Cam Donovan tried to rub her sleep-deprived eyes, but the eyeglasses surgically attached to her head blocked her reach. It was her first day since receiving them – she’d need to give it some time for them to become routine and comfortable. Despite any discontent she had in the moment, Cam smiled when she caressed the temples of her new spectacles. They were a cold brushed metal, painted the color of her choice – her favorite color, forest green. The lenses tinted the world around her a warm yellow, enough to limit blue light exposure but subtle enough she blocked it out within fifteen minutes of having them. More than the physical presence of the glasses, they possessed an almost spiritual reality for Cam. Having her glasses meant she had made it – she had finally become a true member of Tomparth society.
The morning alarm bell rang, signaling to the others in Cam’s wing to wake up. Cam hopped to her feet, wobbled a moment as she adjusted to the depth perception changes that came with the ever-so-slightly curved lenses, and raced to get dressed in her work uniform. Navy blue pants, a long sleeve cotton shirt matching in color to the trousers, alpaca wool beige socks, and purple-gray laced boots. Over the long-sleeve shirt, she wore her uniform polo shirt – a purple-gray to match her boots. The collar had a dark purple stitching in the shape of a fork. Every person in the food packing industry wore the same insignia. Her first day since the surgery. Cam rocked back and forth where she stood, ready to take on the day.
As she prepared for a blissful day where she’d finally fit in with her peers, her bunk mates trudged out of bed. They were nowhere near as excited as Cam. How could they be? They’d had their glasses for months. It wasn’t Cam’s fault she had to wait for hers. The Tomparth City Council deemed the drug trials more significant and more urgent than attaching her glasses, so they waived the requirement until testing concluded. Cam was the eldest girl in the adolescent wing of her housing block at seventeen years old. The others in her wing mocked her for not having them yet. A late bloomer. But that day she matured. They’d finally see her as more than an experiment. A lab rat. A tripe.
Cam pictured what she might do with her new-found freedom. Maybe she could visit the temple. Of course she couldn’t go inside, but even to see the glory of the facade through her new lenses would be enough happiness for a thousand lifetimes. That temple, and Primis, whose spirit resides in it, is the whole reason any of them were there, after all.
One girl, Tereza, did not get up with the alarm. She stayed wrapped in her light gray comforter with her pillow covering her head. Some in the room took notice of her presence, knowing she’d certainly be punished if she did not wake up in time. The RA would be doing rounds any minute now, collecting any stragglers still in their rooms. Cam debated waking her herself. Before she could, another girl did the honors. Francis – Franny, to the staff – treaded over to the middle bunk where Tereza laid and jerked the mattress.
“Get up, Tereza!” Franny tugged and tugged on the mattress, but Tereza didn’t even stir. She yanked the mattress so hard it came out from under the girl, but that’s not what caught everyone’s attention.
It was the blood.
The previously white coloring of Tereza’s nightgown now tarnished by smears of crimson red. Those close enough to see, Cam regrettably being one of them, cried out in shrieks of terror. Those who did not witness the event rushed over and, upon seeing Tereza’s bloodied bed, joined the chorus of screams.
“Dear Lord,” Franny exclaimed as she dropped the comforter over Tereza’s body. She turned to the crowd of onlookers in the bunkroom. “Y’all need to back up, right now. Maritza, you go get the RA. Pilar, you take everyone else out to the hallway until the headmaster gets here. I don’t want none of y’all getting anything on you. Cam, you help Pilar keep everyone in line. Now!”
Everyone did as Franny said. Maritza sprinted down the hall. Pilar rounded up everyone in the bunk and led them outside. Cam joined the line next to the youngest of the bunch to help calm them down. She looked down at their heads, the youngest boy no older than ten. The little boy hugged her leg and sobbed. He may not have seen what happened, but he knew. They all knew.
Maritza came back to the hall with the RA and headmaster close behind. Franny opened the door for them.
“What on earth happened here?” The RA, Liam, looked perplexed at the scene. Not disgusted or horrified, but puzzled.
“She committed suicide, sir.” Franny’s voice reverberated in Cam’s ears.
“Another one?” The headmaster spoke up, then sighed as he looked at the body. “Right you two. Take everyone down to the canteen. I’ll get housekeeping on this mess.”
Franny stared the headmaster down, glaring daggers into his soul. He jeered back, the silence between them palpable. Franny put her face directly in front of his. Despite being a foot shorter than the headmaster, Franny had a way of dominating the space.
“You gonna do anything ‘bout it this time?” She growled.
“That is not your concern, you tripe.”
