Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction 2020complete | Page 577

It was deathly silent inside, the two of them tiptoed like ballerinas on the marble floors, their way just
barely lit up by The Rocket and celestial bodies hovering above in the sky.
With the duffel still in her grasp, they passed a glass desk and multiple grey sofas with a magazine lazily
tossed over a cushion, and into a glass elevator, where the millimeter thin doors closed with a satisfying
silence.
Lyra’s thin fingers swiftly cracked open a small metal door, where wires were left vulnerable to her touch.
“Take us to sector four.”
It was a whisper so faint that Rogue barely caught on to it, and with a sudden “tsst”, the elevator zoomed
upwards, chairs and desks fuzzy as they passed each floor.
“Take them out, prepare to detonate,” Lyra dragged it off her arm and looked up at Rogue with a frown.
“I mean...yeah. Just in case. Take your blaster out too.”
Rogue felt herself nod.
The doors opened to a bland white hallway where a glowing keypad rested on the left of a tiny door crack.
Why was nobody here, to confront them? To arrest them?
What were they doing here?
“That’s it. Crack ‘em. I’ll take care of this.”
Although her mind screamed no, her fingers, seemingly a mind of their own, squeezed springy buttons on
the bombs, and the whirring sound of it echoed throughout the whole hallway.
A buzzing came nearby.
“Oh no,” a door slid open, “get in!” Lyra hissed.
They were met with a colossal glass cylinder that wrapped around a colony of machines that huffed and
puffed out, placing parts on…
Humans, that were built exactly like the woman that ran away, the man that glared at her.
“Now, Rogue!”
For my people.
The bombs in Rogue’s trembling hands exploded, a blast of wind blew Rogue off, and the earth around
them shook, quartz walls rumbling and tumbling into the machine.
The last thing she remembered was Lyra’s scream, and her own mouth opening, voicing a soundless scream
of her own, before she heard a rapid beep that came from outside.
“She’s waking up, sir,” a distant voice remarked.
“Good. Make sure she doesn’t remember any of this! Wipe it off her mind. I’ve seen what I need to.”
“Yes sir.”
With a stinging feeling, she opened her watery eyes and found herself looking at a masked doctor in a pure
white room.
“What happened?” she croaked out with a throat on fire, as if she’d screamed her soul out.
“Your surgery went successfully,” his eyes twinkled as ripped devices off her, “you’re free to go.”
“Surgery?” she didn’t remember needing any surgery.
But before she could ask any more questions, the doctor ushered her out and onto the street, where
drivers, stuck in traffic, constantly pressed on their horns and deafened her.
Deciding to walk home, she observed the area around her, an area she was familiar with yet distanced
from. A child held his mother’s hand, licking an ice lolly with a large smile while his mother beamed down
at him, gently speaking in Cantonese.
In fact, everyone around her spoke Cantonese. Businessmen crossing roads with lunchboxes in their hands
spoke Cantonese to their counterparts, a lady selling newspapers beside a pale yellow house read out
headlines in Cantonese.
She passed by a lavish golden tower that sneered over apartment buildings with neat squared windows
lined up, and a glass office tower that stuck out like the tallest child in class with a sense of awkwardness, but
she knew that one day, the other children would catch up to it, because it was the heart of Pearl.
“Miss Chan?” a distant voice called.
She turned around, only to see a speeding bullet slicing through the air that aimed right for her heart.
And then she felt it. A burning, screaming sensation that weakened her legs so greatly that she collapsed,
yelling, and held her chest but it was no use- thick, ruby blood sprouted out in spasms and the mother that
held her son’s hand screamed bloody murder, as did the people around her.
No one came to help through the agony she faced, even as heaves of her chest began to slow down.
Except a beefy man that smirked inches away from her face.
“Next time, you’ll know not to mess with us.”
A glint of metal under his sleeve caught her eye.
“Next time, you’ll know not to mess with us Pearlians with your precious little friends from Pearls.