"It doesn't matter," I said under the warms confines my blanket.

"If it's upsetting you, it does matter!" Momo said, leaning from the sill above my bedroom window.

Outside, the orange rays of the sun were peaking over the hills surrounding the mirrored towers and green valleys of the upper city. It was almost morning, and I had done nothing but toss in my bed, with only the company of my racing thoughts.

"I'm not upset," I lied again.

"Yes, you are," Momo said and grazed the ends of my hair with her tiny plastic hands.

I could hear the sincerity in Momo's voice, an ache that made want to comfort her back. The others were right, I did not know much about computers, but there was something about Momo that always made me feel like she was much more than a machine and more human than most people I had met.

I pulled from under my covers and began to spill my thoughts to her.

•·················※·················•

It was after my lab hours when Mat messaged my room.

Mshadow: Hey...What are you doing after hours?

Vshadow: Having dinner. What else would I do?

Mshadow: Meet me outside in the gardens.

Vshadow: Are you going to tell me what's going on?

                     Mat?????

                    Hellllllo?

I should have ended it there, made the fastest trip to the cafeteria, gathered my food and taken the nearest elevator to my dorm, but there would be too many questions left unanswered. It was a temptation I had never learned to just let be.

I clenched my hands as I walked through the cafeteria exit and towards the gardens.

Mat stood at the farthest end of the fountain, behind the streams of bubbling water where the city light couldn't reach. It was so dark I would have almost missed him if he did not walk forward at the sight of me.

"Good you're here," he said, with a grin fixed high on his face.

I felt as stupid as could be. Mat knew I couldn't resist an unanswered question. He knew I would show.

"Now," I said, clenching my fist tighter, "Are you going to tell me why I'm here?"

"Calm down," Mat laughed, "I just need a favor."

"Like what?"

"I need you to," he said and looked over his shoulder into the darkness, "I need you to cover my shift, okay?"

"Cover your shift!" I shouted, and dropped my arms to my sides, "I covered for you last week! You still owe me you know."

"I know, I know," Mat whispered, and looked back again, "It's just I need to see my mom. They won't give lower-city permissions on my hours off or let her up here."

"Did they tell you why?"

"Some crap about us needing time to adjust to our schedules," Mat scoffed, "I don't know when that is, but I can't wait anymore knowing she's right under me. Val, I've already waited too long."

I looked at Mat. His deep green eyes were pleading in a way I had never seen before. He missed his mom. Something I could never quite understand for myself but somehow looking at him I could almost understand. If just for a moment. If just from hearing the pain in his voice.

He had me.

"Fine," I said and sighed.

"Thanks, Val," Mat threw his arms around me, and rested his chin on my neck, "You're the best," he whispered into my ear.

It sent a chill up my thighs.

"You're welcome," I said and huffed as he pulled away, "When is it anyway?"

"Um, well," Mat said backing away from me, "It's tonight."

"Tonight!" I said, "You really owe me!"

"I'll find a way to pay you back," Mat said, "I promise."

Mat walked to a patch of flowers, picked a pink blossom from its stem and ran his hand through a tangled piece of my hair. At the top of my ear, he wedged a crimson flower in place.

"Thanks, Valen," Mat said with watery eyes.

I turned my back before he could see my smile.

"You've got something in your eye," I said as I walked away.

It wasn't Mat that I hated. It was how Mat made me feel I hated the most and how I still felt it long after he was gone.

•·················※·················•

If the Union was a house and donation hours were a chore, it would be cleaning the toilet.

Complaints or no complaints, every member of the upper-city had to participate in donation clinic hours at least once a week.

During these hours any resident in the lower-city could volunteer to donate their cells in exchange for extra contribution funds. From outside the clinic doors, in the center tower of the lower-city, hundreds of donors lined up around the city block in their torn clothes and a registration card in their hand. It was easy to see why the upper-city needed such a workforce.

Court had demonstrated to me how these donations were performed with a mouse one afternoon. She first submerged the lower half of the mouse in a beaker filled with a translucent but fermented smelling liquid. After some time, she removed the mouse from the glass, all as it writhed and squealed in pain. The remaining liquid still within the beaker had turned a deep brown, filled with what Court told me was marrow and cells from the mouse's bones. It was another question I had asked, that soon after I wanted to take back.

The marrow taken from the lower-city residents during clinic hours was turned into the healing medicine used by the rest of the Union in the upper city. The injection was used to heal wounds, illnesses, or sold those who could afford more than their share. From a hangnail to a forehead wrinkle, to a deadly disease they all shared the same treatment for the same steep price. More than any lower-city person could afford I had learned, even with their extra donation contributions.

These were the many reasons why I was still clenching my fist, hours after making my promise to Mat. It wasn't uncommon for people to trade shifts, though on the record it was forbidden and frowned upon. But, as long as someone showed up most of the supervisors couldn't care who was there, as long as it was someone who could do the work.

I was the only person in the family whose elevator permissions didn't seem to be determined by my working hours. I had shared this with the others one night over dinner. Since then I had been suckered into taking clinic hours for each of them. Mat for his mother, Evee to spend more time with her sister, and with Nate, I didn't bother to ask as I knew I wouldn't get an answer. It was after a long day in the lab like this, I wished I had never shared this with any of them.

I bit my lip as the elevator doors to the lower-city opened, and promised myself this would be the last time I would trade shifts. I walked into the crowded elevator of other white coats. Each had their own complaint about their shift. Some were missing an important live feed, others were being pulled away from a promising lab result, but most were already upset by the unpleasant smell filling the tight confines of the elevator. The same smell that I had learned was the fermented smell of the donation chemicals.

