“Wake up!”

A sharp pain jolted through me and I let out a cry of pain, along with the others. Hurriedly we rolled off the beds, allowing ourselves to tumble onto the cold metal floor. My fingers were convulsing like worms bending themselves out of shape and I could feel tension in my tightening thigh. I hated these installed electrifying beds. Someone hit my twitching thigh with a pillow to break the current.

“Get up!” hollered someone as he banged the gong mercilessly. Its crashing sounds smothered our minds like cymbals, triggering reverberating headaches, but it effectively drove away the drowsiness from the previous restless night. I plugged my ears with my fingers and ducked my spinning head. Everyone filed out, pushing each other out of the dimly-lit, narrow yet incredibly long room.

“Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up!”

Bang. Bang. Bang. It was most annoying. I struggled to catch up as the pace of the stream of children quickened. Someone elbowed me, and I stepped on the toes of someone else.

We burst the door open like a swollen river did a dam, and suddenly we were in the canteen. It was slightly brighter than the last room, but it was still dark, especially since we didn’t have any windows to let the sun in. They don’t want us to get tanned. Our skin color must not be changed.

I made my way to the table where my Batch sat. The seniors sat at the extreme end of the room, followed by us, then the newer children. Smaller distance, lower risk of getting damaged. Everything was planned with the kind of idiotic meticulousness which only Adults had.

“Shin!”

Someone was calling my Asian name. Only an Asian would call my Asian name. The others don’t try, just like how an Asian doesn’t call me Stone. It’s a funny practice. The others are too arrogant to use an Asian language, and the Asians are too proud to not use it. Which is weird because none of us are truly Asian or Caucasian here. I’m only a tiny bit more Asian. But people think I’m not because I choose to use English.

“Natalie!” I answered.

“Over here,” she beckons. Natalie, or Nowshera, is the one to collect our food for today. I like her. She’s 30-something percent Pakistani, so she has these really lovely, full, deep red lips. Her hair curled, too, into pretty locks, whereas mine drifted down my shoulders. She doesn’t like her hair, though, so she wears a hood to conceal them. But one always emerges from her bun and tickles her cheek.

Anyway. I find the table and sit down at the very end. A fair-headed Eurasian boy is sitting beside me. I’ve seen him before but we never talk. The boys in our batch don’t like to mingle with girls like me. I’m ugly to them.

Natalie did the usual headcount before she went to queue for the food, feeling her way there, along with some 30 other children, all different in age. Bert from Batch 9 was there. Nobody likes Bert. He sits and stares, and doesn’t reply, and sometimes he breaks down wailing even though no one had even touched him yet. I don’t like boys like him. Boys shouldn’t cry like babies. Only girls can do that.

The hair of the children standing in line shimmered dully under the faded glow of the muted lamp. They stood by the food belt, for machines gave out food, not Adults. The Adults were in the other cafeteria, and they used cameras to watch us as we eat just in case some kind of havoc breaks out. I look up to try and spot one. It wasn’t difficult because a red bulb was always kept lighted by the lens of the surveillance cameras. It’s a warning to us that they were watching. I looked back down at my lap.

Presently I heard a clunk. Natalie had come back with our pot of food – porridge. Porridge was good because it was a drink and a meal all at once. Besides, it was easy to make, cheaper than dirt and usually tasteless. That way our expectations would be kept low, and the occasional bread we had as rewards would be a treat. As I said before, everything was planned.

Everyone scooped their lot from the pot into their bowls, before they pushed the pot to the next person. We had to be careful, because the Adults never prepared more. If somebody was greedy, another person would suffer. I ladled out my share. Good. There was just enough to fill the bowl and my stomach. We ate hurriedly.

Mmm. There was fish in the porridge today. And broccoli. I scooped these greedily into my mouth.

Our batch ate the fastest, and so as usual we were the fastest to finish. We piled our used bowls and utensils into the pot while the other Batches were still gobbling, and then Brandon helped Natalie to lug the pot to the food belt, where it disappeared into the mouth of a machine. Yes! We were first. The machine issued us napkins and we wiped out mouths with it before cheerily dumping them into the bin beside it. Then Natalie lined us up in order of our names. She did a spot-check for us, checking our nails, hair, and skin. She helped me remove a tangle from my hair, and Michael checked her.

All clear. We moved off in a row out of the canteen, where we would be checked once more, only this time by the Adults.

The Adults were scary. They wore these white uniforms that were bulky from the layers of material between the inner cloth and the outer one, making them look like astronauts. They even had oxygen tanks strapped to their backs, tanks that made comical tse-haa-tse-haa hissing noises as they worked, such that we could hear the Adults before they came around the corner. They needed the oxygen tanks because they wouldn’t let the air come into contact with their skin. I privately thought they might as well be walking mummies.

We couldn’t see their faces, either, because the hood over their heads were made of a type of bronze-coloured, reflective material that allowed them to see us, but didn’t allow us to see them. It was especially creepy as the entire hood was made out of that material, giving us no sense of where their faces were, because you couldn’t tell the back of their heads from the front. The only indication of that was the positioning of the oxygen tanks and the direction they walked, presuming that they walked forwards like we did.

Or maybe we had it wrong from the start. Maybe Adults walked backwards and strapped oxygen tanks to their chests. Who knew?

