elimination

I stand bolt upright and wide-eyed in Practical Training, my early morning drowsiness replaced by a now familiar sense of fear and dread. I can tell from the look in Doomsday’s eye that she is about to launch into a long complicated speech. “Today you will be learning about prioritizing motives for the greater good,” she hesitates, purses her lips, and continues. “It is integral to your survival that you learn not to let your emotions cloud your judgment and to focus objectively on the task at hand. Today you will be combining this principle and the subject matter you have been learning in Past Events into one educational activity.”

I can’t help but scoff at the term “educational activity,” honestly, who is she kidding? The scoff comes out louder than I would like and the entire class turns to look at me. 12′s eyes fill with worry while Dagger and One shoot me a look of disgust, yet none of them are a match for Doomsday’s look of pure evil. Every milligram of my body seems to condense in a last ditch effort to make myself look less conspicuous. For a second I think I am done for, but Doomsday seems to dismiss me as unimportant and continues talking, her lips now curled up into an annoyed snarl.

“Everyone choose a partner.” The room is hectic for a moment as everyone scrambles to be with their friends, for a second 12 and I lock eyes but we know better than to go together. Most of the time partners yield one victor. She goes over to stand with Four and I am left to roam around searching the scared and hostile eyes of the people around me until I walk face first into some boy’s chest. I look up to see 14 smirking down at me with an amused twinkle in his eye. I look around for anyone else, but 14 and I are the last ones.

Of all the people I could be partnered with I end up with the only person who may be more competitive than I am. I shoot him my trademark death stare and he recoils in mock offense, thoroughly enjoying himself. I roll my eyes, but can’t seem to suppress a grin. Doomsday now returns from her brief disappearance with two small, but obviously razor sharp knives. The atmosphere in the room plummets as the slightly joyful expression melts away from my face. 14 has grown cold and impassive with his eyes transfixed ahead and every muscle tense.

“You and your partner will each take a knife and move into the circle. The goal is to injure your partner as severely an possible in a single blow; if you are the first one hit, your goal is to exactly match the injury your partner has given you in reverse. Each partnership will fight for 15 minutes. If after this time you both remain untouched there will be dire consequences. If there is one victor they may walk away, if both partners have justly sustained the same injury and are both alive then they will both be healed, facing no consequences.” Everyone is now standing at least two feet apart looking apprehensive and perhaps a twinge green. 14′s jaw has tightened and he is starting to tap his foot while constantly lifting the fingers on his right hand and tapping them against his leg. I look over at 12 and Four, a male with regulation features apart from slightly small stature. He looks utterly petrified, pale cheeks and wide eyes, while 12 seems to be far away wrestling with her thoughts.

Doomsday’s clears her throat. “We will begin chronologically with One & 11.” Both One and Dagger amble out of the group and into the center looking uneasy. Dagger’s usual calm and cold collectives has been replaced by obvious terror. One practically towers over her, casting a shadow over all of her past successes. They both gingerly pick up their knives and stand across from each other about two meters away from the group. In an almost bored voice Doomsday states the word “begin.”

Dagger starts to back up staring at One, her most dear friend, like a small furry animal stares at a big toothy animal. Her eyes beg for mercy; she has given up. She knows she is entirely at One’s disposal, so she stands there biding her time. Doomsday announces ten minutes, looking impatient and One lunges at Dagger hitting her squarely in the right thigh. She cries out and doubles over in pain crying silently as One advances.

Yet she does nothing but stand there next to the shivering mess that is Dagger. Trembling, Dagger draws her blade and carefully inserts it into One’s right thigh; she closes her eyes and silently absorbs the pain. For a moment she just stands there: tall posture, upward chin, stone face, a knife in her thigh: a tower of strength. I can’t help but feel a twinge of admiration. I was sure that One was going to let Dagger die, I suppose I underestimated their bond. Perhaps 12 is right and my hatred for One is rooted in the fact that we do share certain similarities. Doomsday gestures for both Dagger and One to continue to the medical table. She wears a small smile of bureaucratic approval on her face and her cheekbones point out like arrow heads dipped in poison—the nasty kind that goes after your central nervous system.

