Chapter 3.1

In the morning, I woke early, I knew Theo wouldn't be up before nine, so I took a shower and noticed that the bruises had darkened and spread. What the hell is this? I thought bruises were meant to shrink and lighten over time, not get worse. It was now starting to spread across my collar bone, but it didn't hurt. I'd never heard of anything like it. The guy who lived here didn't own any books, so it wasn't like I could look it up. I decided as long as it didn't hurt there wasn't anything to be concerned about, so I selected a high neck jumper from his wardrobe and towel-dried my hair before rummaging for food in the kitchen.

We were running low on bread, but I found some biscuits at the back of a cupboard and poured myself a glass of milk. It had to be used before it turned sour anyway. Other than some milk and cheese there wasn't much else fresh stuff in the fridge other than a storage box filled with mystery glop that Theo and I determined as inedible. I absent-mindedly nibbled on the packet of biscuits while staring at Theo's scribbles that were meant to form a coherent plan. Without realising it, I'd eaten half the packet and drunk my glass of milk, so I decided it was too dangerous to continue trying to decipher the indecipherable.

Instead, to fill the time, I nosed around in the bedroom, trying to find anything useful that we could use once we escaped. Even in situations such as we were in, Theo slept like a rock, so even with me moving about the apartment without much care, she didn't stir. I decided that if she wasn't awake in half an hour I would try and wake her in time for the register.

It's strange how much you can learn about a person by looking at their belongings. We already knew that he was a young man probably without much money. His clothes were cheap and worn and the bedside cabinet was held together with tape. There weren't any books on his bookshelf; there were several worn comics held upright against the wall with a chipped mug filled with coloured marbles. Next to them was a collection of the most random decorations I'd ever seen- a monkey with a top hat, a golden screwdriver, and a squidgy burger the size of my fist.

In the bottom drawer, there were sketches of comics, the pages were out of order, but by flicking through them I could gest that the main character was an introverted high school girl

Amongst the questionable storyline, I found something useful. I almost overlooked it amongst the random sketches and story notes loose at the bottom of the draw, but I found a sort of diary. There weren't any dates, some of the pages were missing and there notes from other things mixed in, but it undoubtedly the diary of the young man who lived here before. It started off quite trivial, even if he did sound unhappy.

'I miss Roxy, I hope she's okay without me. She probably is, everyone loves her. I thought it would be more exciting, I thought I could make more friends and do interesting things, but moving cities don't really change who you, does it? No matter where I go, I'm still me.

That's pretty disappointing. I don't want to be me.

I'm bored. The city is boring just like back home. Maybe I should return, but I don't want to see their faces when I give up and go home. I bet they want me to return. I bet they want me to fail.'

I almost stopped reading. It was an invasion of privacy, right? Well, I guess we've been living in his apartment these past days, wearing his clothes and eating his food, we were kinda past invasion of privacy. I skimmed the next few entries which continued on at the same pace, but they got continually more suspicious.

'I think I'm going crazy. I know I'm crazy for thinking this. There were men in my apartment with strange accents when I got back. The one time I go out and someone breaks in! Or so I thought. They said they were updating our security, and I checked with next door and they said they were in a couple of hours before. But I didn't pay for any upgrades in security and the rent's too cheap to pay for the latest technology. I don't get it. They were rude too. They were in my apartment and they basically told me to get out. They were scary dudes though. There were three great big guys that could have snapped me in half with one hand if they tried. I waited outside, with my groceries getting warm. Now if they were installing climate control then I wouldn't complain! It was ages before they let me in again (well it felt like ages) and they gave me a card for the door. When I looked, the lock was gone and there was a card reader in its place. It was so weird, but I guess I shouldn't complain.'

'I heard them installing something in the hall, right outside number 51. When I asked, they said it was a fire detector, which was kinda unlikely considering they were installing it on the floor and smoke and heat rises. it wasn't like any smoke alarm I've seen before. Looking back their accent was sort of similar to the guys that installed my card reader. They were just as scary as well.'

