"Welcome home!" I was tired of hearing it. Instructor Manfred was a big man. Though not in any way that was obvious. He wasn't especially fat, or especially muscular, or especially tall. But somehow he was big anyway. Or then he had a way of making other people feel small. Either way, I didn't like it. He smiled a genuine, warm smile. Like he really was happy to see us.
"I'm so glad you returned to us," he said with a booming voice, "I know you don't remember anything or your training, but I'm sure it's still there. And for the other two of you, we'll get you right started."
"What training?" Rosa asked in a small voice.
"Well, Pearl, this is a place where we teach people how to help the world. It is a secret place, that only a few will ever be invited to, and you have been so lucky as to become a part of us. Everyone of you will be assigned an instrument, and with years of training we can use that magical music you will learn to play to make the world a better place.
It's confusing, I know. It is important that everyone who comes here is fully focused on the training and the helping, so we all make the sacrifice to forget who we were earlier, so our past will not come to haunt us on our important mission. This is done as we cross the river."
This guy was really beginning to piss me off. We all make the sacrifice. Blah. You force us to make a sacrifice, because otherwise no one would want to stay. No one here chose this. No one was chosen for this. People wandered across a river and were taken in. I controlled myself and put on what I thought was my best confused expression.
"But Maya and me, we've been here before, right?" I asked, "Why don't we remember anything either?"
"You were sent on a mission, to the outside world. Something went very wrong. We lost contact with you for some time," instructor Manfred explained, regret shining on his face, "Your memories were lost again."
They do missions from here to the outside world?
"Mission?" I asked, uncertainty in my voice.
"Once you are far enough in your training, we send you out, sometimes, to right some wrongs in the world. Only small things. The most difficult things are left for those who have been training for a long, long time. Longer than you," he explained. We all glanced at each other, real confusion on our faces. There was a moment of doubt in my mind. What if all this was real? What if he was telling us the truth, that the people here were helping the world? But no, I pushed the thought away almost as soon as it found me. They took in people who accidentally crossed the river, like they thought we just had, and lost their memories. Otherwise there wouldn't be much point of there being a forgetting spell by the river. Both ways. And they wouldn't have sent someone after us. If they really wanted to make the world a better place, they should let people leave if they wanted. Even if they wanted to keep this place a secret, making leaving people forget would be enough. They wouldn't have to force people back.
"We are the Guardians of creation," Manfred continued, not noticing our glance, "And now, so are you. You are actually joining us just in time. Soon we will not be needed anymore. There will be a big cleansing, and there will be no more wrong in the world."
I glanced at the others. They were keeping convincing masks of awe and excitement on their faces. Of course anyone who would believe all this would feel like that. Instead all I felt was horror. I wasn't sure what the big cleansing was truly all about, but it didn't sound great for the world. I imagined everyone else felt that way too. I concentrated on keeping my face the same way as everyone else's.
"Now, off you go," instructor Manfred shooed us. "Lotta should be waiting for you just outside the door. She'll show you to your rooms. We will give you today to get used to things, to get familiar with the place and the people. Tomorrow we will begin your training."
"Thank you!" Rosa said with a clear, almost singing voice as we turned and headed back out of the room.
~x~
"We need to tell these people the truth about what's going on here," Rosa said.
"We don't know ourselves what the truth is," I noted.
Lotta had showed us to our rooms, and then around the area. I had to admit the place was impressive, no matter how little I liked it. There was everything here you might need. They were almost self-sufficient, too, with something like a small farm farther into the forest. But they didn't get everything here. Someone had to go across the river sometime, to get supplies, I was sure of it. We were now sitting in my room, discussing... well, everything. No one had thought weird about it. Apparently when ever more than one person came it at once, they let those people stay together for a while, to make them feel safer. Those people were after all, the first people they saw right after they had forgotten they ever knew them. So us spending time together was what everyone assumed.
We had also found out about the tattoos on our faces. We had gotten them here. Everyone of the trainees, trainers and instructors here had one, lines crossing their faces in different places. No one had told us what exactly they were for, but I was sure they served some purpose. If nothing else then being able to identify the runaways, like me and Meera.
"But we do need to get these people out of here," Meera said, "They don't know what they... haven't signed up for. The whole story the instructor told us was sweet and all, and I understand why people would buy it if they literally know nothing about the world, but..."
"But we know they're lying," Avani said, "I mean, we don't know that. It's possible they lost contact with you on a mission, but somehow it doesn't seem likely. Why would you have lost your memories if you had only lost contact?"
We were all silent for a moment.
"I guess that part is possible," I said, "We don't know enough to know if that's a thing that would happen. But we do know people these people don't choose to be here, to choose to give up their memories to fight for the good. Not that that would be a bad reason to give up your memories. But they're not choosing it. It's done to them, and they think they've chosen it, and they don't know anything else in the world. That's the biggest reason to doubt everything else he said."
"We need to do something," Rosa said, "We need to get these people out of here, to see the truth, to... stop the big cleansing."
"We don't even know what that is," Avani said.
"But it gives me the creeps," Meera said, "Based on everything else we know about these people, it can't be anything good."
We nodded.
"We need to find out more," Avani said. We nodded again.
"I think it's dinner time," I said. "Meera and me clearly have friends here. We'll try to get reacquainted, see if the people who we used to know know anything."
We started getting up. Meera didn't. We turned to look at her.
"I..." she began, then closed her mouth, thinking for a moment, "We don't know which of the people are in on the real plan. We don't know who we can trust. I guess no one, because everyone is on the side of whoever is running with this place, but that's because they don't know. I'm sure these are good people. They do believe they're trying to make the world a better place. They can't be bad people, right?"
I nodded, "The ones who don't know what is going on. I'd like to think they're good people too," I took Meera's hand and pulled her up from the bed. "Let's go get to know them, ok?"
Meera nodded. We all walked out of the door and headed to the dining hall.
______________________________________________________________
This story will never end. We already joked with dad about ending this more or less here and then writing a book 2. Because from here it's possible to either end it in a few parts (maybe) or to stretch it on with another thing as long as this one has been.
I don't even know.
Your topic for hopefully tomorrow is Trust.
~matu
No comments:
Post a Comment