Two and Captain Neutrality are up against each other next. Two is a small, quiet, dark-featured girl that Captain Neutrality has admired for quite some time. His face goes white as he takes his knife and holds it out in front of him with both hands, trembling. Two holds her knife limply in her left hand with the nose of the blade facing the floor. She clumsily runs at him and accidentally drives her abdomen into his knife, her eyes fill with confusion and shock before she folds over coughing up blood.

Captain Neutrality lets out a high pitched shriek before plunging his knife into his own stomach, caught up in foolish panic. He plunges a little too hard, falling to the ground contributing to the river of blood created by Two. He looks up desperately compelling Doomsday to save them. They sustained the same injury after all. She coldly gestures to the medical table. For an instance they try to move with a gush of blood before collapsing once more. Doomsday turns around and shoots Apocalypse a glare, he looks up from the tablet he is writing on, puts on a pair of plastic disposable gloves and drags the two numbers away with ease into a cozy closet of blackness.

Three and Switch cleverly choose to repeat Dagger and One’s performance from before (to Doomsday’s acute annoyance) leaving Four and 12 next. They both stand there in the pool of blood looking queasy, their knives hang limp. I search 12′s eyes for determination or strength or resilience, yet all I see is fear. My lungs permanently deflate. Silently, I compel 12 to be smart. With the word “begin” Four goes instantaneously from nervous to rabid, aiming squarely for 12′s throat. I open my mouth to scream, but 14 grabs me and covers my lips before I can make a sound. I think back to the moment on the concrete stair, once again this boy is saving me from my own stupidity, or at least he is attempting to.

I thrash in his grip kicking and writhing but he holds me with ease, no one is paying any attention to us, they are all transfixed on 12 who now has a knife in her throat. My panic consumes me as tears begin to rush down my face and over 14′s warm, white knuckled hand. He pulls me down behind the group in front of us so that I can no longer be seen and painfully turns my neck so that I face him. His eyes beg me to stop panicking, for once I see fear under his flawless facade, but none of it matters. I hear 12 let out a shrill screech of death and I bite down on 14′s hand desperate for freedom, but still he holds me down, grimacing slightly.

People have started to notice us but they don’t care. They are transfixed on what is happening in front of them. “JUST LET ME SEE,” I scream silently, but it is no use. I shut my eyes tightly and grow limp allowing 14 to pull me back up into a standing position so that it can appear as though nothing has happened. So that it can appear as though having just witnessed 12 being stabbed to death, I was no more affected than I would be if I had just witnessed a subtle change in the weather.

I don’t know what happened with Five and Six’s fights, nor do I care. I don’t care about anything; my eyes are closed tight. I have a warm metallic taste in my mouth. 14′s nimble fingers force my eyelids open as he drags me to the blood pool in the center for our turn. His eyes are a convoluted mix of anger and concern and his left hand is bleeding. I run my tongue over my teeth finally identifying the taste in my mouth and subtly convulse. There is a new trail of blood on the ground where 12 was dragged off, and Four is standing looking lost at the medical table. I twirl the knife around in my hand, itching to drive it into his neck, to see him dragged away like 12. Somehow I refrain. I am somehow still grounded to my identity of perfect, stoic Title Seven, whose only purpose in life is to make it to Level Three.

I survey 14 cautiously trying to map out a weakness I can exploit. He towers over me, lanky, but muscular. I know he is faster and stronger than me, perhaps even smarter than me in a common sense sort of way. Maybe I can use my size as an advantage to get away quickly, if he lunges.... There has to be something else, I look up into his eyes once more, scrutinizing his emotions. There has to be some fatal flaw. I know he is overly competitive like me. He goes to Bump Nose’s merry little band of idiots so that means he thinks about things differently. He is curious, rebellious. He always seems so cold and stoic, radiating superiority and perfection, yet at the same time he has now saved my life twice at his own risk.

Before I can further stuff my brain with useless anxiety-laden contemplations Doomsday tells us to begin. For a moment we stand still, eyes locked, 14 slowly raises his knife and situates himself so that we are exactly across from each other and the knife he is holding in his left hand will go strait into my right shoulder, understanding I do the same so that my knife will go into his right shoulder. We lock eyes once more and begin to steadily walk into each other with even steps, but 14 begins to slip on the blood and for a moment the arm with the knife goes flying up into the air, flailing as he tries to get his balance. I try to grab him and steady him, but I am not strong enough to combat his momentum. He falls into me and I feel an explosion of pain in in my right eye as my vision dissolves.

