“I wake to learn; I live to serve. My labor will earn, and evil purge. For nation whole and causes pure, abandon soul and world endure.”

Rosalind recited the words in perfect synchronization with the rest of the students around her, impatiently shifting from one foot to the next. After the twice daily recitation was finished, her instructor would dismiss the class. Finishers were always the last to leave Academy, and were required to stay seven days a week from four in the afternoon to ten o’clock at night. Rosalind didn’t mind this, because by the time they were released she would be worn out and ready for a full night of sleep. No, this was not what bothered her. Every day, she and the rest of her class would watch the Beginners run gleefully out of the school building, backpacks and papers trailing behind them as they went. The Finishers watched this, craning their necks with just a twinge of envy, barely halfway into their own school-night. Still, this wasn’t it either. No, it was the strange recitation that did it, she decided to herself. For some reason, the Bind had always seemed unusual to her. It was mechanical and cold, much like the world outside Academy walls. That was why they were all there, of course – to learn how to be the same way. She often wondered how the rest of them could manage it so easily, the eerie talent of abandoning all emotion.
She felt a rush of adrenaline when the forbidden word manifested in her brain. Initial resistance was to be expected, mother had told her of it. For children her age, it was often difficult to suppress it. As they had been told time and time again, emotion halted progress within the society that had been created for them. Emotion meant distraction, good and bad. Without it, desire and greed, the basest endeavors of human nature… they disappeared. The loss of things such as love and happiness was a small price to pay to be cleansed of impurity. Besides, these things would be tainted by lust and sadness in time.

Rosalind had studied the history of Isle, how it began its formation, and even the constructs of the previous civilization, what had once been called Europe. She’d scoured documents, books, and autobiographies, anything she could find, leading all the way up to the present year, 2653. Still, she felt that twinge of… something. She felt it all the same. Looking at documentations of the destruction of the Eiffel Tower, and how beautiful the world had been in the days when such things as art and music hadn’t been frowned upon… each time, she felt the unmistakable tugging in her chest. It would be better after tomorrow, she thought to herself. She was frightened, though, that was for sure.

“…37 in your Statistics text. Make sure you have your parent sign off on your list of Diction as well.” The teacher said, rapping her fingernails on her desk while checking off her syllabus checklist. Rosalind scribbled the assignments in her calendar absentmindedly. This would be her last homework before leaving Academy. First she would get Statistics out of the way, she muttered to herself. Math was not her strong suit.
By tomorrow, it won’t matter whether I like it or not,she shuddered. The procedure, the one that all Finishers were required to undergo on their thirteenth birthdays, would take care of that for her. Some of her classmates had already completed the procedure, and had emptied their desks and graduated accordingly. She wondered where they were now.
The bell rang. Students began scuttling around, the volume in the room gradually increasing with the addition of each pair of students’ conversation.
“Hey, Rosalind!” She jumped at hearing her name, almost smacking the source of the noise in the face.
“Holy cow, Jocelyn, were you trying to give me a heart attack or something?” she scolded. Still, she couldn’t help but laugh at her friend’s wide grin of satisfaction.
“Yup,” she replied merrily, “I’m kinda low on my quota of scaring the bejeezus out of people today. You’re number three.”
“Jeez, you weren’t kidding. You’re usually up in the ten to fifteen range.”
“Well golly gee, coulda fooled me,” she giggled. “I wasn’t keeping score, but I’ll keep a tally on me from now on. You know, accuracy and such.”
The room around them had almost entirely cleared out, and even their instructor was beginning to get her things together to leave.
“All right, all right, we’ll cover the tally on the way home,” Rosalind smiled, looping her arm through Jocelyn’s. This was one rule she didn’t mind; each child was allowed only one friend, in order to make each person feel accepted in his or her own way. Everything equal, as always. Jocelyn was all she needed, though, and had been ever since they’d been Beginners together.
“Brrr,” Jocelyn shivered when they walked outside into the bitter January air. “Couldn’t those doctors in that whole procedure nonsense just take away being too hot and too cold while they’re at it?”

“Ha, yeah, that would be nice.” She tried to hide her nervousness, but she knew it would be plastered all over her face. True to her supposition, Jocelyn started the typical best friend I-know-something’s-wrong-so-tell-me-what-it-is line of questioning.

