CHAPTER SIX

"And the Lord said, 'Don't believe everything you see in the light, for it will surely bring darkness.'"

- Trials, 11:10-11, The Bible of the New World

There's a black slip of paper lying in the centre of the floor when I enter my room the following afternoon. For a minute I just stand statue-still in the doorway, my eyes zeroing in on the ink-black note which looks so innocent – so insignificant – sitting there on the floorboards. But there's nothing innocent about it, and this may very well be the most significant moment of my day, if not my year.

Apprehensively, I kneel down and unfold the paper, my hand making the note quiver as I read its contents.

Avalon Reece Kandor,

You're failure to be present during Lunch on Tuesday 9th of June has resulted in the following punishment: Mop Duty.

The duration of this task is as follows: 19:00 - 21:00, Wednesday 10th of June – Tuesday 16th of June (inclusive).

Please report to Mr Cunningham at the start and conclusion of each session.

I place the note on my desk as the meaning behind the message sinks in, my pulse increasing just that little bit more. They want me to mop the empty school halls for two hours every night in the darkness. The same darkness I've been avoiding ever since the night my vision changed. The same darkness that seemed to shift behind Kal yesterday in class – that gave me the distinct impression I was being watched.

Why, oh, why couldn't my punishment have just been starvation?

-:-:-:-:-

"Come in," calls Mr Cunningham from inside the ground keeper's office, his office door little more than a wooden rectangle with his name etched into the dark wood. I had to scoff my dinner in order to get here in time, the half hour between the start of dinner and the start of my punishment barely enough time to even collect my food, let alone eat it. And now as my nerves build, the food threatens to come back up. I may as well I have just skipped dinner entirely.

I take a deep breath and go to enter. The door handle squeaks softly in my hand when I twist it, but it is quickly overshadowed by the tremendous groan of the door's rusty hinges. Inside, Mr Cunningham's office is just as I had expected it: a chipped and cheap desk, a poorly painted cement floor, walls lined with mops and brooms, buckets and cans, tools and wood. Even Mr Cunningham himself seems to fit into my predetermined idea of the room, with his old faded work jacket, worn and paint-splattered jeans, and a weeks worth of stubble coating the lower half of his face.

"Who are you?" he asks, looking up momentarily while digging noisily through a bucket full of nails.

"Uh, I'm Avalon. I'm here for my punishment."

"Ah, found it," he mumbles, withdrawing his hand from the bucket with a small gold nail between his thumb and fore-finger. He heads to his desk and sits down before starting to screw the nail into some sort of contraption resting on the table-top.

"What do you want?" he asks without looking up from his work.

"I'm here for my punishment," I repeat.

"Punishment?" he says. "What'd you do?"

"What did I do?"

"Yeah. Did you talk back, skip class, pull a prank on those bloody neph–" He cuts himself short, seeming to realise that he isn't talking to an empty room but to a student who could very easily dob him in for speaking against the Nephilim. He stares at me for a second, seeming to evaluate my reaction before continuing a bit louder as if he said nothing out of the ordinary. "Come on, which one was it? Did you find a way to get something in from the outside?"

"From the outside? Why would I do that?"

"How am I to know?" he exclaims, and I remind myself that in Eden, everyone knows how to lie – and not just lie, but lie well. For all I know, he could be lying right now. "I don't understand half the things you kids get up to these days..." He continues, trailing off. "Well? What'd you do?"

"Does it really matter?"

He just looks at me for a good few moments, his surprisingly intelligent-looking eyes boring into mine while a shadow seems to pass across his face. Then it's gone, and he mutters, "S'pose not."

I shake my head, clearing out the distractions. "I'm here for mop duty," I say, wishing to just get a move on.

"Ah, mop duty," he says, and his eyes seem to light up. With sudden enthusiasm, he stands and crosses to the wall on my left, grabbing a mop from the pile resting in the corner. He hands it to me before hurrying over to the back and collecting a bucket and a bottle of blue-green liquid. "There's a tap just outside," he says, handing me the bucket and bottle. "Fill up the bucket and add three squirts of this to the water." He gestures to the bottle. "Then head over to the west wing and mop corridor 28A. When you're done cleaning that, you can come back here and turn in your mop and bucket. Now get," he says, shooing me off with a flick of the hand.

"Um... thank you?" I say hesitantly.

"Don't," he replies firmly. Then he heads back to his desk and sits down, returning to his work.

