Outcast

I step out of the girls’ room and take a deep breath. This is my place, I can do anything here. Out of all the girls and some of the boys (the more pudgy ones), I am the fastest, most flexible, strong – not the strongest and by far, the most determined. I love physical education – there’s a certain rush you get from it – I cannot explain. All of my frustration and anger is vented out and then I’m carefree as I go on to lunch. It’s the only thing that helps me not blow up at people these days. I hate all the stares I get, all the whispers behind my back and the whispers in front of my face too for that matter.
I push out the breath I took in. I can do this. I step into the gym and head over to the warm-up mats. I want to be all stretched out and warmed up by the time everyone else shows up. I want to be done with all the exercises before everyone else. I reach the mats and start to stretch, my muscles stretching and bunching, stretching and bunching. I reach down, touching my nose to my legs; I go into a center split, all the way to the ground and exhale. I breathe deeply, ignoring the slight protests of my upper quads. I stretch my arms until they burn, still breathing deeply.
Feeling all warm and tingly, I head over to the next station, and just in time. The others start to sputter out of the locker room like tiny droplets from a shower head. Glad I got out of the locker room when I did; I turn again towards the Scanner – to check in my attendance. I do this in every class; they require 100% attendance unless you are admitted to the Healers’ Wing with an injury or condition of health. They expect you to be at your classes all the time, since you live at the Academy. And at the Academy of Excellence, they don’t tolerate any skipping or tardiness because, well, it’s the school of Excellence.
I swipe my wrist over the top of the waist high scanner – a portable one. A few years ago, they had the students wear metal bracelets to check in. The bracelets didn’t come off, didn’t move. You got it when you started Primary School at the age of 3, when your mind is the most malleable and teachable. Every year, exactly 2 months after your birthday, they give you a new bracelet, so you did not grow too big for the one you wear. You are never free of them until you either were dead or Outcast. Now though, they switched the bracelets for metal chips that are inserted right next to your vein on the soft side of your wrist. These you get three months after you are born and they stay under your skin forever – even when you are dead or Outcast. I think it was pretty ingenious that they keep the chips when you are Outcast. That way Society still knows where the Outcasts are, whether they are dead or alive. Weird, that Society knows your every move and breath; whether you are a baby or a man on your death bed.
Once I scan in, I head over to the Health Table. The Health Table is a lone strip of metal on legs that checks your immune system, repertory system, circulatory system, mineral levels, and takes cell samples. All in about two minutes – I have timed it. I lay down on the cold metal surface and hear a slight whirring. The Table is working. I feel a slight tremor in the metal and I try to slow my breathing and relax. The Table dings, finished.
I slide off the table and I now go over to the appropriately nicknamed ‘Techno Corner’ where some of the best technology of our time is located. This particular technology was invented to read the brain’s reaction to different strenuous situations. It reads your emotions and bodily functions while you are put under a carefully chosen Vision. I hate these. I hate having to go into an unknown and seemingly random situation to be tested on my responses. I hate the headaches I get after I complete each Vision. They are massive and completely distracting. Thankfully, we are not given these Visions very often, only about once every two weeks or so. But why in Physical Education? You do not do anything physical, it is all mental. It would make more sense if we were given the Visions when we went for our monthly “check-up” with the school Healers. The Visions only take 5 minutes, so they won’t take too much time away from the Healers, who can give you something from the headaches there in the Wing.
I haven’t told anyone about the headaches, just like I haven’t told anyone about my achievement of the classes. It would shine the spotlight on me even more than it already is. And then I would be labeled even more of a freak and mutant than usual.
As I sit down in the ‘Techno Chair’, I get another round of shivers, just like the ones I got before, in the hallway. Now, I am at unease , something is going to go wrong today, I can feel it – I can almost taste it in the air. Strange, yes, but it is true. Things like this have happened before. Once, when I was little, when I still lived with the Ones who Birthed me when I was in Primary School, something like this happened. I was walking home with my older brother, Fangor, and I got a violent round of shivers – similar to the ones that overtake me now. I had stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and Fangor had walked a little farther before realizing that I was not with him. When he turned and saw me stopped, something changed in his eyes, something strange. Almost as if he knew exactly what I was experiencing. I remember having the most awful taste in my mouth and something, something menacing was surrounding my mind – a black fog. It wrapped itself around my rain like a giant snake, coiling around and around – squeezing and squeezing. I remember screaming, my hands covering my ears and Fangor holding me in his safe, warm arms – almost as if he wanted to shield me from the horrors of the fog and it’s vile after taste.
I remember then that Fangor rushed me back home, screaming as he opened the door that I was extremely sick and needed a Healer right away. My mother came running into the hall from the kitchen with a stricken look on her face. My father came hurrying (because that was as fast as he could go – crippled and all) into the hall to take me from my brother’s arms.
After that it was hazy. I have cloudy recollections of being rushed to a Healers’ Building and being laid gently on yet another metal table. What I do remember vividly is the voices – whispers, yet unbearably loud. I screamed at the voices. The Healer tending to me – who had seen plenty of strange things in her life time – looked at me as if I should have been sent to a special school for potential Outcasts (deemed Outcast but too young to be sent out of Society). She gave me something to make me sleep and when I woke up, everything was back to normal, as if nothing had happened in the first place.
When we got home, my family acted as if nothing had taken place at all, that it was my overreacting imagination. Fangor went up to his room to do homework, my mom to the kitchen and my father went back into his study. After a few days, the entire episode was pushed to the back of my mind – I was only 5 years old and had other things that I thought were extremely important at the time. The incident was shoved so far back into the dark recess that it never came back for me to remember until now. Now, when I have déjà vu and another round of shivers get me, I wonder about the expression on Fangor’s face when he saw me crouched on the ground, screaming.
I shake my head and let it pass, maybe when I am alone in my room I’ll think about it more. Now though, I try to prepare for this next Vision. I do not want to do this today – I am not ready, not ready for this next headache that will plague me for the next week or two. Sometimes, if I drink a certain type of juice, it will go away for a day or so. But it comes back soon after that. I have my miniature fridge in my dorm filled with that juice. I think the flavor is something along the lines of raspberry-pomegranate. I just call it the Healer’s Gift, as it was my favorite of the Healers at the Academy who first introduced me to it. It was the first time I had gone into the Visions, about a month after starting at the Academy and I had gone to the Healers’ Wing to see if they could heal the headache that plagued every moment of my wakefulness – the first of many.