“Aaliyah Ada Backett, you better not be loitering by the Door again!”
My father’s booming voice rang out through The Cavern. I immediately retreated away from the hulking door, my face burning with shame.
“Sorry,” I muttered, and I saw my father’s face was bright red with anger.
“This is the fifth time this week!”
I muttered another apology and made my way from my father; I didn't want to be further chastised, physically nor verbally. As I was walking away, he shouted irritably,
“Four years from tomorrow, and you can leave forever!”
“Three,” I muttered. “Three years.”
The Cavern lights felt like they were bearing down on me like spotlights as I quickly made my way back to our pod. When I stepped into the white and militantly kept Beckett Pod, my brother was sitting at the table in the kitchen. He jumped when I entered.
“Oh,” he sighed, rubbing his forehead. “It's you. I thought it might be Father.”
“Oh, no,” I shook my head. “But he's angry. I was by the Door again, and he got really mad.” I paused for a moment, and then I sighed angrily, “I hate it here!”
“Only three more years.”
“You get to leave tomorrow, Aaron!” I protested miserably.
“I'd sneak you out if I could. You know that, Aaliyah. You know I'd take you to the Outside World if I could. I'm going to miss you, Aaliyah. You know that.” 
Our people had lived underground for just over a hundred years, and that had been a tradition from the beginning. Every year, the pool of twenty-one-year-olds from the Compound got to choose whether they stayed here for the rest of their lives, or they left it all behind to go to the Outside World; to go above ground. Those who did were banished and their memories practically erased; those who didn't lived their lives here in this underground.
Ever since my mother died when I was nine, the Outside World was all I dreamed of. Unfortunately, I was only eighteen, and Aaron, who was three years my senior, chose to leave. The only person that took care of me, that loved me the most, was leaving.
“That doesn't mean I want you to leave, Aaron. I just….I hate it here,” I repeated. “I hate him.”
“Aaliyah, I'm sure-”
The door to the Pod opened, and both of us abruptly shut our mouths. Aaron immediately shoved his worn out, moleskine journal in his back pocket. No doubt this was in fear of getting caught with it by our strict, overbearing father. We were only allowed things rationed to us by The Council; anything else, especially things from the Outside World, were strictly forbidden.
Into our Pod walked—well, more stormed than anything—Katherine Baxter. Katherine was pale, much paler than me, although about my height. She had short, blonde hair and dark, midnight blue eyes. She was Aaron’s age, and she was one of the seventeen twenty-one-year-olds that were leaving the Compound tomorrow.
“Katherine, what's wrong?” Aaron asked. “Why are you crying?”
“I don't want to leave!” she shrieked, and it was only then that I noticed she was crying. “I don't want to leave my family or the Compound or my here! I don't want to go to the Outside World!”
“You know that the Council won't let you change your mind,” he said gently. “We can go together.”
“No!” she sobbed. “I'm not leaving! My family doesn't want me to! I don't want to!”
An absurd idea was starting to form in the back of my mind, but it was so risky. And if we were caught? The consequences would be awful….
“But the Council-”
“I don't care! I don't want to leave! I need you help, Aaron!” she practically shouted, and she collapsed to the floor in a heap of sobs.
“What if I take Katherine’s place?” I finally spoke, and oh, how risky this was. But I needed to get out.
Katherine looked up, and her eyes widened. Then she nodded vigorously. She looked from me to Aaron, from Aaron back to me.
“You don't look alike,” Aaron pointed out, but Katherine’s wheels were visibly turning.
“No! No. We’re the same height! All I have to do is cut and bleach her hair! That's all!” she said frantically. “Please, Aaron; please, Aaliyah. Please,” she begged.
“I'll do it. Aaron, please help us,” I begged. “I want to see the floating lights. I want to get away from Father. Please. Please,” I repeated.
Aaron’s dark brow was furrowed, and his arms were folded across his chest. He looked as if he were seriously considering saying no.
“Your skin is too much dark a shade to actually look like her,” Aaron’s face was set in concentration.
“I'll use some of Mother’s old makeup! What's it called, concealer? She was much paler than I am! Aaron, please,” I begged, and a sigh escaped his lips.
“Let's go. We need to do this now if we’re going to do it.”
Aaron went off to the bathroom, and Katherine wrapped me in a hug. She sobbed into my shoulder crying out intermittent “Thank you”s. Little did she know that I wasn't doing this for her; I was doing this for my own selfish reasons.
When we got into the white bathroom, Aaron already had out bleach and scissors. I felt anxiety bubbling in my stomach like acid, and I couldn't help but imagine if this is what everyone felt like when they were about to do something stupid.
“I'll tell Father you're staying over someone’s Pod tonight. Aaliyah, this is risky.” Genuine concern laced his voice.
“Not Aliyah,” I corrected excitedly. “Katherine. For the next day, I'm Katherine. So let's do this.”
I sat on the lip of the bathtub, and my entire body shook as Katherine put bleach in my dark, wavy hair. The bright light coming in the window fell on Katherine’s hair, making it look almost yellow. I made eye contact with Aaron, and he said softly,
“After tomorrow we’re free, Aaliy–Katherine.”
I felt tears welling up in my eyes, and I felt like I was a female Jack Ryan, the spy from those books that Aaron used to sneak me when I was an early teenager.
