Tomorrow- Chapter Four

It’s bright. That’s all I register. For a while, all I can see is white walls and white floors. That is, until my eyes adjust. I look around. There are large windows on the walls and chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. The room is large and split into several different sections, divided by blue curtains. Men and women in a powder blue uniform stand by each section. I realise that they’re waiting for me. I glance at Brad. He pushes me towards the first section.

“Remember, he doesn’t want to see her again until she looks the part. Got it?” he says to one of the women. She nods and forces me into a blue chair. A middle-aged man holds up what looks like an instrument of torture. Someone presses a button and my chair’s flipped horizontal. All I can see is the man’s face looming over me, the instrument coming closer. I am about to scream. Then I hear a man laughing.

“I’ll put tonight’s pudding on her screaming, Simon.” He says, his voice laden with amusement. I clamp my jaws shut. The man presses his thumb in the corner of my mouth and I open it. Maybe if I open it, he won’t use the instrument on me. He pokes around in my mouth for a while, before turning to the women waiting around my chair.

“Right, Shelly, I’m going to have to remove this tooth and break her jaw.” He says, “She’ll need veneers placed over her teeth. Bind her.”

Before I have time to react, Shelly’s pressed another button and my arms are constrained by steel bars. There is no escape. Simon picks up another lethal instrument and places it in my mouth. He grabs one of my teeth with it and yanks hard. I hear a tearing sound as the tooth is ripped out. Pain floods into my jaw as blood seeps out of the hole, filling my mouth and making me choke. I swallow and gag. Blood, I decide, is not my drink of choice. Charles laughs. He’s still here?

Simon turns around and I breathe a sigh of relief. Maybe, he’s going to forgo the breaking of my jaw. Maybe he’ll let me off. He turns around again and my heart sinks. He fastens some sort of contraption around my head. I don’t know what it does by I hear a snap. Guess my jaw was just broken.

I’m not entirely sure what he does next because I close my eyes, taking myself back to a happier place. I’m five and it’s before the rebellion really got underway. The thought of the government being overthrown was a distant, far-off threat; it didn’t seem possible that whatever disagreements were going on in the cities could ever reach us in our little village. My parents bought me a horse that summer and one day, before everyone else had woken up, I went out riding in the woods near our house. The horses name was Cookie. A stupid name but, when I first saw him, I decided that he looked like a cookie and so the poor beast was given the idiotic name. We galloped through the woods for a while, sometimes trotting where the branches got too low, when suddenly, the forest disappeared and we were standing in front of a large, beautiful lake. I can still remember to this day how the lake was as flat as a mirror apart from a couple of ripples in the centre where fish had dived below the surface. The trees gathered around the lake like it was a magical place. There was no one around for miles. It was like a secret lake. Our secret lake. In the end, my mom found us there, after searching frantically for hours. She screamed at me for hours about how worried she’d been but, she couldn’t stop me from sneaking out early in the morning every day for the rest of the summer. I wish I knew where to find that lake; it was my sanctuary then and it’s my sanctuary now. The only difference is that now it’s not in front of me; it’s all just in my mind.

Suddenly, I’m propelled upright again. I wriggle my jaw. Simon must’ve used some sort of medicine to heal it extra quickly. My arm definitely didn’t heal that quickly when I broke it a few years ago. Shelly removes the binding on my arms and grabs me roughly by the shoulder. I get the impression she doesn’t like me much. She takes me into the section next door. I look around. There’s a massive bath in the corner. It looks more like a swimming pool. Suddenly, I feel cold. I look down. My clothes have been removed. I’m pushed into the pool, which smells of roses and left to wallow for a few minutes. There are jets on the side which pummel my back. It feels good. Just as I’m starting to enjoy it, the powder-blue minions pull me out and present me with a fluffy blue robe to wear. It’s powder blue, like their uniforms. Perhaps I’m one of them now.

The minions, as I have decided to call them, take me through into the next section where my robe is removed again. I try to cover myself up but they laugh. They lay me on my back and begin smoothing a warm mixture all over my legs. It feels kind of nice. I sigh. Suddenly, there’s a loud rip as a dozen of my leg hairs are ripped out at the roots. Yeah, the warm stuff wasn’t so nice after all. I clamp my jaw shut and allow them to continue this form of torture. I overheard a girl once who was saying that rich women do this to make themselves look more beautiful. I suppose the fact that they can endure such a barbaric form of torture is brave, although I wouldn’t really call it beautiful. Besides, what’s beautiful about looking like a freshly-plucked chicken? I sigh and lie back, letting the powder-blue minions rip all of my bodily hair out by the roots. They don’t speak; they just scurry backwards and forwards with fresh pots of the hot stuff.