“Is that why you don’t care, huh? ‘Cause she’s ‘below you’ in your sick way o’ thinking?”
“Get out of my face, right now. We will discuss this later.”
Franny stayed stanced a moment longer, then turned away with a grunt and slammed the door. Everyone in the hallway remained fixated on her. She was the only one with the gall to speak to the headmaster like that. Rumors circulated among their wing that Franny was a prisoner before becoming a worker. While not unheard of, being a former prisoner in the adolescent wing was rare. If that was true, Cam wondered what all Franny might have seen. What she might’ve done.
The door creaked open, and Liam slithered through, closing it again behind him. “Sorry for the inconvenience, everybody. Follow me.”
Two by two they weaved through the hallways, down the stairwell, and to the canteen. The room was a cold tope with even cooler air conditioning blowing directly onto the tables. A hole cut into the far wall opened the room up to the kitchen where two cafeteria workers plated food packages. Cam retrieved her tray, exchanged pleasantries with the staff (they grumbled something about working conditions and godawful meal plans), and sat herself in the corner opposite the serving window.
Emotions in the canteen varied. The younger kids, along with the more recent arrivals, stayed huddled together. Tears streamed down their faces. They poked at the food, but none dared bring a morsel of food to their mouth. Those who had lived there longer knew this was par for the course. Being a worker in Tomparth was not an easy calling, and not everyone handled that calling with grace. Tereza had been there only a few months, but those few months must have done a number on her. Cam pictured the young girl’s face in her mind, and she wondered – she thought, maybe, things might’ve been different if she had taken the time to get to know Tereza. Maybe she’d be there still, maybe she still would have killed herself.
Thinking about Tereza won’t bring her back, though. Cam shook her head and blinked, blotting out the images of the girl from her mind.
Cam finished her meal with thoughts of seeing her parents at the end of the week. They were workers like Cam, but they lived in a different housing complex. The days their schedules allowed, she made certain to visit with them. Today was not one of those days, however. As soon as she finished her food, she’d have to make her way to Infirmary for Check-In and Testing. She smiled a giddy smile.
After inhaling the remaining food on her tray, Cam left the tray with the cafeteria workers (they continued their mumblings about work and the damn kids in South Wing), scanned her bracelet to leave, and began the walk to Infirmary. While the path itself took no more than twenty minutes on foot, the repetitive blocks of identical worker dormitories and factories deceived passers-by that time slowed down. The road seemed longer, and the buildings seemed taller, and Cam became smaller and smaller with every step.
Two men – soldiers for Tomparth – marched in Cam’s direction. The taller of them whistled, then called out “ey-yo, look out for the tripe! She’s a-comin’ toward us!”
“They probably gon’ load ‘er up with diseases at the infirmary. Don’t wanna get infected!”
“’Less she got something else to offer us.” He whistled at Cam again, and they laughed as she picked up pace to pass them by.
“Dirty tripe!”
She peeked over her shoulder, but they had already moved on as though she didn’t exist. Cam loved her life here, no doubt, but she could do without being called a tripe on the daily by people who didn’t recognize the value of her role. Those soldiers looked at Cam and saw someone they viewed as unclean, poor, worthless. In reality, Cam knew that these so-called tripes were the backbone of Tomparth – and the whole mission of the Primistines. If it weren’t for human test subjects like Cam, the city’s scientific endeavors wouldn’t be nearly as advanced. Soldiers wouldn’t have access to the biological or technical enhancements they had without these people sacrificing themselves for the cause. Every time someone called Cam a tripe, she had to remind herself of these things. Remind herself that she was important and a valuable member of society, even if she would never be able to be a citizen.
The infirmary stood as the tallest building in Tomparth. It needed to be – the amount of human test subjects needed for some of the trials wouldn’t fit in the other buildings in the city. The first trial Cam was a part of had well over five hundred people in it, all of whom stayed at Infirmary for the duration of the tests. Cam looked around with relief that she didn’t have to stay there anymore. Being in outpatient allowed her to live in the worker dorms while still undergoing testing. It was the best of both worlds.
“Welcome back, Miss Donovan.” The nurse greeted her with a warm handshake and a wide smile. Nurse Khelisia patted Cam on the shoulder and led her behind a curtain to a small partitioned exam room. The two real walls were a sterile gray, but the curtains that formed the other two walls were white with orange and blue shapes scattered about. The exam chair sat in the center of the space with the doctor’s chair and computer off to the left. Cam took her spot on the exam chair. Khelisia asked her questions, got her answers. All the standard information that doesn’t ever change between tests but that she still needs to ask per regulations.
