Chapter 3: Rations and Rituals ---
1648 Words
The sun climbed sand-slow over the dunes, gold-tinging them before it blazed them white.
Inside Vault 9, light had passed through the solar sheeting like a thinned memory of morning. Not that it was sun—merely simulated beams designed to fit the League's schedule. And yet, the individuals did assemble. And yet, they bowed.
It was Waterday.
In the oasis hall of the Oasis Vault, the crowds stood in deep, robed lines, bodies bent low, hands upturned. Looming over them, the canopy shone with mirrored condensation domes, built to trap every molecule of water that the underground air could yield. Under their feet, the citizens of the city stood in ceremonial stillness, not just for ration—but for consecration.
Faris stood by the altar in complete guardian uniform: cobalt blue tunic, black tactical sash, silver-pinned badge of the Youth Hydration Corps. His lips were dry, though not through thirst.
He scanned faces in the crowd—so many dry eyes staring at the altar. Even children stood frozen, tongues automatically stuck to the back of their mouths. The atmosphere stank of rock and anticipation. And shame.
From the central platform, his mother stood.
Zahra al-Mustafa was once a hydrochemist—before the wars, before the League, when belief was still not codified. She now stood clothed in white and gold, wet sleeves to the elbow, as was the tradition of the Priestess of Wellspring. Twin conduits hummed beside her, on either side, with filtered brine, humming softly with power and purity.
The Book of Wellspring lay in her hands.
Faris watched her open it to the gilded chapter: The First Overflowing.
She spoke, and her words resounded off the dome.
"In the beginning, there was thirst.
And from thirst, discipline.
And from discipline, life.
And from life, the Covenant of the Drop."
A ripple of murmured assent followed: "May the Drop never fall in vain."
Faris's knuckles flexed.
He'd heard those words all his life—first as bedtime, then as code. But recently, they've begun to sound like a performance. Like a cover for something drier and darker.
Zahra plunged a crystal cup into the fountain at her feet, holding it aloft. "One drop for the Soul. One for the Soil. One for the Seed." She let three exact drops fall into the ritual channel, where they were drawn back in by the system the moment they hit.
Then came the rationing.
The pumps whirred. The pipes opened.
A silence, electric.
In close formation, groups advanced, offering their biometric tokens to claim their daily ration: 0.6 liters for every adult, 0.3 for a child. The dispensing nozzles chimed softly with every authenticated measure.
Faris observed a boy, perhaps six years old, not quite tall enough to reach the spout. He held the flask with respect, as if he was cradling the neck of a revered beast.
He drank one sip.
Then handed the rest to his grandmother.
Faris averted his eyes.
---
After the ceremony, he ran into his mother in the inner cloister, behind the screen of cisterns. It was quiet there—just the gentle pulse of the purification pods.
"You witnessed it again, didn't you?" Zahra murmured.
Faris rested against the marble, arms folded. "Witness what?"
She delivered the mother's look. "The tank. The numbers."
He nodded.
She dabbed the tip of her sleeve to her lips. "And what will you do?"
"I don't know," he replied. "But someone's pilfering water. That's not a sensor failure. And if Rahim won't believe it, I need someone who will."
Zahra stumbled. "You think the League is lying to you."
He didn't answer.
"You want to believe the truth is an outlaw operator. One saboteur. A supervillain in a black suit." She studied him. "But what if the system itself is the ghost?"
Faris's jaw dropped, and then closed.
Zahra continued, "You were taught to respect the drop. But the League was built to rule it. There's a difference."
He seethed at her. "So why do you recite them in?"
She smiled dreamily. "Because humans require something to cling to when their mouths are dry."
Faris rose from the wall, anger spreading in his chest. "Faith does not fuel the tank.".
No, she replied, holding out her hand. "But it provides them with a reason not to riot while it's bleeding."
---
Later in the Youth Guardian barracks, Faris looked at his own flask. Quarter-full. His own allowance.
The thirst was psychological. He only took it when he needed it, but now the need itself was suspect. Like each sip was stealing from someone else.
Kai came, unwanted but not unsummoned. He left a ration bar on Faris's bunk. "Heard you were referred to as 'observant' again by Rahim. That's commander slang for 'pest.'"
Faris's response was a wry smile. "At least it's an improvement from 'blind.'"
