpredictable are considered too dangerous to ignore.

  “So what they do is inject the infants that will grow up to have these disorders with the delaying serum and assign them to the ‘military,’ when really, they are being exiled for monetary purposes. Since those who enter the Stellen military are never seen again by their families, it isn’t considered suspicious that these people go missing.

  “An example of a disorder that isn’t considered too dangerous when it is mild is germaphobia. It would have to be a
severe case in order for them to determine you would be a threat to society. An example of a disorder that would be considered dangerous at any level is schizophrenia.” Emily pauses. She looks to us and tries to read our expressions. I don’t know what the others are thinking, but it is probably the same thing I’m thinking.

  Monetary purposes?

  Monetary purposes?

  “You mean they threw us into the wild to fend for ourselves because we have some sort of mutation that we cannot control?” I fume. “One that they could have prevented for a few extra bucks?”

  “Yeah!” Sam shoots up from out of his chair, throwing it backward in the process. “And who are you people anyway? Why should we trust you? All you are doing is telling us that we are unnatural and that everything we know is a lie?” His eyes begin twitching, along with his neck.

  I get ready to start questioning again when I hear Mavis’s shaky breath behind me. I turn to see her with her hands over her ears and her head down on her knees. She takes quick and loud gasps as her body bounces up and down with every breath she takes.

  “Hey, guys.” Emily walks around the back of the table. “Please stop shouting. I am jus—”

  “Stop shouting?” Sam shouts. “Do we not have the right to shout? Just because you don’t like our chancellor? Just because yo—”

  Mavis gasps loudly, which scares both Sam and me, still keeping her head down and her hands over her ears. Emily reaches up and presses a button on her watch. Two men in white clothing rush in with a small metal rolling table. One of the men quickly grabs a small glass vial about five inches long with a needle on the end. The vial has a bright blue liquid inside of it, which quickly drains as it is stuck into the side of Mavis’s thigh.

  She shoots up from her seat and leaps forward. She lands against one of the walls and presses her back against it. Mavis’s eyes grow three sizes. The green bits of her eyes are barely visible as her pupils grow to fill up the colored portions. Mavis darts her eyes from the men who stuck her with the needle over to me. Our eyes lock for a moment before she slowly slides down the wall into a sitting position.

  Sam and I both are in shock at what has just happened. Sam is left gaping at the men with the needles while I look back to Emily. “What was that?” I demand.

  The second the words leave my lips, I realize that I may be their next victim. Sam seems to have the same idea. He tenses up and backs away from the men and Emily as they fix their eyes on the two of us.

  “What?” Sam shouts at them. “Are you going to sedate us too?”

  Emily brings her hands up and approaches us the same way Sam and I approached Charlie. “This is what I was trying to explain,” Emily answers. “Each one of you has a disorder that is considered extreme in one way or another. By the looks of it, this young lady has severe anxiety.”

  Emily walks over to Mavis, who is sitting against the wall with one knee to her chest and one leg stretched out. Mavis is looking around the room to each of us as her breathing steadies. Emily and Mavis stare at each other for a moment as Emily proceeds with an explanation. “Since none of you have ever had any experience with your disorders before, we want to help you learn what it is and how to handle it. Until you get a good grip on it, we have medicine that can help you.”

  Now Mavis is staring into Emily’s eyes and ignoring the rest of us in the room.

  Emily crouches down and gets to eye level with Mavis. “Are you okay?” Emily waits for a response, but Mavis remains silent. Emily whispers, “I am sorry we had to do that. I know how scary those attacks can be. We just want to help you.”

  Mavis takes a few more deep breaths.

  Emily gives her a calm smile. “Did it help?”

  Mavis returns her gesture with a slow and calm nod.

  Looking over to Sam and me, she sighs. “We don’t like to do that, and I am sorry it had come to this. She was in a lot of distress, so I thought we could help.” Emily returns to her standing position. “Just like if either of you ever feel overwhelmed by your issues, you just let me or someone know, and we will not hesitate to help.”

  Mavis stays in her relaxed position and watches us as she takes her deep breaths. Sam turns to me, and we share a stare for a few moments before he turns back to Emily. “So Mavis has anxiety? That’s a disorder?”

  Emily nods.

  Sam turns back to Emily. His body is stiff other than the twitching of his hands, neck, and cheeks. “I thought that was just a word to describe nervousness.”

  Emily shakes her head and smiles. “I wish. Sadly, there is a lot more to anxiety than anyone ever assumes. Attacks can come in many forms, ranging from unpredictable fits of rage or irritability to sitting in silence, being consumed by a lack of ability to think properly or really function.”

