The Fledgling

THREE

any sign of sickness at work would result in immediate elimination, a warning to protect the traded goods from contamination.Those words are keep repeating in my head, made me think that each year, the Manor’s rules are becoming stricter and stricter, that I do not understand the sense of their rule. Are they implementing these rules to protect us? Or just to degrade the society for a better future? Sitting on the docks, staring at the body of the lake, throwing stones on the water, feeling the breeze of the air from the trees are what calms me down. It's peaceful, and like what the morning greeted me, it's rare, and I don't want to waste a moment of it. I wish to witness the beauty of what this world could give, if only the Atomic Bomb hadn’t exploded and turned the face of the Earth to dust. I look onto my right when my friend Jaime sat down beside me. Glancing to my right, I see my friend Jaime sitting beside me. The golden hour makes his blonde hair shine brighter, his green-colored eyes resemble the water of this lake, his wavy curls shines back to the sunlight of the sun, reflecting the waves of the lake. He is smiling, a smile that can give comfort to anyone. He greeted me with a ‘hey’ and I greeted him back with a Hi. Jaime is 18, and he has a two-year-old son but no wife. Just like the other boys in this Quarter, you are forced to produce a baby, or else you will face consequences. I'm glad that I haven’t been chosen to produce an infant, and I'm not choosing to have one at the moment. Romance is not on my mind right now. To be honest, I don’t really have something in my mind right now, except taking care of my mom.

“It was a violent act that you have witnessed earlier.” He said. I agreed, it is a violent act and If I am smart enough, it violated human rights, he is only twenty years old, too young to die just because he cough. That rule wasn’t implemented before, so why now? He comfort me by apologizing that I have to witness that. He was there earlier, working but he did not saw what really happened, he only heard the gunshot and learned about a new rule being implemented. He suggested that they should just issue a warning and not take his life, especially since the rule is new, and nobody knew about it.

“I think I know how I can make you feel better, Jessup.” He said and I focus my ear to what he’s about to say. Let’s hunt and shove your anger away in the woods." He knows what I want and who I am. "It’s golden hour. It is trading time." He smiled at me and tapped my shoulder. "Do you have something to trade? Because I don't, and I know you don't. You have collected rice, but I know it is only enough for you and your mom for a week; trading it means losing the only food you have." The only thing I like about our Quarter is, trading happens every day, when the afternoon comes and soon the sun will set, it is time for trading. But there is a limit when it comes to trading, only One Hundred People can trade. Getting to the trading building early means a higher chance to trade, but the downside is that lower harvested goods mean a lower chance someone wants your product. Doesn’t mean you can grade means someone wanted to trade product with you. You can trade what you have collected, but it's your choice whether to trade, skip a day and sell what you've gained, or keep it for your family. Our resources are abundant, and every family here benefits from our hard work. But everything must be in order, as disobedience results in death.

Jaime stared at the fish in the lake and put his hands onto the water and whistle, whistle the song of a Fledgling. A calming music of a bird who just got hatched from the egg of a mother of a Raven. A sound so calming that the fish starts swimming towards onto his palm.

He caught the fish and hand it to me. I look at it with confusion. “What do you want me to do with it?” I asks while looking at the fish who is dancing onto his palm. “Well, I realized that you are right, it is golden hour and the sun is soon to set. It is hard to hunt at afternoon, even at night, so… This fish is yours, at least we caught it.” He said and break its head… Detaching it from its body. I laugh as he always do this. He can break things with only his bare hands, I wasn’t just expecting even a fish can be dead on his hands. He's built up these muscles, having a proportionate physique with veins tracing across his both arms, a moderately sized chest, and shoulders capable of lifting sacks of rice as he works at the market, shuttling food to the trading building or to our homes. Sometimes he mentions working out, doing push-ups and other muscle-building exercises, he even ask me to work out with him which I denied, what would I do with these muscles when I already have a natural muscles and a warmth chess just by becoming a farmer at an early age? He needs that, he works at the market and he also works for his family by harvesting food in the farm. “Tomorrow, same time, same place?” He asks and I nodded and thank him.

Jaime is my closest friend ever since, or my only friend. I am not sociable person, I keep myself away from people I don’t vibe with, I keep myself away from the society since what would you benefit on making friend when I already felt comfortable being alone? But Jaime is different, I treat him as my own brother, he is also an only son which he opened up that he wish to have a sibling, his father and mother is still alive, his mother is sick, but not like my mom who is in the dying stage, his father owns one of the stall in the market, they sell meat, so what their family could trade, they sell it here with a higher price. We were friends since I could remember, I felt comfortable with him, and I know he felt the same way too. He likes what I like, he does not judge me when he learned that I wanted to hunt, but he just gives me an advice and gave me a warning that I should be careful, that every time I hunt, I risk being caught, and that I should tell him so he could look out for me and make sure that there were no Jade lurking out in the wood. He sometimes benefit for what I hunt since sometimes, when I caught a deer, or maybe a bird, they sell it in their market.

When the night comes Jaime took me home and we said good bye to each other. “Hey… Thank You for today…” He nodded and told me to not forget about tomorrow’s hunt. “Our house are always open, okay? Don’t think about what happened.” We said our goodbye and I walk inside our house. I put down my things on the floor and walk towards my mother who is crying. I walk towards her and touch her face with my cold palm. “What happened?” I kneel down in front of her and she was crying, pointing out at her self and trying to tell me something, something that I am not understanding. “I… I can’t breathe.” She said and a tear comes out of her right eye, a single teardrop with her voice cracking and sounding raspy. I panicked for a moment and does not know what to do with her when she told me that she couldn’t breathe. I wanted to go out and scream for help, but even though I do that, no one will help… Especially about what happened earlier… They will kill her, they will kill my mother and I do not want for that to happen, even though I wanted her dead right now, because I want her suffering to end.

I stood up and ran to the sink where I filled the glass with water and ran back to her, forcing her to drink it, so it would help her, but instead of helping her, she choke on it and spit everything that she swallowed. I calm her down, telling her that everything will be okay… I panicked that I did not even felt my tears running up on my cheeks. I shouted for help without even noticing, I don’t know what to do, I panicked that I couldn’t even do anything to help her… I know this day would come, that she’ll be gone, I know I might be heartless towards her, but still, I can’t accept the fact that she is dying, especially not expecting that today is that day…

She held my hands and I felt it, so cold that I know to myself, it is her time…

“Make me go my love…” She whispered… A sense of reality hit me, I shouted for help, only a minute before the Jade come in here and take her life away from me. That is how it works… When someone is dying you should not ask for help, because they will have no mercy on killing them. I think to myself that keeping them alive is just a mercy order from the Manor, a pity so that the young would consider someone as their parent… but after what happened earlier, I don’t know if Mercy even exists. They’ll kill whoever they want like life is just not worth living. She smiled while staring at my eyes, she stop her coughing and nodded, I knew what she meant; it was a chilling reality. I whispered for help, but she signaled that she wanted the pain to end. It’s either me who will take her life, or strangers who do not give meaning to life anymore. I took a lot of courage to take the pillow from her bed, before I use it to cover her whole face… Killing her making a chilling alarm blaring all over the Quarter…