She sighed and turned over, clutching her blanket. Her feet were cold, but the rest of her was warm with that sleepy, content feeling that comes after a good night's sleep. Freezing water splashed over her face, and she jolted, throwing her water-logged blanket off. She blinked in the morning sunlight, yawning. "Up!" snapped a voice. She shivered to her feet, grabbing her sodden blanket. Her wet nightgown stuck to her body, and the blanket squelched as she folded it and placed it next to her meager pile of belongings. The person to whom the voice belonged tapped her foot impatiently. She was a Minder, and it was her job to oversee the Singers. That meant making sure that they had the necessary things to survive, were where they needed to be at the proper times, and were cared for in the basest definition of that word. "Mmm...57, yes?" the Minder queried. She nodded, fluffing up her thin pillow as best she could. "Lovely. By which I mean it really isn't. You've been Summoned. Now, I want you to be dressed and presentable in five minutes from now. Hop to it, now!" The Minder walked away briskly, off to wake the other Singers. 57 threw her patched and faded dress over her head, yanked a comb through her hair a few times, and splashed some water on her face. She had been Summoned, the highest honor possible for a Singer. She had been a Singer all her life, it seemed. She hardly remembered the time Before. Old, dim memories of laughter and love and having a real name lurked in the deepest corners of her mind, but she didn't pay much attention to them except when she was cold and hungry and lonely and sad, which was most of the time. She glanced around quickly before reaching into the small bag of things that she had carefully hidden under her pillow. Her fingers felt the slick surface of her most prized possession. She drew it out partway. It was a tiny mirror, streaked and smudged. She caught a glimpse of her reflection. Straight black hair, sun-tanned skin. The tiny scar below her eye. Her eyes themselves, one blue, one black. "57! Are you ready? Stop fooling around with your pillow and stand up straight!" Guiltily, she shoved the mirror and bag away and stood up. If the Minder had seen... But she hadn't, thankfully. She merely pursed her lips as she looked 57 over. "Well, you'll do. Come along with me." 57 trudged after her, weak with relief that the Minder had not seen the bag or the mirror. Singers were not supposed to have, as The High Mistress expressed it, "any frivolous personal belongings." Everything 57 owned, and indeed everything any of the Singers owned, was "borrowed from their kind and giving benefactress." This, The High Mistress explained, was to make sure that the Singers understood the magnitude of what was being done for them. Letting them have the few things they borrowed was more than generous, and they ought to be satisfied with it. Keeping things of their own would mean that they were dissatisfied with the things they already had and did not appreciate all The High Mistress had done for them, which in and of itself was a crime of the highest order. None of the Singers understood why exactly they were there or what they were there for. There were never more than five Singers at a time. Occasionally, one would be Summoned and go away, never to be seen again, and another would quietly take her place. The Minders tutored them, teaching them how to read both notes and letters, and how to do simple math equations. They made the Singers do voice and singing exercises every day, and little was talked of between the Singers but music and singing. There was not much else to talk about. It was the soul and center of their lives. 57 wondered what would happen to her. Would another Singer come in her place? What would she be like? If her number was 57, would the new Singer be 58? What was the point of the Singers, really? Was that what she was going to find out? She swallowed. Did she really want to know? Her life right now wasn’t so bad. She was alive. She had clothing to wear and food to eat. She had friends. She had a place to live. She had a small blue bag tucked away under her pillow, a rebellion against the rules that restrained her. She had faint, distant memories of a better time. There had been a better time. The Minder stopped abruptly, and 57 had to backpedal to avoid crashing into her. She lifted her eyes, which had been fixated on the ground while she had been walking. The breath ran from her lungs. In front of her was the most beautiful place she had ever been. Sunlight glinted off a pond, gilding the water in warm, inviting tones. Bugs hummed a tuneless little song, and a bird was chirping somewhere. Entranced, 57 didn’t hear the Minder when she spoke. She received a sharp pinch as punishment. “Hey! Girl! Are you listening? I want you to sing this. This song.” (cont. below)
(cont. from above) A piece of paper was shoved into her hands. She glanced down. A sea of complicated notes and rests and musical math swam before her eyes. She nodded, and the Minder smirked at her. “Good. Then sing it.” She opened her mouth, inhaled, and sang the first note. The song was delightfully tricky, swooping its way across the page. It sounded like a bird twittering, like leaves rustling, like a stream burbling across smooth, shining pebbles. Then, so gradually that at first she didn’t notice, the song changed. Now it was darker, shadowy, the tune of a phantom sky with no moon and malevolent stars. But she did not dare stop, or she would be punished. She was tired now, but still she struggled on. Her voice did not crack, but when she paused to take a breath she coughed up flecks of scarlet. Her hands trembled as she held the paper before her face. And then she had sung it all, and the last note wavered in the air, the song finished but incomplete. The Minder pinched her again. “Idiot! Don’t stop singing! Keep going!” So she kept singing, adding on to the song with notes of her own. She wanted to collapse with exhaustion by this point. Spots danced in the corners of her vision, and her head was pounding. It seemed like she had been singing for hours, and as she sang, the sunlight fled away. The pond turned dark and murky, and the birds and bugs had flown away. Drawing in a trembling breath, she gathered herself to finish it with one last crescendo– And someone pushed her. The air was knocked out of her, and she fell on the ground, gasping for breath like a fish out of water. There was a screech, and a thump, and two worried green eyes bending over her. Then the world blurred and twisted and went dark, and she knew nothing. Author's note: Lol you're probably confused right now. I like this idea, might expand on it in the near future, so think of this as kind of a prologue/first chapter. Anyways, this is the kind of story where you're going to be confused at first. It's the kind of story where you have to scatter bits and pieces of backstory everywhere, not just the beginning. It's the kind of story where you just have to jump right in to the middle of things and explain later. The exposition is stretched out over the entire plot. I hope you like what I wrote, and if I do write more I'll let you know :) Credits: Art: Not mine Music: Not mine Writing: Mine
