Akaela by E.E. Giorgi

Author:E.E. Giorgi [E.E. Giorgi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Quemazon Publishing
Published: 2015-05-23T07:00:00+00:00

* * *

Niwang is the most horrific punishment. People sentenced to Niwang are deactivated and disconnected from their batteries until all life is drained from their body. But the same threat comes with every Wela. Once deactivated, they take you away to a place where you could be forgotten and never reactivated again. Family and friends are expected to show up at the end of the Wela and claim you back, but that doesn’t always happen. Sometimes people are too ashamed to do that. Years of obedience and acceptance have made the Mayakes more resilient to loss than shame.

I charge down the stairs, hot tears rolling down my cheeks.

This isn’t happening. Can’t be happening.

I slam through the fire door at the end of the stairs and run down the hallway toward the auditorium. The Kiva doors swing open and Mom comes out sobbing, followed by the muffled voices of the men and women still inside.

I sneak behind Mom, squeeze her arm, and drag her around the corner into a side corridor.

Mom flinches, her face corrugated in a million fears.

“You’ve got to do something, Mom,” I hiss. I shake her shoulders and stare into her face until I see it: the shame, the fear, welling up in my mom’s eyes.

“What have you done?” she whispers.

When you see fear, you’ll recognize it. But you won’t understand it.

My dad’s voice, from a long time ago.

Learn to fear, Akaela, even if you can’t feel it. You’ll be in danger if you don’t.

Why, Dad? How can I be harmed by not being fearful?

Dad’s handsome face looking into the dying sun.

Because those who don’t fear can’t be controlled.

I step backwards, away from my own mother. I see it now, the fear that controls her. She looks over her shoulder and nibbles the hook of her prosthesis. Would she be capable of giving me up? Just like she is incapable of defending Athel, her own son? Does she even wonder whether he’s been unjustly condemned?

I shake my head. “Please don’t do this to yourself.”

She tilts her head and mouths, “What have you done?” No sound comes out of her throat. She turns away and vanishes down the hallway.

I’ve done nothing, Mom, I think. But she can’t hear my thoughts. She wouldn’t hear them even if I yelled my head off.

The doors to the Kiva Hall swing open again and the Kiva Members start filing out. I hide around the corner and flatten against the wall. One by one, they all leave the big auditorium: Uli first, then the old Kiva Member who harassed me about Ash, then the man named Tahari. Many more come out, heads shaking and lips voicing thoughts of shock and incredulity.

“We need to go back to the roots of our people. Trust and honesty are the pillars,” I hear Tahari say as his steps resonate down the hallway.

“Trust and honesty,” a few others echo behind him.

And then silence settles again. Empty silence where a long, dead corridor looks like an endless prison.

Where do I go now? Where?

Athel.

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