As she cut and bleached my hair, I couldn't help but let silent tears stream down my face. Tears of happiness, however, not tears of sadness. And while this went on, Katherine quizzed me on everything I would need to know: her birthday, her middle name, her last name, everything.
After about twenty minutes, she was done. And when I looked at myself in the mirror, I was no longer Aaliyah Ada Beckett. I was Katherine Marjorie Baxter.
-
“You seventeen made the choice to leave the Compound five months ago. So now, after twenty-one years of living with a family, friends, a community that loves you, you are leaving forever. You all know the rules: no returning here, ever. No visiting family. No contact with anyone here. As of five minutes from now, you are banished forever.”
They were trying to shame us into regretting this decision, and we all knew that. Everyone, right down to the youngest of children, knew that. But all seventeen faces, no matter how scared they might have truly been, remained set like stone.
“Aaron….”
“Hush, Aaliyah,” he scolded with a clenched jaw.
Aaron kept looking straight ahead calmly, meanwhile, my heart was about to explode in my chest. I was so close, five minutes, to being free, to being able to leave the absolute hell of a society, to starting over. And I was terrified, I was nervous, but I was ready.
“Aaron-”
“Your first of the Deserters: Katherine Baxter!”
I almost stopped dead in my tracks. They would find me out, I knew they would; I would die. I was going to die and I knew this was risky….
I pushed these feelings of anxiety away as I stepped forward, my jaw set. The Council of twenty-one sat at a long table, all wearing black, their eyes looking like black marbles staring right through me.
My eyes met my father seated at the table. His dark grey hair was slicked back over his forehead, his beady eyes were narrowed, and he appeared ready to strike like a cobra. Our eyes locked, and I felt anxiety course throughout my body. He knew. How could he not? I was his only daughter. Whether or not he hated me and I him, he was my father and I was his daughter. I just knew that he knew.
“You will state your full name, your birthdate, and the names of your parents,” a woman with creamy skin and blonde hair then stated monotonously, snapping me out of my trance. “Then you will step back with the other Deserters.”
I cleared my throat, the words Katherine had taught me to repeat over and over again getting stuck in my throat. I pushed away the feeling of dread in my stomach before stating,
“My name is Katherine Marjorie Baxter, my birthdate is the fifteenth of November, and my parents names are James Baxter and Joanna Carlton.”
My father narrowed his eyes at me again, and the lump in my throat grew. He said something to one of the other Council members, and I thought I was going to burst into tears.
“Step back, please. Next, Aaron Beckett!”
I watched as the Council member next to my father said something to the one next to her. And so it went down the chain slowly but surely.
“My name is Aaron Moses Beckett, my birthdate is the fourth of July, and my parents are Joseph Beckett and Delilah Brooks.”
This was repeated fifteen times, each person, until the audience was in tears. You could hear the parents crying out for their children, the friends mourning the choices of their peers. There was no going back now.
They started to process us out, starting in reverse alphabetical order. That meant I was last. And when the line started moving, I could suddenly feel myself back on my bed as a nine-year-old, Aaron sitting up beside me.
“Aaliyah, everyone says there are these floating lights,” Aaron’s calming voice whispered. “They float in this thing called the sky. And when it's dark, the floating lights light up the sky. Everyone says they're beautiful.”
“Floating lights?” I whispered back. He nodded, his dark eyes shining with excitement.
“They float, and they make patterns, too. That's what Samuel says, anyhow,” he added.
“You've talked to him?”
“Of course. He's our cousin. He says it's the prettiest thing he's ever seen. And there's this big ball of light in the sky called the sun. He says it goes down at night, and sometimes the sky turns purple and orange. He says it's beautiful,” Aaron repeated dreamily. “Purples and oranges and pinks.”
“We’re gonna go together, right?” I asked in a small voice.
“Of course. Together.”
Aaron looked at me as we approached the massive Door.
Together, he mouthed. Just like I promised.
It occurred to me that he might have just been thinking about the same night. Then I heard the Council murmuring, and I became extremely anxious. Almost. Almost.
The person in front of Aaron was stepping through the door, and I felt anxiety rising in my chest. My heart was racing faster and faster, and I thought, I'm almost there.
As I stepped up the stairs to the Door, I felt a pair of eyes on my back. I was never prepared to hear,
“Stop Katherine Baxter! Stop them! That's not Katherine Baxter! Close the Door!”
“Aaron!” I shrieked, and I was so close to the door. “Aaron, help!”
I heard shouting and angry yelling, and I felt tears run down my face. I was going to die today, after being so close. The Door was shutting, and I knew that I wouldn't make it. But I also knew that Aaron wouldn't let that happen.
“Aaliyah! Aaliyah, grab my hand!” he shouted, extending a dark arm my way. Half of his body was in the Outside World, half in the Cavern.
One foot in the golden life, one foot in the gutter.
“Aaron, I'm almost there!” I exclaimed, and I tripped on the top step. People were shouting and crying out behind me. “Aaron! I'm almost there!”
I picked myself up from the top step and sprinted to the Door, again almost tripping on my face. It was close to shutting, the metal creaking and grinding and clunking. But Aaron yanked me through the Door at the last second.
“Aaron?” I breathed. “Did we just…?”
“Aaliyah, look,” he whispered, and he pointed up.
There were little, bright dots above our heads, and they twinkled and shined as if welcoming us personally. I felt tears well up in my eyes; we had done it.
“The floating lights,” I whispered.