I have never felt pain like this in my entire life, the entire right side of my face is covered in blood and searing. I try to look around but my right eye is too heavy, I realize in horror that 14′s knife is stuck inside it. I begin to convulse, falling to the ground in an ocean of murky blood, but to my surprise 14 grabs me and pulls me upright, his face strewn with panic. He closes his eyes in anticipation as I realize to my horror what he means for me to do. How fitting, an eye for an eye. That’s what Doomsday meant by connection to past events, Mesopotamia—Hammurabi—an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. I shoot Doomsday a look of utter disgust and loathing, before taking my knife and plunging it into 14′s right eye. He cries out falling to the ground. Looking perhaps a tad surprised, Doomsday gestures to the medical table, and before she can protest, I lift 14 up with strength I didn’t know I had and somehow drag us both over the the medical table.

I want more than anything to just pass out and disappear, but I know if I let the darkness take over I will never wake up again. Despite my best effort, as I make it to the table my feet give way from under me and the darkness consumes my brain. I am brought back to life by the worst feeling imaginable as 14 somehow manages to pull the knife, thankfully without my eyeball attached, out of my head. He starts to wipe down my face with a sharp smelling dark blue cloth coated in some type of chemical that burns. He gingerly applies the all healing magical mystery gel to my eye before stumbling back. The gel relieves my pain instantly leaving me in a fuzzy state of euphoria matching the feeling of our dopamine pills tenfold. Somehow I manage to give 14 the same treatment he gave me, with more difficulty than I originally anticipated, what with my newfound stereo blindness complete with loss in depth perception.

By some miracle we both end up standing and are able to stumble over to where Apocalypse is standing waiting to direct us to the showers reserved for Practical Training. He looks completely dumbfounded by our survival and a bit terrified. Especially judging by the fact that no one tried to keep us from helping each other, I am guessing we both look awe inspiringly gruesome. At least I know 14 does. I quickly walk into my white marble shower stall and begin to peel off my bloody black uniform, I stand there for what feels like forever watching the cold water rinse the blood off of my skin creating a red river to the drain.

I raise my face to the stream taking a moment to realize that I feel no pain in my eye. What if the water did something horrible to it and I didn’t notice because of the medicine? For a moment I panic before catching my reflection in the metal shower head and seeing two perfect blue eyes. Neither a scar, nor a drop of blood remains, yet I am still blind in my right eye. I expected the serum to heal me completely, including my vision. There is no way I will make it to Level Three if I am blind in one eye. I take a look around gathering my composure and reluctantly start to whisper to the stall next to me. “14?” He takes a pause, probably to make sure we are alone before whispering “yes.”

Reluctantly I begin in a shaky voice, “Can you see out your right eye?” “Yes,” he begins without a moment’s hesitation. “What!!!!” I let out as a strangled cry. “Stop,” he hisses, “I am messing with you; the serum works from the outside in. I know because of how badly burned my hand was.” I breathe a half cry half sob of relief as 14 begins to speak. “Now you have something to make you feel better,” he says quietly. Then it all hits me like a ton of bricks, 12 is gone. I raise my face to the cold water and silently sob.

I slowly walk out of Practical Training with two seeing eyes and no 12. I don’t know where I am going, I just stumble through the halls until I find myself standing against the railing looking down at the concrete stairs where 14 saved me. I look over the short metal railing at the three flights of concrete below. How easy it would be to not be paying attention and to stumble right over the side, leaving a bright red stain on the concrete below as my only legacy. Nothing stains quite like blood; it does not seem to like to let you forget where it has been spilled. What a perfect final act of defiance it would be to give the government officials a big bright red puddle to clean up. How deliciously colorful.

I look around and there is no one there to save me, no one but myself. I think of all of the trials I have gone through, all the essays I have written, all the miles I have run, I replay all the conversations I have had with 12 about getting into Level Three in my mind, how we would do anything to finally get there. It’s all she, all we, all anyone ever wanted and she was so close. She would have made it. I look down at the concrete jaws of death and whisper a promise “I will make it for you 12, I will do whatever it takes.”