We huddle in front of the projector in the greenhouse hall, all fifteen hundred of us. Seated on the rocking chairs are the lactating mothers and their resting infants who suckle softly, their eyes glowing from the golden embers of the warm fireplace.

On the staircases, the teenagers from the previous year's rescue missions watch on, their conflicted eyes searching to find loved ones in the filmed crowds. And on the dance hall, the rest of the members sit on the beanbags, sofas and chairs together with the elders from the high council.

High tower, the leader of the sanctuary, watches on from the glass walls of the eastern second-floor library reading room, his mysterious silhouette the only distinguishing feature...

On the podium, on which an evergreen orchid grows, encircled with enormous moss-infested rocks that glow faintly in the darkness of the hall lies the original system which we call 'the relic'. It is incredibly large and at an unmovable height of ten feet, it whirs softly as many blinking lights caress its coarse, golden, exterior.

No one knows much about it. Who built it and how it works as the technology is far advanced to be decoded even by our engineering department. The council elders before told us that it was the technology of the lost civilization that ruled the world before the age of the decline.

But we know little about them as well. All we know is that whoever built this machine, also built the machine on the other end of the kingdom where the pairing ceremony is taking place.

A ceremony we watch religiously every year when the machine wakes up from its slumber and syncs up with the informational metrics of the other in a silent dance of data. Its been nearly two decades since the white tower in which we seek our refuge was discovered by 'The Owl', floating above the ice, in the thickness of the mountain clouds.

Nearly two decades since the first elders found the relic nestled amongst the rocks, still whirring, as if to tell them that it existed. No one knew what its purpose was then. At least until the first winter pairing was done that year.

It was then that their eyes were opened to the truth and in that very moment, as they watched in horror and disbelief, they founded the first family of escapees who rebuilt the tower into what it is today; a sanctuary.

When I  joined almost half a decade ago, I was amongst the first wave of teenagers from outside who'd heard of the myth of the White Tower Sanctuary. We were about seven hundred when I first arrived but that number soon doubled after our council elders aged out and I became privileged to stand in command over my house.

It wasn't an unexpected choice despite my inexperience. High Tower had been very forward during that election year. His vision to grow in power was backed up by the majority who had, after years of government infiltration and espionage, discovered what they did to people like us before and after the pairing. 

We'd found evidence of mass graves built in the hinterlands, aborted embryos from the Conception Institutions fertility clinics flushed into the sewers, and other harrowing genocidal war crimes and in the end, we decided as the council, that we'd had enough.

We were going to fight back with all we had, to save our kind. Even if it meant getting as close as possible to the grandmaster puppeteer himself, King Basileus. A brilliant evil mastermind who was undoubtedly behind every single gear that kept the kingdom's evil policies moving.

Getting to him was an uphill task, but when The Owl found me and recruited me nearly ten years back, he had sown a seed in me that would grow to become something close to my inescapable destiny.

To become King Basilieus' favourite niece had been my first assignment, years before I even stepped foot into the white castle. Years before I laid my eyes on her at the St. Matron Summer pageant.

Lara Watson...

The moment Wallace says her name, my head jerks up from Egwin's lap and I turn, facing the screen for the first time since the pairing began. I'd been too bored and tired to indulge in the show, after weeks of endless design work back at my husband's fashion house.

I'd already seen this year's favourite design elements, having been the head designer behind the commissioned pieces that a few of our more affluent clients had ordered to be expertly hand-stitched.  

Silk, a-line, off- shoulder, cinderella gowns, pearls and floral prints were all the rage, all testament to the bandaged tips of my sore fingers. It's a good thing that I had cleared my weekend to recoup my energy lest I'd still be somewhere in the city, getting hounded by the media for a press release statement to comment on all our best designs.

I was almost too tired to attend the viewing of the ceremony, but Paige, my best friend at the sanctuary, waltzed into my apartment an hour before, with a pillow rest in hand and a hot cup of coco and to persuade me into watching it with the rest of my crew. 

"What's the point? I've seen them all?"I ask, choosing the comfortable beanie, below Egwin's pyjama-clad feet. 

"You want to miss out on Andrea roasting of your haute couture copycats and second-tier dresses?" she says as she settles down on a chair. Fair point. I did love her crazy girlfriend's reviews of the gowns the girls wore.

Her jokes served as comic relief to help dampen the tense mood that always seemed to wash over us as we watched and waited for our machine to chime in on the hidden data behind each cancelled pairing.

Only, I wasn't keeping tally this year. High Tower had appointed a new committee to record the data electronically as opposed to the manual records we'd kept for years on each profile.

A team of ten I.T specialists were probably seated in an isolated room within the hall of records, taking in all the data as the ceremony went on leaving us elders with a much-deserved evening to simply sit back with the rest of the family.

But not even ten minutes into the ceremony and I begin to fall asleep on Andrea's mom, Egwin's lap as she runs her fingers through my freshly cut head of hair, massaging my scalp.

