Nonexistent

FOURTEEN- Zepher

IGNORANCE is bliss. But it isn't equivalent to innocence. 

I never knew all this happened. I knew people died, people suffered, but not this way. I'm watching it before my very own eyes, now. Alongside the desensitized king I call my Father. 

Desensitized to death. He has seen it too many times, so many years, packed with constant endings. Suffering. He probably forgot how to feel compassion along the way, but I never want to forget.

We have the highest level of Seers projecting moving images from their mind through mechanical headgears connected to the rim a gigantic pool of still water. It displays events occurring as we speak. In the death race. I watch the horrific display in front of me.

Four kids my age are being hunted down by a dragon-looking creature. It's a synthetic creature, of course. But the damage and death it can cause is very much real.

They're running over the edge of some kind of cliff. One girl, a Groundshifter, shouts something to her friends as they run away in a rush. She, on the other hand, runs head first towards the ferocity in the opposite direction. Towards the dragon.

"What's she doing?" I say. I can't mask the worry in my tone.

My father doesn't answer. He just watches the scene indifferently. 

The girl stomps her foot so hard several portions of the ground and the cliff lift up into the air in her power. 

Half of the room gawks. That's a skill that takes years of practice to master. Even the highest class of Groundshifters here are still trying to perfect that move. It's harder than it looks, I take it.

Yet, here, a simple student with nothing but the will of saving her friends, is performing an incredible feat. She smashes the first boulder onto the dragon's head, and it breathes a roar of fire in response. She blocks herself with a stone wall shield that emerges inches away from her foot and covers her whole body, protecting her from the flames.

"We have an astoundingly talented batch this year," Father mumbles as he leans in to General Coles.

The girl then breaks the shield and strategically uses a flat-surfaced boulder to trip the beast from it's legs. While it's on the ground, she runs over and strikes it away with her biggest boulder yet, towards the cliff. The beast's tail whips violently and hits the Groundshifter into the vertical edge. She's hanging on with two desperate hands, clinging to her only chance of survival.

"No!" I exclaim. "We need to help."

There's silence for a while.

"You're weaker than I thought," Father thinks out loud. 

I ignore him, not because I want to. Because I have nothing to say. 

He said he wanted to expose me to reality. That I was of age and I needed to know what went on in the real world. Maybe he's right. I am weak. But if that means I still have my humanity, then maybe I want to be.