“Are you sure she’s up to it?” A low voice says next door.

“Well, he certainly thinks so.” It’s Charles’ voice.

“But what about her past?” says the voice urgently, “Are you sure she’s stable?”

“He thinks so.”

“But is he right?”

“Don’t let him hear you say that. You’ll end up at the bottom of the lake like the last one, Simon.” Charles says warningly.

“Fine, forget it, I never said it, ok?”

Charles mutters something but he’s too quiet for me to be able to hear it. I hear Simon murmur something else and then there are footsteps. Suddenly, the fabric door of the cubicle is wrenched open. Charles stands in the doorway, a blue robe in his hands. His lip curls. I look down and realise that I’m naked.

I attempt to cover myself but he just grins and chucks the robe at me.

“We’ve got to get her hair sorted. Well, what hair she has left.” He says before adding, “God knows how long that will take.”

I glare at him and struggle to my feet. My skin aches from all of the ripping and I feel like a pheasant which has been plucked in preparation for cooking. I wouldn’t be surprised if they take me to an oven and baste me every thirty minutes. I walk over to one of the cubicles opposite. I’m dimly aware of the fact that they’re washing my hair but I’m too busy concentrating on what Charles said. If you say something against him, will you end up in the bottom of the beautiful lake? If it’s true then, this place isn’t dissimilar to the world of the government, where one false move means certain death. Who is he, anyway? Is it John? Who runs this place? A thousand questions whir through my cluttered mind. I can’t exactly ask Charles for answers, can I? He’d probably be all too happy to push me into the lake himself.

I look down to find that someone is painting my toenails whilst another files and paints my fingernails. They’re painting them pitch black. Black. My favourite colour. Someone’s tugging at my hair and styling it into some atrociously sweet hairstyle. I hate not being in control. I get the sense that this place is slowly taking away my control over myself and my destiny. I will fight to regain it. Although, despite my indignation at being made over by a bunch of brainless minions, it is rather nice to be clean again.

One of them forces me into a standing position whilst another fetches some clothes from a rack nearby. They tell me to shut my eyes. Probably so that I can’t object to whatever fluffy pink atrocity they’re forcing me into. They tell me to open them again. One of them pushes a large mirror in front of me. What I see, well, takes my breath away.

I look in the mirror. Someone else is staring back. A heavy black fringe obscures her forehead. Her hair is jet black, poker straight and hangs nearly to her waist. Her skin is as pale and as perfect as Italian Marble. Her green eyes, which are just visible through her thick fringe, are green and piercing. They’re lined with thick black kohl. Her full lips are painted bright red. I look down at her clothes. They’re the sort of clothes I always dreamed of wearing. Her gloved hands are holding a large black leather bag, which is fastened with a large silver buckle. A black shift dress skims her slim body. A pearl necklace is fastened at the hollow of her pale, slender throat. She’s wearing a sharply tailored black blazer and a pair of black heels.

I raise my hand to the pristine glass, trying to touch her, trying to reach her, trying to be her. She raises her hand too. With a jolt, I realise that she is me. I gasp and scrutinise the reflection for even the smallest fragment of my former self. I locate my high and prominent cheekbones. They’re unchanged, thank goodness. My eyes are still green and almond shaped, my hair is still black and my skin is still pale. Other than that? Well, I doubt that, if he was still alive, even my own father would be able to recognise me. I smile. My teeth are perfect now. They’re white and straight.

“Is she almost ready?” I hear a demanding voice shout. Charles.

The minions beckon for him to come over. When he sees me, he stops. His mouth hangs open. I guess I clean up good.

“Will I do?” I say.

He nods curtly and beckons me over. I smile and sashay towards him. He looks away. I smile even more widely.

“Where’re we going?” I ask as he marches me back through the door and along a long, winding corridor. We reach a junction and he turns left. He’s walking so fast that I’m panting from the effort of keeping up. Walking in heels is no mean feat. He drags me along the corridor until, just before I think I’m going to pass out from exhaustion, we reach a large, handsome, oak door. He knocks on the door three times. It’s only then that I realise that he never answered my question.

“Enter.” Says a commanding voice from within the room. Charles pushes the door open and pulls me inside.