Kai occupied the chair across from him. "I overheard a rumor. Vault 12 got an extra allotment yesterday."
Faris straightened up. "That's impossible."
"Unless someone's moving supply lines.".
Faris recalled the silhouette he had seen in the reservoir chamber. "Ghost Line."
Kai softly whistled. "You believe it's real?"
"I believe it's live."
They glared at each other.
Kai finally said, "I have access to the maintenance logs. Ancient ones. Legacy records, mostly censored. But I know a hack through the purification terminal."
Faris stood up. "Let's find out who's siphoning off the Vaults."
---
That night, Faris returned to the water altar, alone.
The basin shone with the afterglow of this morning's ritual. He loomed over it, his hand poised above the holy valve.
"May the Drop never fall in vain."
The words now felt like a vow. A union written in dryness.
He closed his eyes.
And turned the valve half an inch counterclockwise—just enough to simulate leakage.
A test.
If someone fixed it and never made a log entry…
He'd know the Ghosts weren't just tales.
They existed.
And they were dry.
--
The sun, a melted disc leaking heat, hung just at the rear of the dome's filtered haze, glazing the Cathedral of Wellspring with a golden glow. Its ribbed arches of salvaged steel, water-soaked and bone-white, caged the crowd like the spine of an animal long deceased. All the citizens stood shoulder to shoulder in the prayer amphitheater—baptized in sweat, silent, awed.
From where he stood near the front, Faris watched as his mother climbed the steps to the platform. She moved in slow, practiced grace, palms cupped like bowls. Even at this distance, he could make out the soft splash of the vial in her hand, the holy drop contained in crystal. Behind her, priest-guardians walked in mirrored robes, veiled faces concealed by vapor hoods.
She faced the crowd and began.
"In the Beginning, the Thirst."
The rest echoed it, soft chants that slid over the dome like blowing sand.
"In the Thirst, the Descent. In the Descent, the Wellspring."
Faris mouthed it but didn't speak. He observed her. She was soft here, voice singing, eyes shut on ancient words rearranged a thousand times.
A boy beside him began to cry—presumably for dehydration, though the mother promptly silenced her with a shudder. Faris could almost feel tension on the back of his tongue: salty, metallic, the flavor of contained desire.
The ritual continued.
His mother raised the crystal vial to the sky. "This drop remembers the Flood. This drop is the Covenant. This drop is enough."
Enough.
The word struck Faris like sand to the eye.
The League had only rationed so far. But lately, it hasn't been sufficient to maintain algae beds in bloom or hydro-pumps from strangling. He'd seen creeping asphyxiation in the vault logs. And last night, when he tried to rerun a second scan after curfew, access had been denied.
After the final verse, the League officers wheeled in the ration altar—a black obsidian table with one spigot mounted in its center. Rahim, dressed out, emerged from behind it. His water cloak, dripping with lines of condensation, shone like rain trapped in silk.
"Brothers and sisters," Rahim stated, voice almost bored, "the League honors your faith. You will shortly receive your measure. Line by household. No waste, no excess."
The crowds streamed into lines. Faris waited in line for Sector 3, whose quota had just been reduced by half. Ahead of him, a frail individual collapsed, knees buckling onto sandcrete. No one hastened to help. The law was clear—weakness was not a crime, but disruption at allotment.
Faris looked past his mother, kneeling in prayer after the ritual now. Her mouth moved but she didn't make a sound. She looked old all of a sudden, like sand had worn her away from inside.
When it came to his turn, the ration officer read his tag and turned the valve. One single stream flowed into the League-issue flask: 400 ml, the household quota for a Class C worker.
He stared at it—a plastic gullet of liquid living.
Then was the whisper.
"Spill it and be lashed," the officer snarled without looking at him.
Faris did not blink. He'd heard those words before. Like everyone else. Like his father had—until his final inspection was fatal.
He stepped aside and sipped the water slowly, as if one were being given communion. Each swallow was to be sacred. Each gulp, a vow.
But all Faris could think was how he'd witnessed algae tanks become yellow, not green.
How readings were being overridden.
How Rahim's uniform glimmered with surplus.
And how, in contradiction of the rituals and scripture and prayers, the water was vanishing.
He exited the cathedral and walked into the blistering heat and did not look back.
Something was not right. And he had to get to the bottom of it before it was turned into dust.
---
- Writer