“Do you have any suicidal ideation, Miss Donovan?” The first question to make Cam hesitate. Of course she didn’t want to die, but still she paused. No, I do not have thoughts of harming myself. No? Nothing of the sort. Good. And with that, Khelisia stepped out and closed the curtain.
Cam glanced around the doctor’s station, trying to see if she could gleam any information on what tests they might perform on her. Whichever doctor she’d have was clearly more meticulous and organized than some of the other doctors Cam’s had in the past. This one had nothing laying out. No trays, no stethoscope, no nothing. Only a computer monitor, keyboard, and a single gray pen. Cam resigned herself to waiting for the doctor.
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. The clock hanging from the back wall made itself known. Every passing second tugged at Cam’s heart. Nervous anticipation, as her father called it. A desire – a need – to know exactly what would happen next. And each time the clock ticked was another second closer to knowing. Tick. Tock.
After 467 ticks of the second hand, the doctor pulled back the curtain and entered the room. His white coat laid wrinkleless over his clothing. In his hands was a metal tray, and in the tray sat three syringes, no doubt for Cam.
“Right, let’s skip over the greetings.” His voice short, deep. “These two vials are going into either arm. The third will be to draw blood exactly twelve hours after the shots.”
“What tests are you running? What will the vials do to me?”
“That is on a need-to-know basis. Arms out.”
Cam knew he’d say something like that. They never shared what the experiments were for. Only ever told that her contributions were important and to not worry about what people called her. She whipped her arms out of her sleeves.
Another doctor, this one younger, came through the curtain. His lab coat had wrinkles and a stain of what looked like coffee on the right cuff. Must be a student, Cam assumed. The older doctor handed him one of the filled syringes. They each took an arm, the young doctor on her left and the older one on her right, and tied a band around either arm above the elbow. This was always the worst part for Cam. Needles were fine. Tourniquets hurt. They flicked at her skin, trying to coax her veins to the surface. Almost done.
“Count of three, Lev. One, two, three.” Both doctors stuck the needles into her veins. The liquid chilled her arms as it entered her bloodstream. Cam bit into the inside of her cheek, the only way to keep her from squirming. They removed the needles, and she breathed again.
“Right,” the older doctor stated, “you’ll stay here for twelve hours. Do not move about. Stay in the exam room. I will be back in one hour.”
The duo left, and Cam was once again alone. She kicked her feet over the edge of the exam chair, bouncing them to the beat of a song in her head. Strange, Cam couldn’t place the tune. Still she hummed and kicked and bopped in her seat. The tick-tocking of the clock played in half-time to the phantom music. It registered so loud in her head she felt she might explode. The piano, the strings. Cam recognized the strumming of a harp, an instrument she hadn’t heard since moving here. So loud. So graceful. So overpowering.
Cam’s eyes must’ve closed at some point, for she found herself in a dream. Not just a dream, but a dream within a dream. In the dream within the dream, she stood on the clouds, looking down at the city of Tomparth. Soldiers marched, workers scurried about to their factories and workplaces. Her parents went to theirs, too. Oh how she missed her parents. Every person who wasn’t a soldier had chains constricting them. On their faces the word “tripe” was carved so deep Cam could see bone and sinew. Music rang out from the windows of every single building. This time brass trumpets and horns and tambourines. And the soldiers heard it and rushed to the street that leads out of the city and to the Outside. They had their rifles drawn. Gunshots. So many gunshots. Terrible screams. A child wandered onto the street. He stood there only a second before he collapsed in a pool of blood. His stuffed bunny fell from his arm. More screams. More gunshots. She could see the temple off in the distance. It was vacant, the spirit of Primis nowhere to be felt. Flames came bursting through the windows. Camille, can you hear?
“Camille? Camille?” Nurse Khelisia stood over Cam, shaking her awake. Cam looked at her eyes, and the boy from the dream stared back at her. “What did you see?” But Cam could not speak. The gunshots were too loud to hear her own thoughts. The doctors stood behind Khelisia, arms crossed. Guns raised. No, no guns. They fazed in and out of existence.
“I, I saw,” But she couldn’t even begin to describe it. It was horrible. Too horrible. That’s not what life here was supposed to be. Why chains? Why the little boy? Why the guns that just won’t stop?
“It’s alright,” Khelisia’s deep yet soft voice calmed Cam momentarily. I do believe we have the answers we need.” She looked back to the doctors. The older one nodded.
