[Day 228] Eugenia part 8

Read part 7 here!

A year and a half later, there was an influx of children testing under the 160 point mark, so two “Scrapping” tours were in order. Gruber and I decided to make a trip to the extermination facility, and soon found ourselves in possession of a boy called Asher Rose. I was almost a year his senior, but we grew close at once.

Asher was what Gruber liked to call an extremist. According to the stories he told us, Asher had once been a loud proponent of FF, and commended the government in school assignments as much as possible. However, as he got nearer to the date of his own test and saw families crying in the streets as their children were bussed away for Scrapping, his views switched. From age twelve to the time of his test, he began solitary protests against the system, writing letters to senators and other leaders daily. When his score was only 145, no one could bring themselves to be terribly upset.

Asher was thrilled to be a part of our little family. The two of us took over the chore of getting water, and spent the walks there and back talking. He was fascinated by the stories I told, and I was equally intrigued by his political rants.

Six months passed blissfully, with a garden thick in vegetation and the bonds between all three of us growing stronger by the day. But one afternoon, I began to doubt the utopia I’d grown used to.

Under a large tree, Asher and I rested and waited out the glaring sun before walking back to our camp with irrigation water. Drinking water had been scarce for a few days, and we didn’t want to risk dehydration. I was resting my head on Asher’s shoulder when he switched the subject from my most recent story to something that had been on his mind.

“Do you ever feel guilty?” His hand gently brushed my hair out of my eyes and tucked it behind my ears.

“About what?”

“Being here.”

“You mean not being dead.”

He adjusted his position uncomfortably. “Going against how society has governed itself successfully for so long.”

I turned my head to look at him face to face. “The only thing I’m ‘going against’ is the senseless murder of children.”

Nodding slowly, he bent his face down to mine. “You’re right. I’ve just been in a weird mood.” With that, the conversation disintegrated into a half-hour of soft kisses, reveling in the privacy we rarely got.

We held hands on the way back, holding buckets in our unclasped fingers, smiling like fools. But as happy as I was, I couldn’t ignore the feeling in the back of my mind, signaling something was wrong.

I mentioned my concern to Gruber once when Asher had gone to bathe on his own at the lake.

“It’s just… it worries me, because I know that before…”

“He’s an extremist, Meg. He gets his kicks from swinging back and forth on the opinion spectrum. And he’s also a comfort-monger, which doesn’t help.”

“Comfort-monger?”

“Sure. He thinks that this is the life for a political activist, and he thinks he should like it. But a twenty-year-old mattress and a lack of variety in food is getting to him. He likes being comfortable as he expresses his opinions. This isn’t fitting his standards.”

“How long have you thought this?”

“Since we met him. I just hope that when he decides to adhere to society’s decision to off him, he doesn’t take us down with him.”

“How can you say that? Maybe he’s questioning things… but he would never go back.”

Gruber shook his head sadly. “I’m sorry you two got so close. But you can’t stop him once he makes a decision.”

“There’s no decision to make! He loves it here.”

“He loves the idea of being here. There’s a difference.”

Frustrated, I stomped off. Although I later apologized for regressing to an infantile tantrum state, it still rubbed at me. Asher was a loose cannon, but he would never betray us like that.

Continued in part 9