Mathai - Acacia

Acacia

Kristina Mathai

Copyright 2016 Kristina Mathai.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. Used by permission. NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION and NIV are registered trademarks of Biblica, Inc. Use of either trademark for the offering of goods or services requires the prior written consent of Biblica US, Inc.

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ISBN: 978-1-4582-1982-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4582-1983-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4582-1984-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015920098

Abbott Press rev. date: 05/09/2016

Contents

For my elementary school teachers who sparked this passion early on.

For my family and friends (they know who they are) for their unwavering support throughout this journey.

.3.6.

Wanda Cook, a fellow reporter and mother of two, had no idea of the fate Marcus and I had planned for her. Tricked and kidnapped, drugged and abandoned. We left her there on the moist grass in the middle of outlawed territory, a land occupied by a supply of memories we never wanted to fo rget.

We still had not heard on the news of any reports of greenery. That was when we knew that our victims were continuing to fail us. Assuming our previous one had passed away in this land, we went on a search for the corpse after laying Wanda down and leaving her to awake on her own t erms.

Marcus found the boy, Tucker Jon, lying underneath an ordinary tree with his shirt off and shoes on his hands. It again seemed clear how being trapped in a secret world could change a person. Tuckers eyes were still open, but he was much scrawnier and paler than how he was when we left him. And he was s till.

We picked up the rotting boy and dropped his body off in the cave with the four other victims, each one as inadequate as the last. The bones and decaying bodies were piled on top of each other like a bunch of logs, carelessly tossed and carelessly mis sing.

Marcus and I had one task for them that would later breach to wider networks of the League and change the world, but they all just had to grow weak on us and die. Rest in peace, Tucker Jon. I took one last glance at the five bodies and felt a quick pang of guilt that left me almost as soon as it came.

Wanda was our last option. I was tired of being a criminal, and I was tired of the secrets lingering in the back of my mind, forcing me to hide all this from my family. All we wanted was for the world to know what we knew without us suffering the conseque nces.

We agreed to give Wanda a year, and hopefully, she would get the job done right. If not, Marcus knows that Im bailing. Im tired of keeping sec rets.

If I had known then what I know now, a great deal of my precious time would have been saved. Maybe five months, maybe five hours. No, five hours wasnt enough time. I knew that from the beginning.

I wouldnt exactly call myself someone who worked well under pressure. That final exam made me feel like some sort of imbecile who couldnt figure out the easiest of questions.

Simplicity just was not my forte.

I repeatedly reminded myself not to rush; that wouldnt do anyone any good. With every dribble of sweat came resentment toward my natural capabilities. Supposedly, I was so outstanding to where I couldnt take this test with all the ordinaries, otherwise known as my background characters.

The room should have calmed me, perhaps. Utter silence, soft snores of the monitor settled in the corner of the room, a euphoric scent that resembled something along the lines of vanilla. I should have been calmed, but the rapid tapping of my feet below didnt seem to give in.

Two hours later, I finished all of the questions and clicked the submit button on the tablet. Sweat repulsively continued to condense onto my cotton shirt right by my armpit. I knew that if I took one more glance at this screen, I would throw myself at a wall.

I walked up to the old woman sitting in the corner of the room, her head leaned back against the wall, mouth hanging wide open with drool dripping from her chin. Her head snapped up before my finger even touched her shoulder. Wiping the drool from her face, she took the tablet from my hand with a glare, tucked it under her bat wings and fell right back asleep.

I returned to my seat at the long conference table and peeked at my friend, Lucinda, who sat two seats away and across from me. She raised an eyebrow, rolled her eyes and returned to her exam when she saw that I had finished before her. Her curly red hair dangled over her test as she hurriedly continued typing, and I frowned. She wasnt done yet.

I was growing more and more perturbed as I spied everyone else finishing much later than I had. About an hour later, the other fourteen students in the testing room handed in their tablets.

I rushed.

For three good seconds that felt like treacherous hours, I stopped breathing and listened to only my heart beating once, then twice to the rhythm of my chattering teeth.

When the monitor dismissed us from the conference room, I lied to Lucinda, Im going to go to the nurse. Im not feeling very well. And before she could reply with her usual stutters, I treaded in the opposite direction from the rest of the crowd, like I always did. While they made their way to their classes for a pointless remaining 20 minutes of the educational day, I decided to make more significant use of my time.

Looking back, I never knew what my intentions were for ninety percent of the things I said and did. That day was no exception to this. The educational year was almost over, the day was coming to a close, and I saw no point in returning to class.

Wandering aimlessly through the wide, gray corridors of my education center, I peeked into classroom windows and made faces at the kids with glasses and pants pulled up over their bellybuttons. I robbed a vending machine for a soda can by kicking it over and over, and when a teacher from the classroom next door heard this and opened the door to see what the ruckus was, I was already gone.

When I stepped inside the elevator to go to the twelfth floor for whatever reason my defiled brain had, I jumped up and down repeatedly, my soda splashing out of the can and onto the silver floor. But there were no stains. The drop would be visible for one second and gone the next. I didnt contemplate this too much back then. Now, its different. Now, Im not the only one questioning the odd functions mobilized by our creators. Its everyone.

The elevator doors silently opened to the main center room and while taking a sip from my drink, I collided with a boy much shorter than myself. He quickly apologized, but I didnt care as I looked down and noticed the freshly spilled stain of sticky soda on my shirt. I waited for the stain to disappear like it did on the metal floors of the elevator, but it never did. Thanks a lot, League.