THE UNFEELING

I had decided to get a job, to get out of the house for a bit. The house had become suffocating, with its stillness and heavy air, a silent witness to days blending into each other like melted wax from candles burned too long. Uncle warned me against it, of course. He always did. I argued with him. What else was I supposed to do? Stay there, rotting in place like a forgotten houseplant? “So, am I supposed to just be a plant? A plant to be sold and live in someone else’s house? To be pretty and watered as they pleased?” The words tumbled out of my mouth, sharp, biting

He sighed, that heavy, defeated kind of sigh. I could see the weight on his shoulders, the way his brows furrowed as though trying to find the right thing to say. Of course, he wouldn’t let me end up as a pretty little thing locked away in some glasshouse, to be watered and pruned. He was probably the only person who could help me avoid the female Ember duty—an existence of servitude that I dreaded. I couldn’t stand the thought of it. It felt like a death sentence, even though they tried to paint it in prettier colors. “For the good of society,” they said. “For the continuation of our world.” But Uncle understood. He knew.

“Being the smart child I was—or thought I was—I shouted, pouted, and stormed straight toward the very thing he was trying to protect me from. Why? Because I had to prove something. To myself. To him. To everyone.

Look at the brochure, Uncle,” I insisted, shoving it into his hands. “The place is great.” His eyes scanned the glossy pamphlet with its sterile, smiling faces. He lingered for a moment, frowning slightly. “There are two Fs… Look, I… I can’t forbid you or even stop you from doing this. But I wish I could, I swear… please, just think a bit more about it. That’s all I’m asking.”

I didn’t hear the plea in his voice then, not fully. Or maybe I didn’t want to. I was too eager to break free, to step out into the world, to prove I was more than the scared girl hiding in her uncle’s house. “This bird is gonna fly,” I declared, with all the confidence of someone who had no idea how cruel the world could be.

But there was no cage locking me up, not really. At least, not one I could see. “You taught me to be free of mental shackles,” I told him, echoing the lessons he’d tried so hard to impart. “I’m only doing what I’m supposed to do.

He looked at me, long and hard, his eyes filled with something I couldn’t quite place. Worry, perhaps. Sadness. Resignation. But I was too full of myself, too eager to prove that I knew best. He was just overreacting, I thought. “I’m smart. I know how to handle myself.” Stupid girl.

So I did it. I walked right out into the world and took the first job I found, which took absolutely no time. Suspiciously fast, if I had stopped to think about it. But I didn’t. I wasn’t thinking clearly at all. Stupid girl.

The job itself was easy enough to get. The man in charge—if you could call him that—greeted me with a wide, insincere smile that never quite reached his eyes. There was something off about him, but I brushed it aside. Why shouldn’t I trust him? I was young, eager, and full of that stubborn defiance that made me ignore every red flag.

“I’m so happy you took the job,” he said, his voice oily, dripping with something I couldn’t identify at the time. “You know, people are already calling you Reese because you remind them so much of the previous girl. We all enjoyed her very much.”

Reese. Who was she? He didn’t elaborate. Instead, he moved right along, as though I was just filling a space she had left behind. No individuality, no real recognition of who I was. Just a replacement. Even that should have sent alarm bells ringing, but I pushed it down, determined not to let anything stop me. He kept talking, gesturing around the space with his smooth hands.

“So, I’ll explain how everything works here and give you a tour. Please feel VERY comfortable,” he said, as if it were a command rather than a suggestion. “These are for you,” he added, handing me a small package with a flourish. “Part of our… welcome package.” I smiled stiffly, not sure what to do with the strange sensation of dread creeping up my spine. “There are two coffee corners here—one for customers, the other for staff,” he continued, pointing them out like they were grand features of a palace rather than small, dingy nooks with stained countertops.

“Your job is just to keep both clean, and if you do a really good job, I’ll let you fill the machines too,” he said, his tone patronizing, as if cleaning coffee stations was some grand achievement. “I’m guessing you’re an achiever, so it’s all learning, right?”

My stomach churned slightly, but I forced a smile. “Sure,” I replied, unsure of what else to say.

“And this,” he gestured grandly, “is your office. And those are your office supplies.”

An empty room with a broom, a mop, and some cheap cleaning products. My “office.” I should have known then. I should have seen through the façade. But I was too focused on the idea that I was doing something, moving forward, making progress. Stupid girl.

Then, out of nowhere, he leaned in and kissed me on the cheek. Unsolicited. Wet. Repulsive. I froze, my mind unable to process what had just happened.

I was young. I had no idea how to handle that. It was my first day on the job. I’d barely even started working. After a brief, polite conversation, that disgusting man had crossed a line I hadn’t even known existed until he did.

Uncle was right.

The world was awful. It revealed itself in one, sickening second.

I stood there, eyes closed, as he walked away, whistling like some revolting creature that had crawled out of the sewer. Not a bird—birds are beautiful. Something else entirely. Something filthy, rotten.

I didn’t cry, but I remember stomping on the flowers in “my office.” The flowers that had been left there to make the space seem more welcoming, I guess. I crushed them beneath my feet, feeling the petals crumple, wanting to destroy something as a way to vent the rage boiling inside me.

That was unacceptable, I decided. But then, I was stuck. What was I supposed to do? Run back to Uncle with my tail between my legs? Admit defeat after barely a day in the outside world?

