When the tingling starts in my hand during the daily announcements, I have to bite my lip to keep from smiling.

I really, really want to look, but I don’t. Teacher, a camera, or another student will see me glance down. They’ll know that there are lines appearing on my and in response to the sweeping flowery design I’d drawn yesterday. At Examination, Doctor will demand to see the precious marks that should only be private to me.

Instead, I will the Markings to disappear temporarily, hoping my soulmate doesn’t wash the Marks off before I can take a good look at them.

I glance at J3 beside me. She looks up, and a knowing smile widens her mouth. I can’t stop the grin that spreads across my own face. I trust her not to report me. Between the two of us, my secret is safe.

“What are you two Markless grinning at?” P6 sneers from his desk on J3’s other side.

Behind him, K5 smirks. From across the room, L5 snickers at the insult. I don’t bother to acknowledge the comment, and J3 merely rolls her eyes.

“… remember: you are here for the good of your country.”

“No talking during announcements, P6,” Teacher scolds after announcements end.

She levels a glare at him and his friends. He scoffs quietly, but he slouches in his seat and irritably taps his pencil on his desk. Teacher turns, her pointer t the ready. She gestures the last new animal of the unit.

One thing’s for certain; P6 and his friends certainly won’t be coming with us.

“Did your soulmate write any letters today, bud?” the man asks, giving me a once-over before making eye contact.

I frown. What did he just call me? Where is Doctor?

The man has a bright smile on his face, and he has the same white coat on as the previous man that did Examination. I’ve never seen this on in the Facility before, though. Perhaps he’s a new Doctor; his easy grin betrays his inexperience.

I slowly shake my head no, an easy lie. The effort of forcing the Markings to fade temporarily is practically nothing at this point. I have to take a break every now and then, but for a few hours at a time, I can make my skin look completely normal.

Meanwhile, this Doctor – maybe I can use him. It’s obvious he hasn’t been here long. He doesn’t know all the rules yet, otherwise he would have called them Markings.

“Letters”, he said instead. Letters. For years, I’ve been seeing my Markings in various places on my right hand and arm. I figured they had to have a specific name, since I know from J3 that one of the other two types of Markings is called “Drawings.” For years, I’d resigned myself to only knowing the name of one of the three types… until now.

Letters. The new word gives me an odd thrill.

I also like this man better than the one I’m used to. The other man would stare at my body, as if trying to gaze through the already scant coverings we have to wear for Examination. He made me feel disgusting.

This one, however, merely gives me a cursory scan, searching for Markings but otherwise uninterested.

He begins writing on his paper and wood. Maybe I should test him.

“Sir, what is that called?” I ask.

“What?”

He looks up, as if surprised I’d spoken directly to him. Understandable, I guess. I doubt any of us here say anything other than answers to questions during Examination.

“That.” I point at the board.

I know better than to show interested in the slip.

“The wood,” I clarify.

I understand from observation that its purpose is to hold paper in place so it can be written on, but I’ve never known what it was called. We can only glean so much from the small selection of movies they let us watch.

“The clipboard?” He blinks, and raises it up. “It’s… it’s a board.”

He lifts the small bar at the top, removes the slip, and holds the object out to me. He’s letting me hold it? Still unsure, I glance up at him. He chuckles.

“You can hold it, if you want.”

Entranced, I take it from him gingerly and examine it. I lay it flat on my palms, turn it over and fiddle with the bar at the top.

“Clipboard,” I repeat quietly, trying the word out.

Interesting. He’s not unwilling to give out information. Good to know.

Later, in the relative privacy of the room I share with J3, I describe the Markings in careful whispers. I wish I could let her see them, but the cameras would pick up the movement, and my lie would be revealed.

We both fall silent. In the darkness, I wonder what my soulmate is doing. Are they lying in bed wherever they are, trying to fall asleep? Or what if they’re on the other side of the world, and their sun rises to my sunset?

I wonder what it’s like for them, watching the patterns I doodle on my hands appear on their own skin. Is it anything like it feels for me? The tingling, the happiness? I wish I could understand my Markings.

Sometimes my soulmate makes them in obvious response to my doodles, with arrows pointing at specific parts and more Markings out next to them. More often than not, though, it’s just the Markings. They’ll be scrawled in neat rows. It’s always on my right hand or arm, but the location varies and ranges from my finger tips to around my elbow.

I hate that I can’t look at them for more than a few minutes. If I do, someone or something will be sure to notice.

We’re always monitored. However, over the years, some of the clever ones in our midst have observed, experimented, and tested the physical and invisible boundaries of our prison. Some of us know the microphones’ lowest sensitivities.

The knowledge is reserved for the trusted few who conspire with J3 and I. We also know the cameras’ blind spots and have he guards’ schedules memorized. The excluded, like L5 and K5, naturally form their own groups. Some of them aren’t so bad, like H2 and her friends, but trust is a hard thing to extend after the botched escape attempt of our predecessors revealed spies in our midst.

It doesn’t matter. A large-scale escape would be too risky anyways. Too many variables, too many missing kids and too many possible mistakes. Our escape would be noted in a matter of minutes.

“What about that new doctor?” J3 asks.

“What about him?” I respond.

“He’s cute,” she giggles. I roll my eyes.

“Okay. And? You and I both have soulmates already, silly.”

“Alright,” she concedes. After a moment, her tone sobers. “But he’s also inexperienced.”

So she had noticed, too.

“What do you think?” I ask.

“I think maybe we should try to take advantage of that.”