“Hey, don’t be scared.” She nudged Rosalind reassuringly. “You’re going to be fine.”

“What do you think it’s going to feel like?” she asked. “You know, not being able to, you know, experience things anymore.”

“I dunno,” she shrugged. “But if having emotion is as bad as we’re told, maybe we’re better off. Besides, they know what they’re doing up there.”

“What if… what if it doesn’t go well?”

“Nonsense!” Jocelyn shouted. “They’ll see them smarts o’ yours, and they’ll be blown away!”

“Yeah, okay,” Rosalind smirked, rolling her eyes. Jocelyn dropped her arm and rubbed Rosalind’s head.

“Jocelyn. Friend. What are you doing?” She could see her jet-black hair falling in her face from Jocelyn invading her personal bubble.

“I’m looking for them big Rosie brains!”

“You’re disgusting.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere, compadre!” She attempted an evil laugh, but started coughing from the cold.

“Serves you right, evildoer!” Rosalind laughed. Jocelyn punched her in the arm, trying desperately to stop laughing herself.
“Okay, okay,” Jocelyn said, catching her breath, “We’ve got to get you home before it gets too dark.”

“You know, this is one of those special occasions when I really wish we were allowed to use cars,” Rosalind groaned. Just as almost every other luxury in life, cars were outlawed long ago with the end of the war. Of course, the word “unnecessary” was usually put before any mention of luxury. We could do better to learn self-restraint, or at least that was what the people were taught to believe. Result: no cars, walk everywhere. Rosalind didn’t particularly dislike this one rule; the city was built close enough together to walk without too much effort. As long as a person knew the shortcuts and roads, he would be fine. And Rosalind just so happened to be this person.

She and Jocelyn cut through a wide alleyway, entering out into the street where Rosalind lived. Each house was smartly dressed in the same maroon-bricked exterior, the last name on the silver-tinned mailbox the only thing designating one from the other. Their walk had only taken ten minutes, which was a much shorter commute than some other students had to follow. So much for being the same in every way, Rosalind smirked. Somehow, joking about the sameness of it all made it strangely easier to bear. Even she did not dare to imagine what it would be like to be different.

“This is your stop.” Jocelyn poked Rosalind, shaking her out of her daze.

“Yep,” she breathed, feeling her anxiety kick in. Getting home for her translated into one excruciating step closer to tomorrow.

“Hey, don’t worry,” her friend reassured her. “You’re just building it up in your head.”

“How do you know?”

“Hmm,” Jocelyn tapped her chin, “How about that time you had to get that teeny-weeny measles vaccine, and it took three doctors to…”

“Yeah, okay, I get it,” Rosalind cut her off. “Okay, so maybe I am just overreacting. Still, this isn’t like a vaccine. Josie, they’re going to go inside my head. You have to admit, that’s pretty scary.”

“How about if I promise you that you’re going to come out of this all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, better than ever? If not, you can say ‘I told you so’ for the rest of our lives, and I won’t get all peed off about it.” Jocelyn held out her pinkie, her eyes trained on Rosalind intently. Rosalind sighed, looping her own pinkie around her friend’s.

“Thank you,” she said. As she did, she realized the lack of sarcasm in her statement.

“Any time.” Jocelyn ruffled Rosalind’s hair, flashing her a smile before jogging away towards her own house. Rosalind couldn’t help thinking how like night and day the two of them were. Jocelyn was so composed and laid-back, while she herself was often skeptical and slightly morbid. She was short and bigger (and couldn’t help acknowledging reluctantly the extra weight in her thighs and chest), while her friend was taller and thinner. Jocelyn was athletic, funny, strong, charismatic… What was Rosalind? A brooding poet and painter. She knew it was technically against the rules, but she’d always been drawn to art-related activities. Would she lose these interests after the procedure? She didn’t want to think so.

She turned the knob to her front door, letting the lights in the house spill out onto the night-contaminated porch. Shuffling started in the next room, and her mother greeted her in the foyer as Rosalind closed the door behind her.

“Hello, Rosalind,” her mother said shortly.

“Hello, mother,” Rosalind responded. “How was work this morning?”

