CHAPTER FOUR

"'This is not what I intended,' the man said, but Lucifer wasn't listening and he banished the man from the realm of the living. Then, turning to those who were left, the Lord Lucifer said, 'Do not pity the weak, for you too will be weak. Do not help the liars or you will become a liar. Do not be kind to the Impure, as they will trick you into Impurity and taint your Pure heart. For this reason, the Impure are never to be forgiven, and the Pure are never to forgive. This is my advice to you.' Then he vanished."

– The Pure 2:7-14, The Bible of the New World

Religion the next day is a boring affair, although I don't let that show on my face. Unsatisfactory emotions while learning (or re-learning for the hundredth time) about Satanism are noted and recorded in your file – files which are reviewed upon completion of our education. If they were to open up my file when I finish school and see too many notes saying that I was 'bored in class', I'd be spending the rest of my life as an Impure. Even just one note is cause for concern.

So I act interested. Religion is the one subject that everyone expects you to find completely enthralling. Who cares that we've heard the stories of the Purges a billion times before? Or that the reason for our six day weeks and six season years has been explained and re-explained over and over and over, until it's something you just automatically know, like breathing or laughing or crying? It's religion. Any disinterest is taken as aversion to the Lord, Lucifer.

I sit tall in my chair like everyone else and do my best to keep my eyes open while our teacher, Ms Dhara, speaks. Ms Dhara, like every teacher in every school in the city, has the cold, criticising gaze of someone who is only half focused on our learning. The other half of her is spying for Impurities, for the subtle movements: an eye roll, a bored yawn, a frown. She is searching for the grey weeds that sprout in the cracks between pitch-black tiles, and also for the more unspeakable: the white flowers blossoming in crevices – the completely Impure.

"It was around this time," Ms Dhara is saying, "when the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve spread across the world, that the Lord noticed the impurity in their hearts and the sinfulness of their thoughts. He felt sorry that had ever made them, and so he decided to send a flood and clean the planet of its evilness – an event we now call the First Purge. It rained for sixty days and sixty nights, and the water rose and rose until it swallowed even the highest peaks. A hundred and fifty days later, the water started going down, and when it had all drained away, there was nothing left – no insects or birds, no animals or humans. Lucifer had spared no one, and from this we can learn how we must live today.

"Lucifer is not a forgiving God – he is strong and strict and merciless. In order to be considered Pure, you must be completely and truly devout. There cannot be a single drop of blood in your body that is Impure, otherwise you will destroyed like the people in the First Purge. You will be prone to sickness and ageing, and within 120 years, you will die. But if you truly give your heart and mind and soul to the Lord, you will be Pure. You will not grow sick or old, and you will never die."

At this, the class seems to perk up a little. The idea of never dying, of never ageing or getting sick, is blissfully sweet. It's what spurs many of the youth of Eden onwards, helping them push through the fear and the stress and the boredom. But for me, being a Pure has always meant more than just being immortal. I want the respect that comes with the ink-black clothing, the freedom to go where I want and see who I wish. I want Tierney and the other five Nephilim to stop cyclically treating me like I'm either dirt or a toy to be played with. But more than anything else, I want people to stop looking at me like I'm a stain on an otherwise impeccably clean cloth. I want to walk down the school halls without being ignored by the adults because of the shade of my clothing and the impurity of my heart.

"Now, sixty days after the flood, the Lord decided to return life to the Earth," Ms Dhara continues. "He did so by taking the corpses of a drowned man and woman and filling them with his black blood, so that the people came back to life, reborn as Pure as his black heart. He called these first people Atam and Eva, and they filled the Earth with their children, their descendants populating even the furthest corners of the globe. Thes–"

Suddenly, Ms Dhara stops, her mouth open as her word hangs in the air, unfinished. Two small wrinkles appear between her eyebrows as she frowns. "Maxt Varis," she calls, the spoken name freezing everyone in their seats. I turn around, my eyes falling on Maxt in the row behind mine. He goes white as a sheet as everyone looks his way.

Ms Dhara cocks her head to one side, like a vulture eyeing off its prey. "Maxt, do you believe that what Lucifer did was just?"

It takes him a moment to get a word out between his terrified shaking. "Yes," he says weakly. Not very convincing.