'They were in my apartment again. They were doing something above the front door. They wouldn't even give me a proper explanation. How can they just barge in here? Isn't there such a thing as privacy these days! I pay to live here! It's my apartment! They use their stinking bulkiness and intimidation to scare us into silence, I won't be silenced! I'm going to complain tomorrow. It's not right that they could just come in without any notice and be so rude!'

'I think something is going on. Those men were scary. Like their eyes didn't belong to men. I don't want to leave anymore. I'm scared. I can't even go home. Why are there so many scary men hanging about these days? I just want to live in peace.'

'I want to be crazy, I don't want it to be true. Let it all be a hallucination…'

He suddenly stops writing halfway through his sentence. That was probably when the invasion happened, I wonder what happened to him?

"What are you reading?" Theo peered over my shoulder.

"I think it's his diary- the guy who lived here."

"is it full of pervy stuff?" she snips it from my hand and flicks through the pages "Eww, gross, I was right."

"Ignore that bit." I took it back and flicked to the first page that mentioned the apartment upgrades. "I think the men in these entries are Garlantian. He wouldn't recognise the accent and it sounded like they were installing technology they needed to hold everyone here." She studies the entries

"These look like months of entries." She noted.

"Well, a large-scale invasion would have to be well organised. This is good for us."

"How is it good for us? He just sounds like a wimpy pervert."

"Well, he noted down where all the upgrades were made so we know where to look which will help us evade it. We know about the lock obviously, but I bet what they installed in the hall was some sort of motion detector."

"And above the door?"

"I'm not sure. It probably wouldn't be surveillance, or they would already know about shadow and our plans. We would have already been taken into custody."

"Well, when we get back I'll check above the door to see if I can see anything. It's almost time for the counting the livestock." She finished just as the first call sounded out.

"Participants E1 to E100 report to the courtyard immediately." A minute or so later we saw neat lines of children filing out of the building below, like worker ants. How quickly they'd organised us out of fear.

Ten minutes later it was our turn. In the corridor there was less bustling, everyone looked tired as if all the rebellion had drained out of them. There was less resistance in the crowd, when Theo broke free just before apartment 51, people drifted around her in a half daze.

While she knelt, holding her shoelaces as if to tie them, her gaze scanned the wall for irregularities. To not draw attention, I let myself drift along with the flow, a few moments later, she easily pushed back through the crowd.

Once in neat little lines in the courtyard, officers drifted down and scanned our bangles. Apart from the wind, there was nothing else to be heard. The Captain stood alert at the front, this time, silent.

I noticed there was a little girl adjacent to me who wasn't looking too well. Her skin was grey but damp, and her head hung back as if she could hardly stay awake. When the Garlantians weren't looking, her friend of similar age, held her upright. When it was her turn, her friend pinched her hard in the forearm, which got her to stand upright long enough to get scanned. But the time it took for both her and her friend to get scanned deemed too much. First, she swayed, and I thought she would jerk herself awake and correct herself, but instead, her weak attempts at staying upright tripped her up and she fell over her own feet.

"Jasmine!" Her friend called, and knelt to see if she was okay, but the girl doesn't stir, her breath comes heavy and pained.

If they hadn't noticed her fall, they were alerted by her friend's desperate cries. "Jazzy get up! Wake up!" she frantically shook her, but she's out cold. Hysteria leeks in, and her words were no longer recognisable. The nearest soldier knocked off her hands, ignoring her incomprehensible pleas and lugs the girl over his shoulder as if she weighed nothing. The girl yells something which I think was meant to say "Don't take her away! Bring her back!" but the syllables bend together in a mask of tears and snot. Her voice pitches with fear as her friend disappears, but no one offers any comfort. We stand in our lines, face forward, unable, or unwilling to break free of the invisible chains that bound us.

I thought I saw a hint of a grin on the Captain's face, but I couldn't have been sure. We wait for the rest of the registration, and then we return to our cages. Even the crying girl, picks herself up and wanders in behind us.

She was the first child to fall victim to that mysterious illness.

There was a solemn atmosphere as we returned and we weren't expecting an uninvited guest, but when we arrive back at the apartment, someone was waiting there for us.