Entry Thirteen

This is Rewel. I see myself clearly, naked and battered, with skin the color of the walls and dead grey eyes that glare at myself in confusion. The black hair is shaved close to the skull and the face is an angry swollen mess. I stare at myself: I am human.

“You took a beating.” The smooth words glide into ear canals and vibrate ear drums. “Arion is quite the violent type.” There is a tug at my skin: needle and thread held by the Scientist. He says no more as he sews skin back to skin. The glass above me shows him in the reflection, bent over my shoulder, fingers working methodically.

There is Matduke sitting in the corner. He watches me in the reflection as I watch him, the blue of his prosthetic eye burning through me. Silence stretches thin covering the room in a film to mute the ears and quiet stares.

The snap of thread brings us back to the present. “You’ll be right as rain in a few days.” The Scientist helps me sit up as Matduke stands in front of me. There is silence again.

“Here.” Matduke hands a book to me. I riffle through it: pages I have written are bound in it along with hundreds of blank pages. At the very back is an envelope. “Read that later.” Silence creeps in once more.

The Scientist stands next to Matduke. “Just tell him, Speaker Matduke. This is nonsense.”

“Fine.” Matduke sits again. I feel the confusion leak through the pain on my face, itself a kick to the face. “I convinced the Speakers to put you on house arrest after explaining the situation of your… accidental murder.” The words settle in the air like dust. Matduke continues: “I told them that Tristam and I had been doing some experimentation on you in hopes of finding a way to maximize efficiency of the body while keeping the body at peak performance. Luckily, I still have some supporters among the Speakers, thus you are here.”

Silence like a vacuum that sticks to skin and thickens the air. Tristam, the Scientist, speaks: “We’ve been preparing you to leave. It’s sooner than we anticipated, but you will not last long with Arion in favor of the Speakers.”

“Leave,” the word crackles in my mouth. Perhaps they have enhanced my body but not my mind for I know not what they mean.

Silence again that physically hurts, digging into my skull. “We’re sending you outside the city, on a retrieval mission.” The words dig into my skull as well; is there no peace?

My eyes close and they speak: their voices are indistinguishable. “We want to send you out of the city to find another city where its inhabitants can speak.” There is Thief Riode lifeless on the floor; I can feel flecks of blood on my face.

“We would like you to take and retain the ability to speak from one of their residences.” There is Varien being molested by Arion.  

“We believe that the language function in other humans functions similarly to a program.” There is Matduke, long finger pointing to a man strapped to a wall.

“Once it is retained, we think we can reconstruct it and implement it into some of the people.” There is Arion with dead eyes tasting a broken body’s blood.

“We want to give the people their voice back. We’d like to break the silence.”

There is me. It is so quiet here.