"Why?"

"Because, he, uh..." I let my eyes trail back to the front where Ms Dhara stands firm, her face cast in a hard, scrutinising expression. She's poking and prodding at Maxt, trying to get a look at what lies underneath his average student exterior. And she's not going easy on him.

Maxt swallows and starts again. "Because the human race was evil and had to be eradicated. They weren't deserving of life."

"Are you deserving of life?"

Maxt takes a deep breath, regaining control over his trembling limbs. "Yes," he says, more confidently this time.

"Why?" she asks, and suddenly I feel sick to my stomach. He must have done something unsatisfactory – something noticeable enough that's she deemed it worth her while to dig for traces of Impurity. And then if she finds something, she can reasonably Remove him. I bet if she had it her way, she'd Remove us all.

"Because I...I..." He trails off again, struggling for a good answer.

Come on, Maxt, I plead. Come on, you can do this.

 "I...I'm good at school and..." 

"And?" Ms Dhara prompts. When he still hasn't said anything, she sighs. "Do you have an answer for me or not?"

"I do!" he says with wide eyes. "I do, I swear, I'm just... I'm Pure, okay? I'm Pure."

"Not yet you aren't," she says coldly, and suddenly it's as if someone's pealed back her outer layers to reveal the heartless person beneath. It's the same with most teachers: they're all relatively okay most of the time, but make a wrong move and you'll quickly discover that they only have gaping black holes where their hearts should be. That's what becoming a Pure does to you: it hardens your soul, your heart, your mind – it moulds you into something unbreakable, a person of iron skin and steel mentality. And everyone knows metal doesn't have a heart.

"I want you to convince me," she says. "Convince me that you're as pure as you say you are."

"I – I don't know how," Maxt replies, his expression taking on a look of terror. "Please, you have to believe me. You have to believe me. Just don't do this. Please. I'll be better, I swear. I will believe."

"Will?" Ms Dhara asks, another layer of her false persona disintegrating before my eyes as her tone drops ten degrees. Her eyes have gone past stony, past cold – now they look dark and menacing, like a storm brewing threateningly overhead. "Are you implying that you don't already believe?"

Maxt realises his mistake too late, his eyes like two wide orbs coated by a stunned fear. "No! I–"

"Thron!" Ms Dhara calls, and I nearly jump in my seat. The rest of the class is stock still, their eyes on their desks, their hands, the wall – anything. Anything that isn't Maxt or Ms Dhara or the large man in black military gear who's just charged into the room.

Thron is our Guard. There's one posted outside of every class, and when we go to breakfast or lunch or dinner, they line the walls, a human fence dressed in black, expressions as blank as the dawn. They have only two jobs: to protect Eden's youth, and to Remove the Impure. They're a constant reminder of why we're here and the path we should be taking, but they're also a warning – a threat. Step out of line and they'll be there to drag you out of the school no more than a second after your life-altering mistake. And once you're Removed, you're never seen again. Not here – not anywhere.

Maxt looks back and forth between Ms Dhara and Thron, his eyes darting and terrified like he's being back into a corner. "No," he says. "Oh, no, no, no. You can't do this. Please. Please don't do this."

But Thron only moves closer. "No," Maxt says. "No, please!"

Ms Dhara is silent, watching with a hard gaze as Thron wraps his meaty hands around Maxt's upper arms, roughly pulling his hands behind his back like a criminal. "Don't do this!" Maxt shouts at our teacher. "You can't!"

I want to look away, but I find I can only stare as he's dragged towards the door. Ms Dhara stands unblinking, refusing to respond to Maxt's desperate pleas.

"You can't do this!" he cries, and now I can see the tears in his eyes, the pure terror racing through his system. "I'm Pure! I swear!" He's at the door now, struggling to get free of Thron's hold. But the man isn't budging, and Maxt loses his footing, his feet dragging along behind him. "I'm Pure!" he screams again. "I promise! I'm Pure!"

And then Thron yanks him into the hallway and slams the door shut.

