They just stood there watching me as if I was an animal, as if they hadn’t known me my whole life. Their black uniforms gleaming in the sterile white light of the observation room, their faces resembling one another. The geoflecs with the unresponsive wide-eyed expression adhered to their faces. The prismatics with their heads turned only sparing a sideways glance at me, seeming to show a bit of sympathy. And finally the provincials gazing at me with contented smiles stapled to the side of their faces. The gallery glass had been turned around so that I could no longer read their expressions but so that I could look at myself. I started with my feet, which were barren and marked. Then to my knees which had lacerations going down in a vertical direction that created an opening for torrents of blood that coated my shins. Tracing my reflection to my hands that were dowsed in blood and drawn into a fist. Nothing disturbed me more than sight of the grotesque façade of fresh blood that resided on the bottom half of my face. “ARE YOU HAPPY NOW? YOU’VE WON, YOU TRIED SO HARD TO TURN ME INTO THIS MONSTER AND NOW YOU HAVE!” I turned away from the gallery glass and looked at the demoralizing scene that I created. The pristine observation room remained untouched, except for the leftward corner of the room where a dead geoflec lay wide eyed and jaw-less, with his lower mandible only 23 centimeters away from. His tri-pointed head piece embedded in his frontal lobe. Overtaken by repugnance and hatred I fell to my knees, hands trembling as I tried to escape to the darkest part of my mind. All the years of fighting the system, all the time and preparation it took for us to get to this point. It was all for nothing. I knew they were still watching me, waiting to see if I would break myself down so that they wouldn’t have to. I wanted so badly to curl into a corner and fade away. To accept my defeat, and to find comfort in the broken cracks of the corrupted system. I sat there holding my head in my blood smeared hands, never tired I kept telling myself.  I scavenged every corner of my being to find the strength to keep fighting. Never weak Think of all the people that have carried you to this point, all the people that you have lost. *sigh* Young Keely, who just wanted to be a part of something bigger than herself. Never tired. Madge, who was tired of watching her people suffer. Isobel…who was just following in her big sisters footsteps too blinded by the light that she casted so heavily over me to know that the price of revolting.