God, he didn’t even wait for anything. If this were a book, it would be the most shallow, rushed, unrealistic story imaginable. And yet, reality has this nasty habit of being more shocking, more raw, and more terrible than any story out there.

I closed myself in that tiny janitor’s room, the “office” they’d given me, and breathed for a while. “I’m an adult,” I told myself. “This is just a bump in the road. I have to do the grown-up thing. After all, I’m ready for a challenge. I’m articulate and smart enough to sort things out, right?”. I kept telling myself that, trying to believe it.

“Just breathe and think.”

But no amount of breathing or thinking could undo what had happened. I was rattled, shaken to my core, but I didn’t want to admit that to myself. Stupid, stupid girl. I convinced myself that maybe, MAYBE, it was all just a misunderstanding. “Maybe that’s normal, and I just don’t know because I’ve been sheltered,” I thought. It was easier to blame myself than to confront the truth of what had happened. I even got angrier at Uncle. “He should have prepared me for this,” I thought. “He should have told me what to expect.”

“If that was the case, then I should just talk to him, right? Start this thing on the right foot?”. And so, that’s exactly what I did. I went to him and calmly, rationally explained that I wasn’t comfortable with the kiss and that I hoped he’d understand. I told him that I didn’t want to be touched, didn’t want to be kissed—basic stuff, really. I even promised that I would be the best employee I could be. Stupid girl.

He stood there, listening with impeccable posture, that faint smile still playing on his lips. “Of course, of course,” he said smoothly. “It was just a habit from being affectionate with Reese.” He excused himself quickly, claiming he had a phone call to make, and left me standing there, unsure of what had just happened.

I went back to work, still feeling uneasy, but proud of myself for handling it like an adult. “That was easy,” I thought, standing tall, thinking I’d just overcome my first challenge with the dignity and composure of someone much older.

But it wasn’t long before he called me back to his office. That animal—he should have been extinct. He had the same neutral, friendly expression on his face as before. “I was just on the phone with my smokey friends… you know,” he said casually, as though discussing the weather. My heart started to race. “No, no,” I thought, “it can’t be. He wouldn’t call SMOKE for this, would he? I must have misheard.”

But I hadn’t. There was nothing wrong with my hearing—only everything wrong with the world, as Uncle had always warned me. SMOKE arrived, dressed in their blues and reds, moving like tentacles, reaching out to grasp me, to pull me under.I didn’t try to run. I didn’t try to hide. Stupid girl. I just walked outside, my head held high, as if that could somehow protect me from what was coming. I wanted to show strength, to appear unbothered. So I walked as slowly as I could, trying to make a statement that, in hindsight, was pointless. They didn’t care about statements. They didn’t care about me at all.

Something broke inside me when I saw their uniforms, their badges swinging in the cold air. It was like the world tilted on its axis, and everything I thought I knew about myself crumbled in an instant. I was no longer the feisty girl with a quick retort for everything. I was no longer even human, in some sense. A big piece of my humanity left me the moment I saw SMOKE. They had that effect on almost everyone, I would later learn. Their presence stripped you of whatever strength, whatever identity, you thought you had.

I became nothing but an object, something to be moved, to be ordered around. Flesh turned to stone, as if I had been defeated by a real mythological monster. And the worst part? I could have avoided it all if I had just listened to Uncle.

One slip. One mistake. One bad day. That’s all it took for life to show me its teeth, to remind me how small and powerless I really was. The Ember burned, and I was marked as its property. Uncle was right, I remember thinking bitterly, even as I tried to push the thought away. “But he’ll make this right,” I told myself, grasping at straws, clinging to the hope that someone would come and save me.

They left me outside, lying on the ground near the trunk of a car, for everyone to see. It was a filthy trunk, covered in grime. Even though I could barely see inside, I could smell it—rotten, decayed, as if it had held something far worse than I could imagine. The stench clung to the air, making me feel sick, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away.

Every time a car passed by, I caught a glimpse of the inside. I could only imagine whoever had been inside and what fate awaited them.I knew I was in trouble. There was no more denying it.

Lying there, exposed for all to see, I felt the crushing weight of my own stupidity. I had thought I was so smart, so capable. I had thought I could handle anything the world threw at me. But I was wrong. I was so, so wrong.

Time seemed to stretch out endlessly as I lay there, staring at the sky. The blue was so bright, so indifferent to what was happening below. The world kept turning, completely unaffected by my misery, by the sheer wrongness of it all. I wanted to scream, to cry, to lash out. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. I was too numb, too defeated.

And yet, in that moment, something inside me hardened. The part of me that was still alive, still fighting, refused to give up completely. I wouldn’t let them see me break. Not fully. Not yet. But the fight was growing dimmer, weaker. It was like trying to keep a candle lit in the middle of a storm. The flame flickered as it seemed the Flame was winning.

I thought of Uncle, of how he had tried to warn me, how he had tried to keep me safe. He had seen this coming, hadn’t he? He had known what would happen if I stepped out into the world unprepared. I hadn’t listened. I had been too stubborn, too eager to prove myself. And now, here I was—lying in the dirt, my future in the hands of SMOKE, my pride shattered, my confidence gone.

But Uncle would come, wouldn’t he? I told myself that over and over again. He would make this right. He had to. He always did.