There's barely a second before Ms Dhara speaks, and I notice that she's already slipped back into her false persona as easily as one might don a coat. "Well," she says, "where were we?" She looks down at the book in front of her, flipping quickly through it before smiling slightly. "Ah, that's right. Atam and Eva's descendants. Can everyone please turn to page 135 of your textbooks."

Ms Dhara is the only one unaffected by Maxt's Removal. Everyone else shakes in their seats, their breathing overly loud in the suddenly dead-silent room. My hand quakes as I turn the pages, skipping straight past 135 before realising my mistake and going back, my movements jagged and clumsy.  

I guess my mind is elsewhere; I can still hear Maxt screaming as he's dragged down the hall.

-:-:-:-:-

All through the next period, there are only two things on my mind: Maxt, and last night.

Maxt, because his is the second Removal I've witnessed in just as many weeks and I can't shake the sound of his scream, tolling like a terrified bell in my ears again and again and again, almost like a warning. I can feel things changing – there's been more Removals, more tests and countless whispered stories of teachers scolding (and sometimes Expelling) students for the smallest of things. It almost seems as if the whole of Eden is preparing for a deadline, speeding up the process of separating the impure from the completely Impure so that we'll be prepared and ready. But what for?

And then there's last night. I don't know what it is about last night, but something about my walk through the dark and Kal's sudden emergence from the shadows sends chills down my spine every time it arises in my mind. I can't help feeling that something isn't quite right: that if I were to just go over yesterday's events I could pinpoint a gaping black hole in the plot of the evening.

With a sigh, I throw my thoughts out of my head and try desperately to focus on the board as our mathematics teacher explains a topic I can't be bothered to wrap my head around. There's too many lines of nonsensical numbers and letters, too many formulas and methods and equations, and even when I try to follow, my thoughts drift back to the darkness and the whispers and the vision. Kal said we'd go looking for the cross together, but I don't think I can bring myself to wait. There's an itching at my side that's drawing all of my attention and I suspect that the only way to ease it is to indulge the curiosity that's tugging at my mind.

When the bell finally rings, I'm the first out the door, almost running for the giant oak tree on the school's east side. My heart beats frantically in my chest as I make my way across the school grounds, my blood pounding in my ears.

As I near my destination, I find my breath gets caught in my throat and my palms turn sticky with sweat. Leaving the school building without being accompanied by a teacher is against the rules and is severely punished. But I can thank my lucky stars that it doesn't carry the punishment of Removal – being rebellious does not demonstrate Impurity, only defiance and unruliness.

With a deep breath, I step out from under the cover of the school and onto the grass. It's the first time I've ever been alone out here and the experience is simultaneously terrifying and exhilarating. Cautiously, I venture across the grass towards the massive tree situated by the side of the equally large school wall – layers and layers of stone and brick ascending high into the sky. Even from this distance, the sight makes me feel like I've stumbled into a giant's lair where everything is magnified tenfold. I feel tiny, small and insignificant before it. How long has this tree been here, its roots anchoring it to an ever-changing world? What sights has it witnessed? How many secrets does it hold?

As I approach its base – the thickest point at around two metres in diameter – I notice the patch of recently disturbed soil. It's at that exact moment that I know something isn't right – I don't what or how or even why, but I can feel it, like a deep, unshakable certainty in my bones. Now I'm more than nervous – more than afraid. A restless emotion stirs within me, my hands shaking as I stop by the churned earth.

My whole body trembles as I kneel and place a hand on the dirt. And then, not a second later, I start digging. With each handful of dirt I shove aside, my unease grows and the whispers from last night seem to manifest in the chilling air around me, telling me repeatedly that something's wrong, that I shouldn't be here, that I need to go. Now.

But I don't listen. I need to know what's going on. With everything that's happened last night and this morning, I just need something real and tangible to hold on to – something to promise me that I haven't gone completely insane. I need to see the cross.

That's when I hit a harder layer of soil and realise that I've reached the bottom of the previously dug hole. Brushing away the excess dirt, I peer downwards, the dim light from the overcast sky illuminating the sight before me. And there's the whispers again, louder this time, orbiting my head as I take in the impression left by an object in the mud. Just the impression. My hearts sinks a thousand miles in my chest as I realise the truth the world has been screaming at me ever since I stepped beyond the school building: the cross was here, but not anymore.

It's gone.