I move for the door, pulling it open. "Oh, and Avalon," Mr Cunningham adds suddenly, and I look back over my shoulder, turning slightly to face him. His eyes latch onto mine, burning with an intensity I didn't think a grounds keeper could possess.

"Don't believe everything you see in the dark," he says.

I freeze, my blood running cold. "What do you mean?"

"You'll know soon enough," he says.

I shake my head, my blood thumping through my veins. "What are you saying?" I ask, but of course, he neglects to respond, instead beginning to whistle an eerie tune as he continues on with his work.

Deciding I've had enough of the unnerving atmosphere – enough of him – I retreat quickly back out through the doorway and hurriedly shut the door behind me, taking my bucket, mop and bottle with me. But outside in the cold, desolate hallway, where the black night is already creeping across the walls and gathering in the corners, I feel even worse. It's only 7pm, but it may as well be midnight. I can feel the darkness already, tugging at my ankles, skiting around my waist. The wind blows outside, brushing against the windows and squirming in through the gaps in the walls, and the sound it creates reminds me of all those old horror movies I once watched when I was younger, where something goes bump in the night and slowly, one by one, all the main characters disappear. What if there's something waiting for me in the inky night tide and everyone wakes tomorrow morning to find I've simple vanished?

The thought makes me shiver and I push it from my mind. I know I won't survive the next two hours if I don't stop being so paranoid, and if I can't get through even one two-hour mop duty session, then how will I survive all seven over the next week? Taking a deep breath, I find the tap in the wall and kneel down. The tap squeaks loudly as I turn it on, and the water makes a horrible squealing sound as it fills the bucket, but I tell myself it doesn't matter; whatever will happen will happen, and making a bunch of noise won't change that.

As I'm walking down the hallways to the west wing, I focus on the task at hand, on safely transporting the water and mop and bottle of liquid, which I can only guess is some sort of soapy floor cleaner. A couple of times the darkening shadows seem to shift and swirl with unseen danger, but I ignore it, remembering and mentally repeating the words I once spoke to my peers about a fear of the dark: save your fear for something worthwhile, save your fear, save your fear.

Soon enough, I reach corridor 28A, labelled by a small, silver panel at its entrance. Windowless, it stretches deep into the west wing, lighted at only a few points by glowing bulbs high up in the ceiling. For a good minute I simply stare into its mouth – a deep void filled with nothing but darkness and silence – and curse my bad luck. Couldn't Mr Cunningham have assigned me a nice, friendly corridor, like the one near the dining hall or by the dormitories? Was this all intentional – scaring me with some eerie nonsense and sending me off to the deepest, darkest part of the school?

With the black night seeming to manifest before me, I decide they couldn't have picked a worse punishment. The corridor opens wide, almost seeming to want to swallow me whole. And the frightening part is, I know have to let it.

I dip the mop into the bucket, and it makes a loud shmuck as it hits the ground.

"Come get me," I whisper challengingly to the darkness, to the fear swirling inside my gut, to the voices that whisper in the deepest shadows, to the devil himself.

"Come get me."

-:-:-:-:-

But nothing does, and I mop as much of the hallway as I can before 9pm ticks over and I have to head back, the shadows no longer a threat now that I've spent a couple hours in their midst. Mr Cunningham isn't there when I return, so I put the equipment back where it belongs and head over to my dorm, my paranoia melting further and further away with each step I take, transforming into simple drowsiness. When I reach my room, I collapse straight onto the bed, tired from mopping, tired from fearing, tired from thinking.

And then the memory – the vision – comes, accompanied by an ear-splitting scream. It's the same as it's always been, having reverted back to those four standard images I'd received for most of my life: a dark corridor, a white room; a dazzling silver weapon; a terrified girl with dirty blonde hair; and a man in a stark white suit, a splash of crimson on his right sleeve. The images fade, but the scream barely does, ringing in my ears continuously, on and on and on, a single high-pitched note that seems determined to drive me insane.

When it does finally cease, the room falls into silence. Unable to cope with the quiet and the dark, I get up and fumble for a switch on the wall. Tonight I'll be sleeping with the lights on.

-:-:-:-:-

Time speeds up after that. The days pass in a blur, brightening and darkening, dawning and slipping away into the night. I sit with Lexa and Kal each during meal times, but conversation is limited and strangled. Most of the time, Kal is the only one speaking. He acts as the bridge between Lexa and I, skipping back and forth between us as he tries to extinguish the awkwardness and tension hanging in the air. But it rarely works. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to look at Lexa the same way, not now that I know just how little she cares for the Removed.

