The Path To What Could Have Been

The cafeteria was always crowded and cacophonous. Every each one of them was like that. The people of New Amal didn't cook in their own homes, they said it was to minimalize fire hazards. Fire would be devastated for an underground city, so there were numerous unnamed cafeterias which could be frequent by the citizen to grab their everyday food, free of charge. They were self-sufficient people, producing their own crops to be further processed into various food. They didn't produce any animal products, though. They simply created artificial meat which tasted like the real ones, although the texture was not quite accurate. Those places were not named like business places usually were, they were simply called 'cafeteria'.

Every cafeteria had several monitors, with different programs from all over the world being broadcast through. Those with children programs had groups of children gathered in front of it, they were laughing and always looked like they were having a great time. The adults usually crowded in front of monitors which broadcasted news or sports. Everyone was thinking about their own, and after a couple of days of being excited by her and the others that came from the outside world, they grew bored and eventually left her alone most of the time. Hagar found that those were the only places she could be on her own, rethinking of what she was, what she was supposed to do and her future. She felt safer to hide in this way, while she calculated how she would be able to run away.

She had a cup of fake chocolate with her food. Today it was several vegetables and fake chicken breast, laced with sour and chili sauce. It was surprisingly good, she smiled when she first put them into her mouth. If her destiny was to be the citizen of New Amal, she decided this meal would be her favorite. While the thought of it seemed enticing, there was something underneath the surface. The leader of this place was planning something mysterious that she couldn't put her hand on. New Amal was peaceful, she could start all over again, but at least the real world was more real. All the horribleness was there out in the open.

She heard some protests around her, as the broadcast on the monitors uniformly switched into a news flash program. Apparently, there was an uproar happened in Angkara. She knew that Angkara fell under a militaristic religious leader after they were succeeded to run away from it, but now something happened. She looked at the closest monitor, and it showed drone footage, following a group of spider machines running along a great street. The same spiders Y-14 and its cohorts were transformed into, the day Y-0 died. Explosions were everywhere, and it looked like they were fighting something that was chasing them. She couldn't make out what it was exactly that chasing the androids.

Was somebody trying to get out?

That put her plan of escaping on the back burner. If she was to run away, she couldn't go back to Angkara. But she couldn't stay here. She didn't want to be Adam's accessories, to be his 'helper' of whatever Pater Greggor and Ticho wanted him to do. She wanted her own life. Maybe she could run to the capital city, Muraka, ask for their protection. Disappeared, starting anew. Put Adam behind.

After the program switched back into the monitors' usual programs, she sipped her fake chocolate. A little girl took her attention when she was ordering the same fake chocolate Hagar was having. She remembered her as Ticho's daughter, and a plan suddenly came.

"Hey, hey!" Hagar called her, "Aisha, right?"

The girl was startled and looked at her. She didn't answer.

"Come on, sit with me," she smiled.

The girl hesitated, then started to move towards her. She put her cup of fake chocolate on the table then sit in front of Hagar.

"You like chocolate, don't you?"

"This is fake," Aisha answered plainly. She had her mother's coldness, apparently. Well, being raised in the middle of a militaristic group couldn't be a very fulfilling growing experience for a little girl.

"Oh?" she coyly commented, "I don't know. This tastes real enough for me. Look, I ordered the same thing."

"I know what a real chocolate tastes like," Aisha said.

"Really? Have you ever tasted one?"

"Yeah," she answered, "I stole Devil's Chocolate often when we were still stationed at Angkara."

"Oh..." Hagar couldn't decide what was more disturbing: the fact that this little girl being blasé about the fact that she steals, or that she understood the word 'stationed' well enough that it became a part of her everyday vocabulary.

"You like that?" Hagar asked.

"Yes. My Ma liked that too. She always cried every time she had a bite."

Ticho? Cried? "really? I always thought of her as a strong lady."

Aisha looked at her. Fire in her otherwise blue eyes, "being strong doesn't mean you can't cry."

That caught her off guard. Aisha was very sharp. She needed to tread carefully.

"You are right!" Hagar exclaimed, and then she asked, "Hey can I ask you something?"

Aisha shrugged.

"Is there any way I can... you know... go away from here?"

Aisha's piercing eyes kept staring at her, "why would you do that?"

"Well," careful Hagar, "Your Ma already made me swear not to tell you. But she ordered me to try and find the Devil's Chocolate for her and you. It was supposed to be a surprise."

Aisha looked at her suspiciously. She said, "then why can't she tell you how to get out?"

"I'm not sure... maybe she wanted me to figure it out myself. You know, to make me stronger...perhaps..." she never lied this terrible before, but she needed the information.

"That means that you have to figure that out yourself," she prepared herself to get off her chair.

"Wait! Wait!" she desperately grabbed the little girl's wrist, "I've looked around, there's no way I can get out of here without notifying the guards. Look, I'll bring you plenty of chocolate, and she doesn't have to know about it."

"You are asking me to betray my own Ma," she stated.

"Noo.. no... please. I just need a hint, that's all..." she smiled, "please?"

Aisha returned to her chair. Sipped her chocolate, then put it down deliberately. She then interlaced her fingers and put both arms on the table, looked her dead in the eyes, and, "lady, I don't appreciate your effort to bribe me with chocolates. That is very patronizing. Contrary to your opinion, I'm not like other children."

"Wha... what?" Hagar stuttered, "...I'm not..."

"I want you to know that I can blow all of your plan of escaping just like that after I subdue you first..."

She wanted to say something to save her from this unforeseen situation, but she knew she was caught, and nothing she said could save her now.

"But," Aisha continued, "if I show you the way to escape, you had to take me along with you."

Hagar was speechless. She couldn't believe what just happened.

"Why?" that was all Hagar could say.

Aisha sighed, "long story. But the short story is... I don't even understand what my Ma is doing with Pater. Bringing strangers here, constant flip-flopping with this and that prophet, dreaming of later paradise."

The amount of insight this little girl had terrified Hagar. It disturbed her so much she wanted to turn back time and didn't ask anything from her.

"Why can't we create our own paradise, rather than chasing what could've been? Not to mention the number of people being killed in the effort of finding it," Aisha said.

A silence ensued. Hagar finally asked, "are you sure you're ten?"

Aisha smiled. The first time she ever saw one from her, "well. I want my chocolate," she said while preparing to get off from their table, "meet me the day they started to work on Adam in front of the moonflower greenhouse. I'll take you to the Zeitorrery."

"The what?"

"The Zeitorrery. Ask Lady Domaney. I saw her there with Pater Greggor yesterday," Aisha said, "maybe she can escape with us."