  Sam’s voice, blank of any emotion, floats through the room. “What about me?”

  “Excuse me?” Emily folds her hands in front of her as she glances from Mavis to Sam.

  “What about me?” he repeats. “Can you tell me why I keep twitching? Why I have uncontrollable … anger inside of me? Why every little thing sets me off, and I have to fight myself to maintain composure?”

  Emily gives another light smile, though this one seems painted on. As she forces a kind smile onto her face, her perfect features become more noticeable. How many times before has she had to use this fake smile? Her shoulder-length black hair looks about as soft and shiny as can be, and it makes her skin even more chocolate-like than I originally thought. Does she keep such a perfect appearance in order to assure others that it can get better? Or does she keep this appearance because she is conceited?

  Emily turns to the men in white before answering Sam. “We can help you find out what your disorder is, Sam. We have a very similar screening process to the one you underwent when you were infants. It is easy and harmless and takes a few hours at the most.”

  Sam nods and looks back to the men in white. Before he can say anything, I butt in and ask Emily the same question. “What about me?”

  She chuckles. “I think I already have yours figured out, but you can get checked out too if you want.”

  I cock my head at her answer.

  “OCD,” she states. “I can recognize the signs anywhere. The rubbing each finger three times, the way you aligned your rolling chair with certain lines of the screen and table in the room, the way you squeeze your eyes closed every time you blink, and the pattern when you do so.”

  I can’t help but question her once again, “OCD?”

  “Obsessive compulsive disorder. The short explanation is a disorder that creates the need to repeat certain things or engage in certain behavior that will drive you crazy if you aren’t able to follow through with those desires.” Emily smiles at me once again. “I have it too.” Her smile fades as her eyes fall, and she fixes her focus on the ground. She pauses for a moment before looking back up at me. “I have a mild form. You seem to have a moderate form. That’s interesting. We didn’t know that they considered mild to moderate OCD a threat.”

  She turns back to Mavis and meets her eyes. “I have anxiety too, a severe form, really. But I have been able to overcome both of these with the help of the people and staff here at Bergland.” Emily’s fist clenches, and her fingers rub up against each other. She then brings her hands up and begins bending her fingers and gesturing with her hands as if speaking with them. “Mine usually results in severe attacks where my OCD suffocates me. I can’t help but notice everything around me that needs to be changed or fixed, but I can never satisfy the need.” She holds out her hand for Mavis and helps her up to a standing position. “These guys only gave you a small dose, so you should be back to normal in a matter of minutes. This dose was just to help you calm down for a moment so that we could explain some of this.”

  Mavis crosses her arms and nods back to Emily.

  Both of them make their way toward
us, and the two men in white open the meeting room doors. Emily walks over to the opening and nods us out. “Are you ready for your screenings?”

  Sam and I exchange a look, one that we both understand. Are we ready to find out what was so wrong with us that we were kicked out of our homes? Are we ready to be tested by complete strangers? Are we really ready to blindly follow people who claim we were blindly following others?

  We have only one real answer to all of these questions, one that I am not even 100 percent sure of.

  Yes, we are ready.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Sam

  BPD.

  I have BPD, or borderline personality disorder.

  Or at least that is what the doctors tell me. As I sit on one of the small beds in one of the observation rooms, a doctor and nurse come back with a clipboard and a small vial that is very similar to the one with which the nurses stuck Mavis just hours ago.

  The doctor moves over to me with the vial while the nurse holds the clipboard. His name tag reads “Dr. James” while the nurse’s scrubs remain nameless. Dr. James leans in, places one hand on my thigh, and holds out the vial in the palm of his hand so that I can take a look at it. He speaks to me in the same accent that the other Berglanders did. “Just a little prick, and it will be over.”

  I can’t help but connect their accents to the privileged citizens of Bestellen and wonder if the original group of people that split into the Diligent and Amiable factions had these accents also.

  I guess it makes sense. After separating into different states and being exposed to only those within their state, the citizens should end up with the same mannerisms as everyone else within their state.

  I nod to him, and the needle goes into my thigh. My shoulders jump a bit as a feeling of relaxation floods over my body. I feel my shoulders, neck, cheeks, and legs finally find rest—a rest that they haven’t felt since Bestellen.

  “The form of BPD you have is extremely mild, but difficult to deal with nonetheless.” The doctor pulls the vial back and scoots his chair away to give me some space. “This medicine is designed to hold you over and keep any and all symptoms you may have very mild and possibly unnoticeable. We will give you all of the instructions for the medicine later. But for right now, all you need to know is that unless something triggers a full-blown attack, this medicine should help you go back to your normal state once your body adapts to it. Now can I ask you a few questions?”