The Anomaly (Flash Fiction #1)

In a world where emotions are bought and sold, a young girl stumbles upon a hidden underground where genuine feelings still exist. What happens next?

Anomaly 3193 crouched under the fire exit of a dilapidated building, tucking in the bruised skin of her legs within her skirt. Splatters of cold December rain on the dinghy alley hit her face and bare arms, pricking her skin like the words of Mama, Anaz, and Stephanie.

Anomaly 3193 was eleven years old, and they were the only people she knew, or rather, who knew of her. Until the message came…

Now, she had left them behind. Forever.

This made her feel SAD – a reminder of what she was – an anomaly.

The thunderstorm slowed into a drizzle almost an hour later. Anomaly 3193 came out in the open and looked deep down the two roads ahead of her. On her left, the alley narrowed, the shadows deepened, and the stench seemed to find its source,

To her right, the alley led to one of the supersonic highways, crammed with high-speed cars, neon lights, and glass-door shops. One final look at the distant lights that trickled into the dinghy alley, and Anomaly 3193 chose to enter the shadows.

Anomaly 3193 walked in the drizzle for another two hours before the moon fought its way through the clouds, making the walk easier. She had always been prone to tripping. She was seven years old when she tripped, tumbled down the stairs, and broke a bone in her left leg. Mama couldn’t take her to the hospital fearing the doctor or the nurses would find out her truth.

In a world where every child at birth is injected with a serum to neutralize the part of the brain that generates emotions so that the trade of these emotions could proliferate, she was an anomaly. One, whose brain had survived the serum.

Anomaly 3193, her big brother, had named her after Anomaly 3192 was discovered by the Kingsmen and ‘brought to justice’.

Before the break of dawn, Anomaly 3193 had crossed the city limits and entered a disbanded railway station. For the morning, a rail car with moss and fungi growing out of it would be her shelter.

***

Anomaly 3193 stood before the gate that was camouflaged between two jagged rock faces. She laid down a knock as hard as her failing body would allow her. If not for the detailed map that she found inside a teddy bear left in her backyard, she would have never found this door.

When her knocks turned to loud bangs and the door stayed shut, she felt DESPERATION creep in. The map had come with a letter that promised her an underground world where Anomaly 3193 could finally be Celia Goldhart.

With hopes draining out from her eyes and the ground slipping from underneath, Celia heard the hinges move.

“We were waiting for you,” a woman spoke and a thick shawl wrapped itself around her. Celia succumbed to the warmth of the shawl.

Hours later, Celia woke up and a woman named Nanaeve left her warm food and drink. When Celia could walk again, Nanaeve held her arm as she walked down shadowy underground hallways and chambers of the utopian world of uncaged emotions. Men, women, and children of all ages, shapes, and colors greeted her with radiant smiles. Some had tears of JOY on seeing another living soul like theirs. Celia cried too. The secret world felt too good to be true.

Once Celia could think more clearly, she turned to Nanaeve and asked, “Can we ever get outside? Into our real world and show them what it means to feel happiness, anger, sadness, guilt, glee, and hope – all together and without having to pay for it?”

Nanaeve lost the color of her face and her gaze bore into the damp concrete floor.

“No, Celia. That world above us doesn’t deserve you, me, or anyone like us,” a young male voice reverberated in the hallway behind them. A voice familiar to every ear in this world. Celia swiveled around.

A boy, barely in his teenage, walked up to her. The KING. 

“It was my great-grandfather who built the Emotion serum and changed the world. Today, I carry out his will in the day and my own will in the shroud of the night. But I wouldn’t change a thing.”

Young Celia held herself together on the verge of breaking down. “Why? Why wouldn’t you fix the world? WHY?”

“Because in these dungeons, we are not anomalies. We are Gods. We are the Source. We are priceless.”