I woke up to the light ... but it wasn't warm. It crept through the small opening above, weak, dirty, as though it didn't know how to truly be light.
I hadn't slept well; the ground was hard. My limbs were stiff. Everything in my body urged me not to move.
But I got up.
The air was stagnant.
As if the room had forgotten to breathe, just like me.
I stood up and looked around.
Nothing had changed. the same mat. The same worn-out wall. The cracked mirror, waiting for me without mercy.
I approached it... and looked.
I was still there.
But... not as I should have been.
Black hair, dark lashes, empty black eyes they weren't mine.
I remember well, my hair was white. My lashes were white. My eyes were light blue, pale like old light.
But they didn't accept that. They couldn't accept "failure" bearing the marks of purity.
When I was exiled, they changed my appearance. Not through surgery, nor with any complex technology... just a substance, a layer over my skin, a color that could be removed whenever I chose.
An imposed paint.
A simple mask.
A covering that doesn't last.
They didn't care. It was just another way to erase the traces of the experiment.
But I didn't forget.
And one day, I will tear away this cover. Strand by strand. Lash by lash.
And I will restore my features as they were not because they deserve it, but because I am the one who decides how I look.
---
I put on my coat. It was still tight around the shoulders. I left the room and shut the door behind me. There was no key. I didn't ask for one.
Downstairs, I found a man behind a rickety table. He didn't look at me. He stretched out his hand with a paper.
"You're in the records now. Room 14, Wing A. Don't lose the paper."
I asked him, "Won't... I be asked for something?"
He answered without raising his head, "No one asks anyone here. If you want to eat, work. If you want to stay, don't disturb."
I took the paper. I didn't say anything.
---
I stepped into the street.
The weather was gray. Just like yesterday. Cars passed by, horns blared, birds didn't fly.
The buildings stood like tired giants. Broken windows, burned signs, sounds coming from places you couldn't see.
I walked north, where I was told there was an employment center.
I didn't know the city. But the path wasn't difficult.
There weren't many intersections… just narrow streets, and walls that whispered as I passed by.
---
I arrived at the building. It was the same color as everything else: gray, tired, fearful of collapsing.
I entered.
A man behind a glass desk looked at me with one eye. The other was glass.
I said to him, "I came to register for work."
He asked for the paper. I handed it to him.
He read it silently... then frowned.
"Your name… is not registered in the public network."
I froze.
"But… the paper's from the institution."
He pointed to the red seal at the bottom.
"This is a special seal. Fine. Come back in two days. We'll see what we can do."
"And that means... no food?"
He replied while writing something: "Take this coupon. One temporary meal. Don't get used to handouts."
I took it. I said, "Thank you." Even though I didn't mean it.
---
I returned to the building.
I opened the door and entered my room.
The same wall. The same cold air.
I sat on the floor, my back to the wall, the paper in my hand.
Today had been simple. But it hurt me more than all my days in the orphanage.
Because now...
I was completely alone.
For the first time, I understood what it meant to be "outside."
Not just outside the orphanage... but outside of everything.
No one was watching me. No one told me what to do.
And this didn't feel like freedom.
It was more like being left in a place where there are no doors... no windows.
---
I stretched my legs in front of me. The room was quieter than it should be.
I thought… about those who talked about "awakening."
In the orphanage, we would hear stories. About children, of my age, something began to form in their chests.
A nucleus, a pulsating stone, unseen, but present. It is born dormant with them… then it awakens at the age of ten.
If it stabilizes, the child is sent to the academy.
A small continent in the middle of the ocean, unclaimed by anyone. An engineering miracle created by the great families, to become the home of the "awakened."
But I know... that I will never go there.
I'm not waiting for a nucleus to awaken.
I... was born with it. They implanted it in me from the moment I came into the light.
But it didn't work.
They said my body rejected it... or that the nucleus rejected me.
No matter what the truth is, the result was the same: "Failed experiment."
---
I rubbed my chest. Sometimes I feel something small there. No pain... but a strange pulse.
As if the nucleus didn't die completely… but is waiting.
But even if that's true, no one cares.
I won't be accepted into the Academy of the Awakened.
And I won't even be a "garbage collector."
The garbage collectors… those who leave the continents, enter "the Second World," and return with things we can't make here.
From there, we get energy, minerals, restoration technologies.
To become a garbage collector, you must join a training program, a full year of training.
And even that… doesn't seem like it was made for people like me.
---
I looked at the paper in my hand.
Tomorrow, I will try to find a simple job. Anything.
Carrying, cleaning, moving. Even garbage collectors started as feet walking through the mud.
Why not?
If I'm not awakened…
Let me be something else.
Something that cannot be ignored.
I lay down on the cold mat.
My eyes on the dim, cold ceiling.
I whispered softly, to no one:
"If there is no place for me...
Then I'll make one."