I glance around the room quickly, taking it in before Charles can drag me off down yet another set of corridors. The room’s dimly lit and slightly dusty. The walls are made of a dark oak panelling and hung with various paintings of ships and landscapes. On one of the walls, there’s an enormous bookcase, which is filled with thousands of leather-bound books. On the floor, there’s a large patterned rug, on top of which is a small, fluffy dog. In front of the large window is an oak desk, which is covered in papers and books. There’s a large red velvet chair facing the window.

“Where is she?” The voice is coming from the chair. Charles pushes me to stand in front of the window. I look at the person in the chair.

His hair is white and neatly combed, with a crisp parting on the right side of his head. His eyes are small and as black as a bottomless pit. Unforgiving eyes, I think. His face is slightly lined. In between his neatly plucked white eyebrows, are two deep frown lines set above a slightly off-kilter nose. He is wearing a pair of steel-framed glasses, which magnify his fathomless eyes slightly. His pin-striped suit is crisp and freshly laundered. Where there ought to have been a rose or corsage boutonniere, there’s a fragile white lily. His legs are crossed and he’s smoking a cigar. He looks me up and down and smiles. His teeth are small and pointed- like a wolfs. I decide to call him the wolf.

“She’ll do. Prepare her.” His voice is deep and lazy. Before I can ask him any questions, he picks up a large leather-bound book and begins making notes in the margins.

I look at Charles. He nods and beckons me from the room. He drags me down yet another set of corridors. I’m not going to lie, this place is confusing me. Finally, we reach a steel door with a passcode on it. He takes out a piece of cardboard and swipes it. The door opens and we walk in.

I’m standing in an office. The walls are magnolia and are covered with certificates and even the odd painting. On the left wall, there’s a window and opposite the window there’s a door. In front of the window, there’s a large oak desk with a woman sitting at it. She looks like she’s in her mid-thirties. She looks up from a sheet of paper.

“Good evening, Charles.” She says smoothly.

I look out of the window. It’s pitch black outside. I guess it must have taken a while to make me over after all. I look at the clock on her desk. It’s just gone midnight.

“Good evening Victoria.” Charles replies, “Have they finished training?”

“They’re in the dormitories. A private bed has been prepared for her. Tomorrow, she will move into one of the dormitories.”

“When will she begin training?”

“Tomorrow.”

Victoria hands over a large brass key. This place is strange; they have state of the art facilities and yet, when it comes to security, they choose the oldest methods. I guess they must have some sort of back up security plan. Or maybe they’re just confident that no one will ever get in. Charles takes the key from Victoria and pulls me through the door. We’re in yet another corridor. There are about twenty oak doors spaced evenly along the corridor. At the end of the corridor, there’s a large black door. Charles drags me towards it. In the next corridor, there are more locked doors; this time they’re steel instead of oak. The doors are unfriendly. They don’t want to be opened. I’m dragged through another door and into another corridor. The doors in this corridor are red. Charles unlocks the second to last one. He shoves me inside and I hear him locking the door again.

It’s pitch black so I fumble around for a light switch. Eventually, my manicured hands find one. I switch on the lights and look around. I’m in a large room. The carpet’s crimson and plush. There’s a bed in front of a large window. It’s big and covered with a crimson bedspread. There are curtains around the bed. There’s a white wooden dressing table on the left side of the room. Above the dressing table, there’s a large golden mirror. On the chair in front of the dressing table, there’s a set of clothes. Clothes for the morning, I assume. However, on top of the clothes there’s a piece of paper. Swiftly, I cross the room and pick it up. It’s covered in typed writing.

My dearest Miss Elizabeth Hitches,

I realise with a jolt that, as of today, I am Elizabeth Hitches. I continue reading.

I hope that your journey to the cottage was pleasant. I assume that, by now, you will be prepared for your new role. At least, as far as appearance is concerned. However, you have not yet begun your physical and mental preparation. I hope that you understand that, in order to complete this job, your body will need to be in peak condition at all times. After all, if they catch you, they will kill you.

Tomorrow, you will put on the clothes which have been laid out for you. Then, you will open this door and turn to the left. You will open the door at the end of the corridor. You should be in the corridor with steel doors. Go to the first steel door on your right and reach into your pocket. There will be a card. Swipe the card and open the door.

And now, my dear Elizabeth, you must go to sleep. You will need all the rest you can get.

Yours Sincerely,

A