“It was productive, but it was very long.” Her mother worked as a doctor for the hospital nearest to their house, and specialized mainly in children from toddler-stage to Beginner. Beginners were usually around the ages of six or seven, so they’d need someone to watch over them to make sure they could keep in line. The doctor often helped with that, and Mrs. Price acted as a sort of therapist and nanny for these children. Even though her mother wasn’t directly tied to the treatment and medical section of the hospital, she’d been able to observe those who did work there from time to time, and to pass on that information to Rosalind. She’d always been eager to learn about medicine, but this interest had always been motivated by a feeling of distrust in the medical field. Ever since learning about the procedure she was to undergo at thirteen, she’d feared the hospital. In Rosalind’s case, this fear began from the time she herself was a Beginner. Not only had she learned of the procedure from her mother, but she had read up on other medical secrets. For example, why she and everyone else lived as a single child with only a mother. Two parents created an uncalled for sense of dependency, as it was described. On top of that, love was another one of those privileges forbidden to citizens. So, the female adults were assigned as the caregivers of the household, and procreation occurred with the “aid” of a male doctor.
“Did you hear me?”

“Huh?” Rosalind blinked, snapping out of her daze.

“I said,” her mother sighed, “Do you have many assignments to do before we leave tomorrow afternoon?”

“Just a few. I may need help with Statistics, though.”

“Well, we have plenty of time to finish that. I’m guessing you have Diction, as well?”

“Yeah, I have a list of words.” Rosalind dropped her backpack by the table and started taking her books out.

“We don’t have to start right now,” her mother said, waving her hand. “You know Diction perfectly well. I will just sign off. Think of it as a bit of a gift for tomorrow.”

“Thank you, mother.” Rosalind nibbled on her fingernails nervously, wanting to forget any mention of what was to happen tomorrow.

“Are you feeling all right?” her mother asked, a look of concern flickering across her thin face. For some reason, her mother had always seemed more warm and genuine than anyone else who had graduated from Academy. Sometimes, she wished the rest of the world could be the same way.

“Can I ask you a question?” The words formed before Rosalind could even think about it.

“Of course,” her mother responded. She pulled one of the two chairs at the kitchen table, inviting Rosalind to join her. Rosalind sat and plucked an almond cookie from the plate resting in the middle of the table, munching absentmindedly. She took another and looked it over, as if it would give her the words she was looking for. By some mysterious cookie magic, she blurted out, “What happens when it’s all over? What will they do with me?”

Her mother considered this for a moment. “That depends,” she answered finally, “on the drawing afterwards. They’ll put you where they need you, and they will analyze jobs needed in a certain field, such as medicine, teaching…”

“I know, I know. I guess I’m what I’m asking is what it will be like. Will I enjoy anything at all, or will I be completely and utterly robot-like? Or is it more of a feeling of being content in my ability to be efficient?”

Mrs. Price smiled ever-so-slightly, tucking a stray piece of hair out of Rosalind’s face. “Well, I can’t answer that for you. You’ll just have to wait to know.” Her mother’s eyes widened, then her entire face went cold again. “It’s about time to get to sleep, don’t you think so?”

“Yes, mother,” Rosalind said, staring down at the floor. She stood and pushed in her chair before starting to walk away.

“Rosalind?”

“Yes?” she said, turning at her mother’s voice.

“Try to keep your emotions under control in the meantime.”

Her shoulders drooped, but she tried not to look so obviously defeated by the comment. “Yeah… okay.”

Rosalind trudged through a knee-deep pile of mud and filth, the sun already long gone. She was covered from head to toe, and though she couldn’t see anything below her waist she could feel her bare feet squishing in the earth. It was such an unsettling feeling. And what was that smell? She’d never smelled the dead before. Still, that was the first thing that came to mind. Death was running through her nose, invading her lungs, suffocating her from the inside out. She realized in a wave of horror that it was coming for her, too. She was next. In the dark, she saw thin tendrils advancing from the mud up to her entire body. Giant beetles. She screamed, but nothing but a tortured squeak escaped her mouth. They were crawling into her mouth, her ears, into her eyes, even! The last thing she would see would be these creatures, she thought to herself in fear. The last thing she heard, laughter from a faraway voice… her own voice...