I wondered about it as I stared up at the Adult looming over me. Was she looking at my hair right now? Or was she looking at my skin? Or my nails? We simply could not tell. Was she even looking? Maybe she was just sleepwalking. Like a zombie.

“Wipe that smile off your face.”

Okay, so she was looking. I dropped my gaze.

She turned, so we moved off along the corridor to the hall. Yesterday they told us that they would be doing something else today. In the court. That’s the place where the Parents can see us. Sometimes we played games there, other times we sang and danced. The Adults handed us things as we passed by them. Mine was a scissors. The girl in front of me got a used toothbrush, and the girl behind me a ladle broken off from something.

We emerged into the sheltered area, and to our surprise, the soft spongy floor held rows of boxes full of some golden-brown salt of a kind. I ran to the first one that I saw, knelt down by it and dipped the sharp end of my scissors into the salt. It made a hole in the salt.

A Parent was standing by the fence around the court, and she called to me. “Draw, child! Draw in the sand!” She gestured with her hand, making imaginary in the air. I copied her, and to my delight, I found that I could leave a mark where my scissors moved, like the trail left behind by a snail. Immediately I carefully marked out a circle, and then in it, two smaller ones. I added vertical scars beside the big large circle.

“That’s me!” I proclaimed, looking up to smile at the Parent – only she wasn’t there anymore.

The other children had by now fled, giggling, raising sharp objects, out of the corridor. Someone crouched down by me and asked, “How did you do that?”

It was the deep voice of a male. I looked up, shocked that a boy had talked to me. He had carroty-orange hair, and looked expectantly down at me. His name tag read “R-30-30, Batch 10.”

“This is me,” I pointed my finger at my drawing.

“Yes, but how did you make it?”

“Like this,” I swiped across my face. The curve looked like a smile. He did the same, and sliced across my head.

“Oh! Oh dear… I’m sorry.” He patted the sand back, but a mark still stayed there.

“It’s okay.” I was upset. He had killed me.

“What’s your name?” He asked kindly.

I studied his features. “Are you Asian?”

“No.”

“Then I’m Stone.”

“Hello Stone. I’m Renon.” He smiled goofily.

“Hello Renon. You… have orange hair.”

“I know,” he laughed.

Renon was dressed in a singlet and shorts. It was a simple outfit. I looked down at my turquoise dress.

Renon busied himself in drawing. I watched him draw. He drew an oval, and poked two holes inside it. Then he made squiggly lines around the top of the oval.

“That’s me.”

“Oh,” I said. It didn’t look like him at all, but I didn’t tell him that.

He proceeded to draw another portrait, only this time he added what seemed like the ends of a brush where the ears should be. I cocked my head.

“This,” he explained. “Is Ricky.”

“Ricky?” I repeated doubtfully. “Why does he have those two things sticking out from his head?”

“Because she likes it. Hey, Ricci!” He shouted over my head, and beckoned.

I turned. A girl dressed in overalls with two blonde, bouncing pigtails came running over, a pen clutched in her hand. I surveyed her.

“Yeah?” She chirped.

“This is you,” announced Renon, pointing the key in between his fingers at his drawing.

Ricci squatted down beside him. She was from the same Batch as him, and they were obviously close friends. Red ribbon held her hair into two short, almost cone-shaped pigtails that stuck out, threatening to smack people if she turned her head. Her eyes were brown and curious when she looked up at me.

“Who are you?”

“She’s my friend,” introduced Renon warmly. “Stone from Batch 11.”

“Hello. I’m Ricci.” She pointed at my drawing. “Is that you?”

“Yes.” I was glad that she could tell. “Is it nice?”

She didn’t answer. “Look at all the Parents gathering around.”

There were so many of them. We felt a little pressurized.

Parents were older, taller, bigger versions of us. Some of them were huge, like bears, and their stomachs stuck out as if they had swallowed a pig whole. Some had white hair. Others had no hair at all. They were a bit frightening. Someone once told me that the glass-and-wire things sitting upon their noses in front of their eyes made them very smart. They could read your mind with those things, and tell if you were lying. But for the most part the Parents were smiling as they watched us, which made us feel a little better.

We poked listlessly at the sand. It was stupid to make us draw because truthfully we didn’t see enough to know what to draw. All we could draw was each other, which was what we had already done.

So I decided to inspect Ricci. Her hair was smooth and straight, whereas Renon’s curled slightly at the tips. She had sincere, large almond eyes, but her eyebrows arched under her straight, layered fringe into an upside-down, mischievous smirk, making her look playful. Her limbs were long. I felt envious. She was obviously athletic, which was more than anyone could say for me.

Ricci caught my gaze and stretched her lips into a smile. I smiled back.

“You seem like a nice person,” I heard myself say before I could stop myself.

“She is,” confirmed Renon. “She was my very first friend.”

And once more I said thoughtlessly, “You’re the very first guy that has ever talked to me.”

At that they laughed, and I pouted.

“Don’t laugh at me,” I whined.

They didn’t stop. Ricci’s tinkly laughter tickled. In the end I ended up laughing as well. I liked them.

I figured that there was no need to add that they were also my very first friends in all my life.

Writer's note: La la la~ So much time now hehe