Sh#t.

My bad. Curse words are not allowed here. One error, just one slip-up, and I’d be locked out of the system, suspended, for one thousand five hundred hours. But my brain is throbbing like a jackhammer, there are dried stains on my cheeks, my eyes are puffy and look like drained sacks, and. . . I think I’ve been crying again.

Meth’s not allowed on Dev. In fact, all that stuff is forbidden and the penalty, if caught, is instant termination from existence. But I know guy who’s been secretly running PulseX for a while now. Crazy, I know, but I had the dreams again and needed them. Sorry, not dreams. I meant, the flashbacks.

Felix’s voice, the group’s laughter, the light in his eyes, and how bright and sunny that day was. I remember all of it.

“She’s going there,” he’d said.

“And you’re sure because?”

“Idiot,” he’d laughed. “If I wasn’t sure, would I tell you? She was at Negasi’s center yesterday, purchasing one of the travel sleeves. The yellow one. Or was it the red?”

As I write this, I have to force myself not to break something, because it was neither.

Anita never purchased a sleeve. She never signed up for the transition. She never came here—to this sick reality that is unfortunately now mine. It had been a prank by the guys, to see how far I was willing to go with that silly crush nineteen-year-old me harbored for the prettiest girl in our class.

As I remember my life back at home, I still resent them. Every single one of them, including Anita. Unfair, maybe, but she is part of the reason I am here. The reason I wake up to the sound of whirring machines with static voices and unhappy people with hopeless eyes and empty smiles.

I miss when everything was normal. I miss the symphony of morning sounds that filled our home: the hum of traffic through our windows harmonizing with my sister’s off-key melodies as she sang her heart out. The markets. God, I miss the markets, having meaningful interactions, and the organized chaotic life that came with living on Earth.

But what good has reminiscing done? This is my life now, is it not?

I’m telling myself that for the umpteenth time.

The elders meet every day now at the Rift, an underground hideout and perfect meeting place for the rebels. Rumors have it that there is a plan for an escape from Dev back to Earth.

I attend the meetings, but I think they are all mad.

From the distance, I see the nuclear fusion panels slowly dimming. Watching it through the MaDe Specs stirs the nostalgia of the scorching sun at home. At the time, walking under it from school felt like taking a trip past the shortcut of hell.

But if given a choice, I would choose it a thousand times again.

Written by Michelle Daniel