Chapter 8

Ilook for him as I go to breakfast, all while trying to not look like I'm looking. It's not terribly hard since almost no one spares me a second glance anymore. I realize, for the first time really, how much I've pushed everyone away.

After the crash, everyone was always checking on each other. Constantly offering to help, asking how you were, little things. Nice things, but by the time I was out of the medical bays I was too bitter to let anyone near. The pain has grown less with time, but never gone completely away. Yet that, pain, is only an excuse.

Truth is deeper and meaner than that. I didn't want them near me. No matter how well intentioned their words or inquiries might be, they hurt. Hurt more than the pain itself. They hurt because they reminded me that I'm forever less. Scarred, marred, my face gone from pretty to a horror show.

So I acted out. The display yesterday with Provyd was barely a shadow of what I was like then. And over time people do what they do when treated like that. They left me alone. Most days I can walk through the halls without a single word spoken in my direction. Unnoticed if not unwanted and unneeded, though those are both up for debate.

There have been plenty of nights I have laid awake wondering why? Why do I go on? Why did I survive? Why me, when so many others were lost, why?

There are no answers to those questions. I'm no philosopher and I was never much into religion or things like that either. Even if I was, what I do know of them, they don't have an answer either. Not one I can believe in anyway. It's not fate, or design, and if it is, then whoever came up with it, fuck you. Seriously, fuck you, you fucking asshole. How dare you kill so many and for what? What reason could there be?

I hope he'll be in the mess hall and when I first walk in there are four Zmaj. They tend to dominate any space they are in due to their large size and one of them looks about right but as I get closer he turns and my hopes are dashed. It's not Provyd.

I change my path and try to make it look like I never intended to go closer to that group. I keep one eye on them as I go through the food line and it looks like they're watching me. That makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.

Did Provyd tell them about me? That would be a typical guy thing to do wouldn't it? Go tell your buddies about the crazy bitch who blew up at you when you did something. Do Zmaj do that?

Every time I glance over in their direction at least one of them is looking in mine. I set my plate aside, grab a hunk of bread and a piece of the weird fruit stuff the Zmaj introduced us to then head out of the hall.

I tear off a piece of bread and chew on it angrily. He's talking about me. Probably bad too. Of course he is. Why wouldn't he? I'm the mad girl. The one with the temper. The poor little scarred girl that no one wants and when one person is nice to me I yell at him.

I get my day's assignments, my cleaning supplies, and go to where I'm supposed to work. It's nothing special, just a set of rooms I'm to clean. When I arrive the room is empty of people. Steel tables, all fastened in place, are arranged around the room, individual work stations. I set my supplies down and then survey the work.

Walking up to the first table there is a piece of paper. I pick the paper up and a leaf falls off. Frowning, I see my name is written in a scrawling script on the paper and a single word, sorry. I pick up the leaf. It has that fading soft glow just like the epis that Provyd gave me before. I stare at the leaf and then at the paper.

Great. Now I feel worse than ever. I'm the meanest, nastiest person of all time to him and he gives me more magic plant? Is he trying to get me high? Is that his game?

"Stop it," I mutter aloud. "Can I please not be a bitch for a little while? He's being nice. That's it."

I frown, shake my head, then take the leaf in my mouth. The sensations and taste are very similar to the first time. And, I do feel better. The ache in my scars eases and there is a sense of calm that is nice. Unusual for me of late.

I set to work while chewing on the leaf.