Page 58 of Interion

As soon as he dismissed us, I headed to the locker room to grab my bag. The place was buzzing with chatter and gossip. The girls were all excited about the next day's party and talked enthusiastically about clothes, shoes, and makeup—things that normally weren't part of my daily life, since I didn't go to events.

When I opened my locker to get my earrings and leave, I noticed a strap hanging from the top. I pulled the strap and was happy to see it was my bag, which Adele had returned. I unzipped it to check if everything was inside as I'd left it, but when I reached in for my belongings, I felt several small pieces. I pulled one out, trying to figure out what it was—it looked like an electronic circuit board. Then I dumped everything out on the table.

The pieces were the remains of my cell phone. Adele had completely destroyed it.

The locker room fell silent as I stared at the mess of little pieces. I looked around, searching for her face. I wanted to kill her. Shit! I wanted to punch her until her face turned to mush under my fists. But she wasn't in there. She must have run off earlier. Feeling humiliated once again, I grabbed the trash can from the end of the lockers, set it on the edge of the table, and swept the mortal remains of the device into it.

I took a deep breath to calm the searing rage tearing me apart. I told myself it was an old phone and it was time to replace it anyway, but that didn't help—I still wanted to kill her.

On the outside, I shrugged, slung the bag over my shoulder, and pretended I didn't care as I walked out of the gym with my head held high.

Δ

I walked back through the quiet streets of the neighborhood, thinking about everything that had happened in those two months. A cold breeze wrapped around my body, making me huddle inside the green jacket I liked best. The stars were visible in the sky now that summer had ended, giving way to autumn. The climate barrier had been removed, revealing an incredibly starry sky.

The countless orange five-pointed leaves rustled on the ground as I passed, and a dog barked somewhere in the neighborhood. I took a deep breath, smelling the rain fritters coming from some house nearby. Somehow, it seemed like my body was more aware of everything around me, or maybe I was just trying to escape my own thoughts.

These past few days, my mood had been all over the place. Sometimes I felt like I was on the edge of a precipice, balancing between loneliness and rage. I felt overwhelmed with everything: the hospital, training, final exams, and especially the emptiness.

Cars passed by, the wind blew through the trees, and a couple holding hands laughed on a bench in the side garden. Life went on, and I felt stuck in time, like a broken clock they'd hidden in the attic thinking it might be useful for something someday.

There would always be the hospital and all the purpose it brought to my life. Apart from that, I felt hollow inside. Empty and terribly alone, to the point where I couldn’t see any way out of the feeling.

I crossed the small daisy garden at the front of the house, kicking at the white pebbles along the path that led to the front steps. Feeling melancholy, I went inside and leaned against the doorframe, taking in my surroundings. Everything was dark, silent, and lifeless.

A perfect reflection of my existence.

Chapter 16

Finally, the big day of the pre-graduation party had arrived—and with it, the headache of having nothing to wear. I woke up early, determined to fix that.

On my way to the subway, I enjoyed the cool breeze as I wound through streets packed with people enjoying the holiday. The underground entrance was two blocks from the hospital, and luckily I snagged the only empty seat in the car. I felt relieved to see a group of army soldiers there, probably heading to their shift change at the walls. The subway was one of our greatest technological achievements from Vinturis, with about twenty yellow cars. Like the train connecting Interion to Yonser, it runs on transmitter and receiver globes of elemental energy. The propulsion comes from the gift of electricity, produced by electrokinetic fae and stored in the globes. Emitter globes line the tracks while receiver globes sit on the underside of the locomotive. Activating the circuit propels the receivers to connect with the emitters, generating movement.

The car swayed gently while I—head down, ignoring the disgusted looks thrown my way—silently thanked my luck for the soldiers’ presence. Everyone in the army was subordinate to Zion, and none of them would let anything happen to me. At least, I believed they wouldn’t.

Thirty minutes later, there I was in the center of the fae district, hair pulled up in a high bun, wearing a red sweater and black flats. An act that could be seen as courage or stupidity, depending on your point of view.

I hurried along the white stone sidewalks, decorated with countless flower beds, doing my best not to look anyone in the eye. This was the worst place within the walls for someone like me to visit; however, it was daytime and attacks only happened at night, so I kept telling myself nothing bad would happen at this hour.

The fae district was well organized, its meticulously planned streets carrying a touch of elegance and sophistication. The smell of coffee, cheese bread, and butter cookies wafted from countless cafés, and wherever you looked, vibrant colors competed for space and attention. The shops were modern—the kind that displayed all their products in illuminated windows—unlike the gorgon and human districts, where everything was sold from simple doorways or stalls.

Although I really liked the human district, today I wouldn’t find what I wanted there. Digital devices were only sold in fae shops, and I needed a new phone. I’d done plenty of research beforehand and decided to check out the Vinturian technology store that all the students raved about during training. It was in the district’s commercial center.

TechnoVin didn’t even need a sign. It was huge. The glass facade displayed hundreds of latest-generation devices that arrived every month from Vinturis.

I walked through the double doors and stood speechless at all the new gadgets I’d never seen. The space had high ceilings and was bursting with color, LED lights blinking in every corner. Endless visual pollution.

I wandered around like a kid in a toy store, but after fifteen minutes chasing salespeople, my excitement started to sink. No one wanted to help me. In the fae district, prejudice against my hair color was blatant, and the attendants stalled, hoping I’d leave. This never happened in the human district, where salespeople cared more about the color of money than the color of my hair.

Of all the differences between fae and humans, that was the biggest. Humans forget offenses easily. Usually within two or three generations, they no longer remember old disagreements. Fae, however, with their long life expectancy, don’t forgive easily. Living longer prolongs our conflicts—while five generations of humans are born and die, our race remains alive, still dwelling on the past.

After being ignored for so long, I thought about giving up, but I needed a phone and they’d have to sell me one. I ended up choosing a new model on my own from the display at the store entrance. I loved that the sinil battery guaranteed a year of use without recharging—a huge improvement, since my old model’s cartridge needed constant replacements and Ambrose was always running out to buy new ones for me. The new device was expensive, three thousand dunas, practically four months of my hospital internship, but I’d been saving for a phone replacement for a while.

As soon as I left the store, I set up the device with my old number, and soon all my data had transferred to the new phone. Then I called Ambrose.

Since it was a holiday, only one doctor was on call—Lorenzo. So I called Ambrose to grab coffee and help me choose a dress. I arranged to meet him at Café Doranella, and while I waited at a table facing a glass wall, I sipped my hot coffee with milk, gazing at the scenery outside. It was beautiful, unlike my mood.

Lately, all I could think about was the empty feeling that had settled in my chest. I was convinced that all the hot drinks in the world couldn’t melt the ice that had formed there.