I wasn't completely asleep. I could still hear Andrea's jokes that caused the room to erupt into laughter, but with the heat from the fireplace and the sweet motions of Egwin's expert massage technique, I was nearly far gone.

That is until her name is announced.

Almost immediately, I sit up, my eyes darting from the projected image of the girl I'd once met at a pageant a few years back to Paige who's eyes widen upon realizing what I was onto. I turn my head back to the screen, my lips parting as I struggle for a moment, to catch my breath.

"Is it her?" Paige whispers tome into the now -silent hall. 

I nod, taking in the sight of her and oh my god, there's so much to see...

"Oh my god!" Paige whispers. "She's so pretty."

"Who is she?" Egwin asks, but I fall short of words to say, too distracted by the mystery girl whose name now rings in my head like a chant, as if to force myself not to forget it this time. No, I can't afford to forget it. To do so would be a crime. After all, she does owe me a dance.

"Who is she?" Egwin reiterates, this time joined in by a curious Andrea who's caught on, on the sudden change.

"Iris who-"

"-shut up" I hiss, listening in on her data. My hands reach into my pockets for a pen, only to remember that we weren't recording data anymore so I hadn't bothered to carry any writing material. All I can do is commit all her data to memory until the end of the ceremony, so I can go write it down.

"Paige?" Andrea nudges at Paige who quietly fills them in on the backstory. 

"That girl...Lara? She and Iris had a moment a couple of years back at a pageant which basically made our poor girl commit herself to the painful path of celibacy and emotional detachment from the dating world," Paige says sarcastically.

I roll my eyes at her as a smile forms on the corners of my lips. She's not wrong about that though. To state otherwise would've been a gross miscalculation of the truth. Miss Lara Watson had been, for the longest time, my reason for never indulging in of the other advances I received, especially after my appointment to the council.

No one could ever match up to the beauty and energy that she held on the surface and down to the core of her being.

"Oh," Andrea says, looking bemused. "You expect me to believe that this girl. This rock-hearted, no-nonsense, workaholic actually likes someone?"

"Liked," I correct as I hoist myself up. 

"There's no point in wishful thinking so I got over it a long time ago," I lie. "Besides, she's probably straight."

"Probably," Paige emphasizes, with a sly grin. 

"C'mon," I say, reaching out for my keychain which she has hanging around her neck. "Haven't you heard the way those grooms cheered at her? She's definitely taken."

"Why don't you wait and see?" Andrea joins in, pushing me back softly.

"What's the point in doing that, when I could be sleeping peacefully tonight?" I ask, reaching out for it again. She dodges my moves, giggling with mischief written in her face.

"Aww, my poor best friend doesn't want her heart getting broken," she taunts in a baby voice.

"C'mon, Paige. Give me the keys," I order, trying hard not to blush.

"Why don't you want to see what the relic says? Afraid that you might be wrong?" Egwin asks cooly.

"No!" I snap and stop, taking a deep breath. "I mean, I just want to go to bed. I'm tired. Haven't slept in weeks."

"Then wait a minute and we'll take you," she says in a soft motherly voice. "At least get some closure."

They all stare at me with pitiful eyes and I give in, settling into my beanbag as Lara walks up to the podium, with her parents by her side.

I try to focus on her parents to slow down my racing pulse every time my eyes settle on her beautiful face or the wetness in my palms when they stray further down the plunging neckline of her figure-hugging gown.

 Her father looks familiar, but I can't put my finger as to where I've seen him. I count down the seconds till she places her hand on the system's screening tab and look away, trying to still my pulse. 

Nope, I decide. I can't do this and if Paige wants to hold my keys hostage then to hell with it, I think waking up.

I focus on the exit, weaving through the crowds that had joined later on. I hear the shocking responses but dare not to look back. Dare not to come to reality with what truth awaits.

My heart might be foolish but I'm not stupid enough to understand that girls like her don't get to belong to our side. She's too perfect to deserve less, whatever that may mean to her.

But the truth is, deep down, I know it'll sting to see who's gotten a chance at forever with her.

So, I sit outside my apartment floor, on the stairway, waiting on Paige to come to deliver my room keys. I know she certainly won't be able to keep the final verdict on my mystery girl's results so I brace myself for the truth, hoping that in half an hour she'll come back with bad news.

Tell me that some senator's son has snatched her up and that they're probably on their way to the infamous Love Island to have mediocre marital sex or whatever.

What I don't expect, a couple of minutes later is for High Tower to come to personally deliver the message, in the form of a mission. Yet he does, as specifically requested by the Owl.

"The Owl? Are you sure?" I ask, staring at the parchment in my hands. The Owl's golden wax sigil rests broken upon opening, at the bottom and top of the parchment. Written in bold italics is a command I was aware of but had never seen enacted. And underneath the order, lies the target of that order.

Command Rescue 911. No ultimatum.

Lara Watson. 

A/N

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