Lauren DeStefano - Wither (The Chemical Garden Trilogy)

I wait. They keep us in the dark for so long that we lose sense of our eyelids. We sleep huddled together like rats, staring out, and dream of our bodies swaying.

I know when one of the girls reaches a wall. She begins to pound and screamtheres metal in the soundbut none of us help her. Weve gone too long without speaking, and all we do is bury ourselves more into the dark.

The doors open.

The light is frightening. Its the light of the world through the birth canal, and at once the blinding tunnel that comes with death. I recoil into the blankets with the other girls in horror, not wanting to begin or end.

We stumble when they let us out; weve forgotten how to use our legs. How long has it beendays? Hours?

The big open sky waits in its usual place.

I stand in line with the other girls, and men in gray coats study us.

Ive heard of this happening. Where I come from, girls have been disappearing for a long time. They disappear from their beds or from the side of the road. It happened to a girl in my neighborhood. Her whole family disappeared after that, moved away, either to find her or because they knew she would never be returned.

Now its my turn. I know girls disappear, but any number of things could come after that. Will I become a murdered reject? Sold into prostitution? These things have happened. Theres only one other option. I could become a bride. Ive seen them on television, reluctant yet beautiful teenage brides, on the arm of a wealthy man who is approaching the lethal age of twenty-five.

The other girls never make it to the television screen.

Girls who dont pass their inspection are shipped to a brothel in the scarlet districts. Some we have found murdered on the sides of roads, rotting, staring into the searing sun because the Gatherers couldnt be bothered to deal with them. Some girls disappear forever, and all their families can do is wonder.

The girls are taken as young as thirteen, when their bodies are mature enough to bear children, and the virus claims every female of our generation by twenty.

Our hips are measured to determine strength, our lips pried apart so the men can judge our health by our teeth. One of the girls vomits. She may be the girl who screamed. She wipes her mouth, trembling, terrified. I stand firm, determined to be anonymous, unhelpful.

I feel too alive in this row of moribund girls with their eyes half open. I sense that their hearts are barely beating, while mine pounds in my chest. After so much time spent riding in the darkness of the truck, we have all fused together. We are one nameless thing sharing this strange hell. I do not want to stand out. I do not want to stand out.

But it doesnt matter. Someone has noticed me. A man paces before the line of us. He allows us to be prodded by the men in gray coats who examine us. He seems thoughtful and pleased.

His eyes green, like two exclamation marks, meet mine. He smiles. Theres a flash of gold in his teeth, indicating wealth. This is unusual, because hes too young to be losing his teeth. He keeps walking, and I stare at my shoes. Stupid! I should never have looked up. The strange color of my eyes is the first thing anyone ever notices.

He says something to the men in gray coats. They look at all of us, and then they seem to be in agreement.

The man with gold teeth smiles in my direction again, and then hes taken to another car that shoots up bits of gravel as it backs onto the road and drives away.

The vomit girl is taken back to the truck, and a dozen other girls with her; a man in a gray coat follows them in. There are three of us left, the gap of the other girls still between us. The men speak to one another again, and then to us. Go, they say, and we oblige. Theres nowhere to go but the back of an open limousine parked on the gravel. Were off the road somewhere, not far from the highway. I can hear the distant sounds of traffic.

I can see the evening city lights beginning to appear in the distant purple haze. Its nowhere I recognize; a road this desolate is far from the crowded streets back home.

Go. The two other chosen girls move before me, and Im the last to get into the limousine. Theres a tinted glass window that separates us from the driver. Just before someone shuts the door, I hear something inside the van where the remaining girls were herded.

Its the first of what I know will be a dozen more gunshots.

I awake in a satin bed, nauseous and pulsating with sweat.

My first conscious movement is to push myself to the edge of the mattress, where I lean over and vomit onto the lush red carpet. Im still spitting and gagging when someone begins cleaning up the mess with a dishrag.

Everyone handles the sleep gas differently, he says softly.

Sleep gas? I splutter, and before I can wipe my mouth on my lacy white sleeve, he hands me a cloth napkinalso lush red.

It comes out through the vents in the limo, he says.

Its so you wont know where youre going.

I remember the glass window separating us from the front of the car. Air tight, I assume. Vaguely I remember the whooshing of air coming through vents in the walls.

One of the other girls, the boy says, as he sprays white foam onto the spot where I vomited, she almost threw herself out the bedroom window, she was so dis-oriented. The windows locked, of course. Shatterproof.

Despite the awful things hes saying, his voice is low, possibly even sympathetic.

I look over my shoulder at the window. Closed tight.

The world is bright green and blue beyond it, brighter than my home, where theres only dirt and the remnants of my mothers garden that Ive failed to revive.

Somewhere down the hall a woman screams. The boy tenses for a moment. Then he resumes scrubbing away the foam.

I can help, I offer. A moment ago I didnt feel guilty about ruining anything in this place; I know Im here against my will. But I also know this boy isnt to blame.

He cant be one of the Gatherers in gray who brought me herehes too young, possibly my age. Maybe he was also brought here against his will. I havent heard of teenage boys disappearing, but up until fifty years ago, when the virus was discovered, girls were also safe.