But the days keep rolling, even as my friends grow distant, even as class time drags on. My lessons seem to melt into each other, forming a giant blob of indistinguishable memories, and my visions occur each day without fail, the same loop of images again and again. Soon I find myself forgetting about the cross and the night Kal denies ever happened, but I never forget the darkness, the fear.

Even then, I manage to survive each of my passing punishment sessions, mopping a new hallway every night, each just as dark, just as eerie and just as sinister as the last. I get so used to being afraid that the feeling barely ever leaves me, following me around all day like a ghost with its hand around my neck. I jump at the slightest of things, draw crazy conclusions in response to the tiniest oddities. I take seats near the front in every class, and make sure to hang around people, even if I'm not talking to them, even if I don't know them. I grow so used to fear that it starts to rule my life, so much so that my motto of keep to yourself is chucked out the window in favour of something easier, something safer: keep to the light.

Late Monday evening, while I'm doing some last-minute homework, I get a frantic knock on my bedroom door. With a sigh, I stand up and open the door to find a terrified Lexa just outside, make-up smudged and tears pouring down her face. She dashes inside immediately and slams shut the door behind her, putting all her weight into it.

"Lexa?" I say, shocked to see her, shocked that she's crying. "What are you doing here? What's going on?"

She spins around to face me, fear and panic pooling her eyes. "I have to go, Avalon."

"But you just got here," I say stupidly.

"I'm not talking about your room," she says, crossing to my bed and sitting down, the tears still flowing down her cheeks. "I'm talking about this school. About – about Eden."

"Yeah right. That's impossible. You can't just leave Eden. No one does."

"Well I – I have to – I have to."

"Why? I don't get it. What happened?"

"I can't say," she says miserably, sobbing. "I can't tell you anything, but you have to understand. You have to help me get out of here."

"Me? You want me to help you escape Eden?" I say, laughing slightly.

She looks down at her hands. "Yes," she says softly, simply, sadly.

For as second I just stare at her. "You've got to be kidding me. You know I can't do that. I'd be jeopardising everything – not just my place at this school and my shot becoming a Pure, but my life. My life, Lexa. And for what? A spur of the moment decision during your mid-life crisis?"

"I'm being serious, Avalon. I don't have any other choice. I can't stay here anymore."

I shake my head. "You know I can't do this for you. I don't get why you're even coming to me. We don't like each other, remember?"

She doesn't reply.

I sigh. "Let's say you escape Eden with my help – what are you gonna do once you're out? There's nothing out there, Lexa. It's just sand – sand for hundreds and hundreds of miles in every direction. You'll die."

"I don't care. I can't stay here."

I throw my hands up in the air. "Then tell me why, for God's sake! This is crazy! You come running into my room in the middle of the night, crying and panicked, and tell me you have to escape Eden and that you need my help, but then you don't tell me why you need to leave in the first place. You can't just do something like this, Lexa."

"But I don't have a choice!" she all but yells, her anger and panic exploding outwards in every direction. "You don't understand – I have to do this! I have to leave Eden and it has to be you who helps me. There is no other option. This has to be done."

"Well if you need to escape so bad, then go ask Kal, but don't expect me to help. You won't be getting anything from me, not until you explain what the hell is going on."

"I can't! I've told you, I can't."

"Then it looks like you're escaping without me," I say and turn away from her, returning to my desk where my homework rests unfinished. A minute later, Lexa says, "So that's it then. You're just gonna leave me to deal with this on my own."

"Lexa, I don't even know what 'this' is," I say and read a single sentence of my homework over and over again, fighting for it to make sense in my brain, pleading for it to block out the excruciatingly loud presence of my friend, still seated on the bed behind me.

"Fine," she says resolutely. I hear her stand up, hear her footsteps as she crosses the room. The doorknob squeaks as she twists it, and she speaks one last time, her words hard and icy-cold: "Just remember – you're the one who killed me."

Then the door slams shut and she's gone.

I don't get much homework done after that. No matter how hard I try to focus on the task at hand, my mind keeps returning to our argument. As much as I think Lexa's crazy for coming to me in the middle of the night and begging me to help her escape the only world we've ever known, I can't help but feel ashamed. Because one of my closest friends – one of my only friends – just asked me to help her in a moment of fear, in a moment of desperation.

And I turned her down, without so much as batting an eye.

Looks like I really am Pure.