Counterfeit

-three--

--three- 

IT WAS SUPPER time in The Dormir. Everyone gathered in the mess hall routinely, guards watching our every move, everything in an orderly fashion. It was repetitive to say the least.

The hall looked like a dining cabin of a campsite; long picnic tables in rows, with meals being handed out at a service station. The difference was, our lives were no holiday - we had very little say of what we did and when we did it. It was something that was beginning to drive me insane.

Every day, three times a day, I always found myself sitting on the end table of the fourth row. For some reason, it seemed to be a blind spot for the guards, an area of the hall where they rarely seemed to occupy. When we sat there, it felt like our own, untroubled hour of privacy - where we could sit and socialize, and forget for just a little while that we weren't normal kids. That we weren't confined by perplexing requests.

For some reason, I was always the first one there. Thea and I boarded in the same cabin, but she was always later than me, despite being dismissed at the same time. Avaline came a few minutes later, along with her friend Harriet, and MiKinley arrived last with Patrick. It was a stupid, sexist rule that girls were dismissed first, and Avaline made it a point almost every week to mention it when the boys complained about the coldness of their food. Though I agreed with her, I was beginning to sense that there were bigger issues around The Dormir than which gender was dismissed to dinners first.

"You seem in a better mood." Avaline spoke to MiKinley as he sat down continuing a conversation with Patrick.

"You seem vexatious...still." Kinley teased back, offering a sarcastic smile her way.

Their relationship always confused me. It was as though they were friends, yet they always looked for ways to annoy the other, and not necessarily in a lighthearted way. Sometimes I wondered if the only reason they were tolerable with each other was because of me.

"MiKinley..." I spoke his name, offering him a look to let him know to roll back on his attitude.

"Whatever." He muttered as he rolled his eyes at me, grumpily turning back into his conversation with Patrick.

"Jerk." I caught Ava whispering as she turned her attention back to her food. I had half the mind to reprimand her, too, but I wasn't in the mood for dealing with her stubbornness, so I left it.

"Oh!" Thea piked up. "Look's like the Harvest are joining us."

"Great! I love some entertainment at meal times." Ava commented, laughing as everyone in the hall turned to face the new arrivals. They each received their food, then nervously searched the place for a vacant seat, hurrying around the room as if they'd fear they'd make a mistake if they didn't sit down and eat. I couldn't stop myself from giggling along with Thea, reminding each other of what we were like at our first dinner in The Dormir.

Meanwhile, whilst everyone was distracted by the Harvest, Ava's eyes focused on someone approaching our table from the corner. She seemed to quiet down, almost in suspicion, as the person she was studying came and sat down at our table, a couple metres away from us. It was the new guard.

I looked up at him, but he was already looking. At me.

As we held each other's gaze, I felt a shiver run down my spine, almost like a sudden coldness had approached. He didn't look at me like a stranger, and that confused me, because I had never seen him before in my life. But instead, he looked at me like he knew all my thoughts and all my questions. Like I was a reflection of him. Of something previous, something he had once known.

I looked down at the table for a second, let out a short breath, calming all the questions in my mind, and then my eyes drifted back to him. He continued to look directly at me for a couple more seconds, before finally turning his attention to his food. He didn't look up at me again.

Perhaps I reminded him of someone, I thought. Perhaps he could feel Ava's eyes on him, and then when I looked, his attention turned to me.

I shook my head and returned back to my food, shrugging the incident off. Though, it was difficult to do so when all my friends shared weird, questioning looks at me, informing me that they were all just as confused as I was.

"What?" I asked to no one in particular. They all quickly diverted their eyes from me and tried to break back into conversation with someone else.

"What was all that about?" Ava wondered. The way she asked me felt as though she was accusing me of something.

"What was all what about?" Suddenly I was rather agitated. All the questions were still in my head, despite my attempt to resolve them, and the confusion only added to my annoyance.

"That...thing you guys just did." She didn't know what to call it.

"I don't know him." I answered, trying to end our conversation.

"It looked like he knew you."

At this point, I could tell he was looking at us through the corner of his eye, able to hear our conversation relatively easy, but I didn't care. He should have been no concern to me.

"Well, he doesn't." I replied, making sure it was loud enough to have confidence that he was listening. He shifted in his seat. "Just drop it, alright?"

"Alright.. I'm sorry." Ava responded quickly, not having intended to hurt my feelings.

We all went back to eating, nothing other than a few empty sentences being spoken throughout the remaining duration of dinner. I couldn't get his eyes out of my head.

-three--

10/09/17

I'm really happy with this chapter.

It's three a.m, oh dear. I probably spent a good half hour

tyring to decide on which gif of Bob Morley to use for this chapter.