Aphrodite

~ Registered ~

The jeans felt itchy, mostly because I wasn't used to it. My nails scratched my upper leg more than once while we walked over the streets. In the realm, everything had that sandy color, that shade of nature around. With streets as clean as you could get them. Here it was the complete opposite. The streets where uneven, I had to look where I walked, the houses where colorful. Most of them were brown, lighter grey, even a pastel blue one, all different structures. Some had black rooftops, other orange ones. Women wore wrinkled skirts, their faces stern and focused. There was as much color on the streets then there was on the houses. So imagine my face when we arrived at that school and I got to see a big bright white school building with big black letters "Cove elementary school" on top of the front gate. I didn't release I stopped walking as I watched the school. Black doors, black gates, everything in between white. You could see where the broken streets ended and flow into a neat grey path towards the school. 

'This will take a while.' Fay nodded. I followed her gaze over to the two rows of parents with kids. It was pretty obvious, girls were escorted by their mother, if there wasn't a mother the girl was mostly alone, or with a sister. There was hardly a couple waiting in line and if they did, they got all kinds of weird looks from everybody standing around. The only men standing around where the guards and the people registering the girls, all in those black suits with a white logo on the chest.

'Not that we had other plans.' I tried to sound encouraging. It did because Fay chuckled, looking up to me. 

'You should be working.' She stated. 

'Well, I will remind them that they should place more people for registration.' I looked down at her and softly winked. It wasn't that there were a lot of girls that needed to be registered... it was just a long procedure. Especially when every woman was being overprotective and protesting against the system. What I wanted to do to, badly, but I had to keep my head low until I had a feel of this world. My eyes fell on a blond boy sitting down behind a table. A guard went to stand aside him but nobody walked over. I heard the whisperings and I narrowed my eyes. 

'I hate this.' Faye muttered. I slowly looked down at her, she was looking at the young man to. He looked just so annoyed as the women who were waiting in line. 

'What?' 

'Lincoln, nobody likes him because he is cursed. Or at least, was.' Fay explained. Love was a curse here. That was what I was here for, to get rid of the ridiculous superstition saying that love could get you killed. Athena also said that I didn't have to know everybody, just as not everybody knew me. 

'So nobody goes to him because he loved somebody once.' I guessed out loud. 

'Yes, but isn't he just a beacon of hope? He loved, a boy loved a girl, that is good right?' 

'They probably think it will get them in trouble.' I thought, still looking. 

'Can we go?' Fay asked with a little doubt. I looked down at her and nodded. A big smile came on her lips as she started to drag me over to the table where the blond boy was sitting. Now I felt everybody looking at us. 'Just don't talk over what happened. Lincoln is a little,' she felt silent as we arrived at the table. Fay with a big smile and I just with frowned eyebrows. He wasn't looking, gazing from out of the corner of his eyes was more like it. 

'What? Scared you will get sick?' The sarcasm in his voice only seemed to cover something else.

'This is my sister Alessa, I came to,' 

'Identification.' He just interrupted her. He looked up to her before he shifted his eyes and caught me. While Fay got her identification out he just gazed at me, dreamy almost. I knew that my beauty, even in ripped jeans and no dress, was something no man would be able to withstand.

'Nothing else to comment?' I asked, joking. I wasn't sure if he would take that one good. But he laughed, breathing sharp in as he turned his attention back to my little "sister". I suppressed a smile, looking at how he used the laptop to get her details correct. The guard aside him shifted uneasy, gazing at me. In that way I know I made a difference already, not that I would enjoy the praying eyes that much. 

'You're going to get chipped in the arm, removing it is punishable. It will hurt a little,' Lincoln went on as he stood up and started preparing some kind of metal injection tool. 'Get me the doctor.' He commanded the guard beside him. But he was still looking at me and Lincoln followed his gaze to me. He frowned his eyes and looked back. 'What do you think will happen? She magically jumping in your arms?' He asked dryly. I bite my lip to not get into laughter until the guard walked away angry. 

'Thanks.' I said. Lincoln looked up, shrugging. 

'Apparently you need to be cursed first before you get descent around a girl.' He said without looking up. I wanted to protest that so badly. Nobody was cursed, love was pure and amazing and the best thing there was. But they wouldn't understand it the same way I did. I shifted my attention when he walked around the table and asked Fay to roll up her sleeve a little. 

'You love to do this?' I asked curiously. 

'Are you going to pay my bills?' He asked right back. I chuckled, looking up to the male doctor walking over. When he arrived all the humor disappeared when he looked up to me, pure blue circles around his pupil, screaming his immortality. He didn't seem to notice me, or my beauty for that matter, as he almost bored grabbed for Fay her arm. When I saw the needle my eyes grow, I looked up to Lincoln handing over the tool. 

 'Be careful with that.' I pointed out. The doctor turned around to me. Like I was a poor silly girl breaking the rules. One gaze, with one look in his metallic blue eyes he silenced me, for now. He placed the needle against Fay her arm and I grabbed her free hand, giving an encouraging squeeze as he pulled the trigger and that chip got launched into her arm. Fay hissed, blinking her watery eyes as the doctor pulled the needle back out. 

'Cove thanks you.' He said to the little girl while handing his tool back to Lincoln. 

'The only thing Cove gets with this is another slave.' I muttered, a little too loud maybe. 

'Who may you be for speaking up like you own these women?' The doctor asked. His voice was as distant and practical as his eyes were. A stern old face with a brown mustache and shortcut hair.

'I own nothing, you do.' 

'Alessa.' Fay tugged at my sweater and I looked away from the doctor to her, silently begging me to stop this small hint of protest. I took a breath, looking back up to the doctor. 

'I'm sorry.' I just said, not really meaning it. It looked like the doctor was planning on saying something else but another guard called after him and he just gave me a filthy look before walking away. There was that awkward silence after as I looked away from him back to Lincoln who was pulling up his eyebrows and sat down again. 

'What?' I asked. 

'Nothing, just, the last woman I heard speaking up like that was,' he felt silent, shaking his head as he looked down to his laptop again. 

'Who?' 

'I have a job to do here, you are good to go.' He said to me and Fay after checking her chip.

'There is nobody waiting in line.' I pointed out the blank space behind me. 

'That mouth is gonna get you killed.' He fired back, a little impatience all of a sudden. 

'It probably will, at least I die with meaning then.' I shrugged, turning around while leading Fay away. She held onto her arm like he was going to drop off any minute now. As I walked I could see the fear of young girls their faces. I turned my head to see the brutal ways they forced a girl her arm on the table. They chipped her like they would brand a horse, not even caring about her desperate cry. I felt so much anger boiling inside of me as the young girl without a parent fell down on her knees. In the corner of my eyes Lincoln was watching me, shaking his head softly as soon as I made eye contact. Women didn't protest to such matters, they had to obey, to work, to act as a slave. When I looked around every woman was looking, all wanting to do something but all so afraid of the system. Well, it was time to change that, after all, that is why I'm here for.