“Let the subject go.” And she did. Khelisia led Cam out of the building and to the street. They stood there a moment. Cam looked down the street. That way, that’s where the boy came from. One of the child dorms. He shouldn’t have been allowed out. Who let the boy out?
“You are not expected at your shift today, Camille. Recovery will take some time. Walk it off. Go back to your dormitory. Get some rest.” She squeezed Cam’s shoulder before turning around and going back into Infirmary. Cam could only stand and observe.
She stood there what felt like a thousand eternities, replaying the scene in her head. The chains wrapped around her, except they didn’t, because they were only in her mind. Just like the gunshots. But Cam could not tell anymore what was reality and what was imagination. The two merged in an indecipherable mess of sounds and sights and every kind of terrible, terrible thing. Before she could comprehend even the most basic of details from her surroundings, she ran – not a normal run she sometimes did to let off steam, but the run a marathon sprinter. She ran up the streets, twisting and turning between buildings to get there quicker. A soldier walking past said something, but Cam pushed right through him. Her legs burned with every stride, but she could not stop. Not until she saw it with her own eyes.
Primis’s Temple. Its yellow sandstone exterior still stood for all to see. Cam fell to her knees, panting and reaching for breath. No flames. No gunshots. No blood. It was still there, and it was glorious. She began creeping towards the front door. To even step on the grounds of the temple as a worker was forbidden without permission from the elders. For Cam, whose only value came from how much her body could handle under experimentation, touching the wooden doors could result in imprisonment.
“Primis!” Cam called out. “Primis, make it stop! Make it all stop! Save me!” The words exited her lips, but she did not know what she said. They weren’t her words; it wasn’t her voice.
Before she could even make it to the steps up to the door, a soldier grabbed her by the waist and pulled her back. Called her a tripe. Their favorite word for people like her. Dropped her to the ground like litter. All who passed by stared and scoffed.
Cam walked home, head hung low. Each step like bullets into her shins. She wanted nothing more than the comfort of her bed. Actually, there was one thing she wanted more than this – her parents. The chains around them. The gouged words in their faces. The image stayed burned into her retinas. Chants whispered in her ears, so low she couldn’t decipher the words. Every step reverberated up her spine.
Did Primis hear her call? If he did, would he send her reprieve? Cam prayed in her heart he did.
On and on she trudged until she could see the brick exterior of the dormitory. The noise in her head grew louder. Louder. So loud the world around her went silent. Nothing existed anymore – only her and the sounds. The dormitory walls swayed and spun about, bright flashes of colors coating the walls. She entered through the doors and dragged herself up the stairs to her floor. Franny stood outside the door to their wing, head down and soul dejected. She looked up as Cam approached. Her noisy brain quieted, just enough for her to think coherently a moment.
“How goes it, Franny?”
“Been worse I guess. You?”
“Been better I guess.”
“That bad, eh? Make sure you rest up. Imma be out here if ya need me.”
Cam only noticed Franny’s eyes as she left. They were red and swollen, like she had been crying. In the four months Franny has been there, never once had Cam seen her shed a tear.
The door slammed behind her, its crash beckoning the brain noise to return. She laid on her bunk and threw her pillow over her face to drown it out.
If anything, the pillow enhanced the sounds in Cam’s mind. For the first time she could understand what they were saying.
Tomparth falls! Beware the end. None will make it out alive. Your efforts are all for naught.
This went on and on and on, voices repeating and speaking over themselves. Cam threw her hands over hear ears, but the voices only intensified.
All is tripe in the city of Tomparth. Not just you, not just test subjects. All is tripe in the city of Tomparth. From the stomach of animals you came, and soon you shall be eaten and returned to the stomach. All is tripe here. Nobody is safe.
The warm trickle of blood coated her hands. Cam didn’t seem to notice her nails were digging deeper and deeper into her temples. Her tears too became a solution of salty water and blood. Her eyes stung, her mouth tasted of iron. The voices continued their tumultous tantrums.
Death to Tomparth. Death to Primis. Death to all who call this evil place home.
The light faded from Cam’s eyes. Her steadfast grip into her flesh let loose. Silence overwhelmed her. She floated over herself, no longer tethered to her corporeal form. For just a moment, she felt the peace she longed for, before she faded into oblivion, and the fire that was her life dimmed for the final time.
_________________________________________________
Donovan, Camille Louisa
Time of death: approximately 8:30pm
Cause of death: suicide
Physician’s Notes: Second death within drug trials recorded. Concluded to not be related to administered dosage. Trials set to continue as planned. Will continue to monitor.
Ember Frost Writes 