Outside the elevator was a long white hall with steel doors and bars of fluorescent lights hanging from the mirrored ceiling. On the right, there was a station where one of the many supervisors was stationed. Each of the white coats before passing through the hall had to tap their bracelets to a steel pad fixed under supervisor's window. If you were scheduled the pad would flash green and the laser gate between the station and the rest of the hall would disable. If you weren't scheduled, you ended up like me.

"Hold it there!" the stern voice of a woman shouted after I passed the station.

I froze in place and wondered if I had come across the one supervisor who did care.

I walked back towards the supervisor's booth. It was a small fixture in the wall with a plate of glass between us and a round hole to speak into. The supervisor had thick black curls and pale skin that was matured past anyone I had seen in the Union.

"Alright, who are you covering for?" she said through pasty pink painted lips.

"Um, Mat Shadow," I said, trying to sound as calm as possible.

"Alright, report to room seventeen," she said typing in the glass of her desk, "He's covered."

"Thank you, Carr-ie," I replied, reading the silver name tag of her white coat.

Carrie let out a chuckle, "Dear, whoever he is, he's not worth it. Trust me," she said and waved her hand towards the disabled gate.

I scurried through just before another load of white coats came flooding in from the elevator behind me.

•·················※·················•

The halls beyond the gate were the most familiar place I had found since we arrived. The endless white halls of doors, blinding lights and people in white uniforms rushing from both sides, both soothed and alarmed me. It was like no time had passed since I had left the center. As though nothing had changed in all this time.

I looked over my shoulder and onto a steel door marked with the number four. I had to find room seventeen.

As I turned the corner, I saw a young boy, no taller than my knee. He didn't want to be here. I could tell by the way he clawed at the white walls, and how the white coats had to drag him away against the slippery white tiles of the clinic.

There was something about this, a small child being dragged away, that struck me like a hard blow to the chest. A hard feeling I wanted to keep where it was safe. Where it was contained.

I turned the corner again, the pace in my chest rising. I had entered the lower-city entrance. It was a wider hall than the others, but unlike the upper city entrance, only a few donors could pass at a time. It was monitored by dozens of guards standing against the padded walls. Their stocky guns sat against their black armored chest.

I was certainly in the wrong place now. I swiveled my feet across the slippery floor and felt a different kind of blow to the chest before I stumbled back.

I looked back to what I had struck.

It was a small figured. I couldn't be sure if it was a man or a woman. They wore a long black veil that covered their face only showing their brown eyes. Their black clothes draped around their body and over their hands. It would have been terrifying if I wasn't more frightened at being so late.

"I'm so sorry," I said and proceed up the hall.

I knew it was rude of me to leave so soon, but I had never been so late to my clinic hours before and I knew wouldn't get lucky with a supervisor twice in one night.

As I paced up the hall, I heard the steps of someone behind me.

I looked back. It was the veiled figure, far behind but getting closer and faster. I looked across the hall, there was no one else. I quickened my steps until they were almost leaps but still, the ghostly figure followed.

"I'm sorry okay, I didn't mean to -" I shouted behind.

"It's me," the figure whispered.

Inside I crumbled, like every bone in my body was turned to stone and then rubble. The sweet smell of fruit and the feel of a plush lap came racing back and filled my eyes with a warm pressure.

"Little lion," she spoke again, "It's me, Valencia."

"No, it's not," I said and backed against the wall.

"You have to believe me," she said, reaching out her arms to me.

"No, no I don't actually," I said, my voice rising.

"Please stop, I need to tell you so much."

"I don't know you," I said and leaned away, "So please, please leave me alone."

"Please," the veiled figure said, stepping back, "Give me the chance to tell you the truth, and I will never ask to see you again. I promise."

I looked around the hallway, there was still no one around.

The veiled figure reached to her side into a pocket and unfolded a piece of paper, revealing the printed side of a photo.

"This, this was how it started," she said and titled the photo so I could see.

There in the photo were three ghosts I had not seen since I was a child.

There were three of them, gathered together and smiling with arms locked across. Dr. Meng, his thick, shiny black hair, was atop his head in a spiked style and wearing a fitted navy suit. At the center was Valencia looking no older than me, her bright smile was bare of red lipstick, and her wavy chestnut hair was grown to her waist. The last was a face I could only recognize for their cobalt blue eyes.

It was Milo, but not as I had remembered him. His blonde hair was grown out, his body was scrawny not in the least bit intimidating. Around his eyes were a thin-framed glasses and a smile that was carefree and joyful.

"This was us just before we got assigned at the center," the woman said, through the black veil, "We told ourselves, no matter what happened we would do what we came for. We would save the children."

"Please leave me alone," I said and bit on my trembling lip to keep it steady.

"But we couldn't," the woman said and looked down, "We didn't protect you. I didn't protect you, not how I should have. We thought we could fight the world."

"You're lying to me," I said through hot tears, "You're not even Valencia. If you were, you'd show me your face!"

I was blind, my hands were shaking, and my face was flushed with anger.

"You have to believe me, it's me," the woman pleaded.

"Then show me your face!" I said and stepped forward, "Or are you still a coward?"

The woman lowered her head and pinched her thumb to the side of the veil. She slowly lowered the black pieces of cloth revealing the brown spots of her skin.

I only saw her in pieces, first the rough ripples of her temples, then the deep cavities of her cheek and jutting bones, then last to her mouth, no longer red and supple, but dry and cracked with broken pieces of blackened skin.

I let out a howl. It bellowed through my stomach and ripped up to my lungs, piercing the soft flesh of my throat on its way out.

It was after this scream that I heard the sound of many doors swing open, and white coats crowd the hall.

Valencia lifted the black cloth of her veil and sprinted back to where she had come from.

She had left me scarred, broken and alone once more.