Young Writers Society

(This is kind of the same storyline as 'Mind Reader', but this one is about...9 years later, when Rachel is 16. )

Trigger warning: This whole thing talks about suicide as if it's a totally common, normal thing, which may be disarming/disturbing/disrespectful to some of those reading this( I totally understand that...this work slightly alarms me, myself, and I do not in any way think that suicide is a light or easy subject to bring up). I'm sorry about that, but if you have a serious problem with the bluntness of the way I'm writing the story, I just...wouldn't read/review it.

As usual, I don't really appreciate nitpicks in reviews I get; if it doesn't improve my overall writing, then it doesn't need to be brought up in a review. also, the installments I publish are NOT chapters. They are parts, i.e. chunks of writing i publish whenever I need encouragement/inspiration. So any criticisms pertaining to the length/abruptness of the published work shall be ignored.

Thank you! Sorry for the long author's note!

I’m awake.

I always think that in the morning. I don’t know why, but I do.

I wonder if my subconscious mind thinks, “I’m asleep,” whenever I’m asleep. It probably doesn’t, which is one of many reasons why the subconscious makes more sense than the alternative. It doesn’t question itself. It works with what’s around it, no matter what. All the memories.

So, I’m awake. I don’t know what kind of morning it is, because there aren’t any windows in my room, but since I don’t go outside that often, I don’t need to know. Everything I do is in the complex...where I live.

I remember that when I was normal, I always needed to know what the weather was. It determined if I would be playing outside for recess at school, and if my mother would be taking a jog on the trails that day. It determined what clothes I wore.

But that was a while ago.

It’s 7 am, which I can tell because that’s when the lights go on. They’re these big, round, bright-white bubble lights on the ceiling that are controlled by a timer somewhere that I’ve never touched. If I could ever get my hands on that thing, I’d set the lights on at 8. At least.

I have a pass for coffee today because it’s Monday, but if I want to get some before the machine runs out, I’ll have to be at the dining hall in an hour and a half or so. They never have enough for everyone.

I cover my closed eyes with one arm. It’s too bright, too fast.

Here’s to another day.

Eventually I sit up in bed, touching my feet to the fuzzy blue rug on the floor and scrunching up my toes. It took me ages to convince the NMRs to let me keep this rug, but eventually I won: You can’t hang yourself with a bathmat, can you?

There are lots of precautions like that.

For, example, my whole room is molded white plastic. All the cubicles are. The walls dip and curve for a chair and desk, for the bedframe. It curves into an edgeless ceiling with completely ridiculous spherical light bulbs. The whole thing melts into itself. No sharp corners. No color either, except for the few things that I’m allowed to keep, like my rug. And it’s only slightly blue, tinted, you might say if you were selling it. Color isn’t really big with the authorities here. Apparently, it messes with our moods.

Yeah, that’s why my clothes are all the same, too. Loose, dark grey v-neck hospital shirts and matching pants, that’s all we get here up on the floor Four. It’s different on other units of the complex, but all monotone shades of grey.

I get to choose my shoelaces though, because according to the authorities, the amount of color in shoelaces is too small to make a difference in personality. But they limit certain colors like red and orange because those are ‘violent’ colors, so mine are yellow: the next best thing.

I slip on some scrubs-that’s what I call them, because that’s what they look like- and go over to the mirror above my desk, a piece of reflective glass imbedded in the plastic wall. I think there was one girl on floor Two who tried to hang herself with her own hair a few years back- morbid, I know -, but since that attempt failed, we, fortunately, don’t all have to go bald. Thanks for living, girl. Because of you, I have hair.

I mean, she- that girl- is probably in the nut ward in the Sub-level now. Among us MRs, people like her are called ‘past their due-date’. She was too desperate.

My hair looks pretty good today. Well, for my hair. It’s very thick and prone to knotting, but I keep it under tabs by braiding it at lights-out. I let it down in the morning even though the authorities don't like it. We all find our ways, and mine is my hair.

I have some pieces of it strung with those little plastic beads you make necklaces out of when you’re four. I wasn’t allowed to have any with color because color surrounding my face is distracting; but I have a nice, black/white sunset thing going on that’s pretty good. A white bead, a light grey one, a dark grey, and black. Four beads for each of my seven strands.

It makes it even harder to brush it with the beads, but I deal with it because teenage angst is way cool around here.

And beads are something I’m allowed to have. It brands me as sane. Someone who, in all likelihood, won’t try anything… unreasonable.

Like, I could swallow those beads. And then I’d be in trouble.

I take the brush, a clear plastic thing with white ballpoint spines, and run it a couple times through my hair, but it doesn’t really need it.

Maybe it’s a dry day outside. I think my mother said something, once, about dampness affecting her hair, but I honestly forget. I doubt that that the humidity out of the complex would affect the inside, anyway. It was just a thought.

The rest of me looks like...me. I never change. Brown eyes, brown hair. A face.

Five Five. Average BMI. I’m normal.

Except that I’m not. Looks aren’t everything, didn’t you know.

Not at all.

I remember to take my room key off it’s hook, but only barely. The whole ‘room key’ idea is a joke, because everything in the room is me-proof and there’s a video camera in every corner. But the guys who run the place have a really jolly sense of irony. The reason I know it’s irony is because whenever I forget the key inside my room, I ask the people at the floor Four back desk for help ,and they just take this little gadget from who-knows-where(perhaps where that friggin timer is), and they just pick the hell outta my lock like it’s nobody’s business.

I open the door, (which is metal, but covered in pillow-y padding: because metal is dangerous and hard) and step outside, into the clear, filtered air of Four.