After a quick shower and some food and much-needed medication, I'm seated cross-legged in the main room of the pod, seated on a crate that—thankfully—doesn't have some draft hidden in or behind it.

I don't think I'd be able to handle it.

The drafts have been herded to another section of the pod, leaving me alone with Whisper. I can't get my mind off them, however, and it hurts to no end, to know that they're just so young, but they've endured so much pain, so much horror in their lives.

Edit needs to stop.

"So let's get this straight. I need an ally, someone who has access to the Edit system to get into the building. I need help to let the voices of those kids—" Whisper waves her hands towards a sealed door at this—"be heard. I need to let people hear my voice."

I nod in agreement. I don't think anything can be more powerful and resounding and impactful as the voices of the drafts. They've been hidden for so long, trapped in Rehabilitation or the Black Hole.

It's time they rise.

When we're down on the ground, broken and bruised and hurt and torn and used, I think speaking up, letting the world know how much pain you're in, can help, although it can be confusing, especially when you don't know exactly what to do, how to fix the situation, and there's almost no one out there for you.

People call that despondency. I call it a learning experience, something you can tap on to become stronger.

Edit makes me stronger; it doesn't tear me down, hurt me or break me. I'm still going to be me until the end. I'm not going to change, because I have the flame of hope, of courage, of uniqueness in me.

It's never going to go out. It's something valuable I learnt after Edit destroyed my life, and I decided to move on, to learn to brave the storms.

And that's brought me far.

"But the problem is that no one knows who we are, and there's no point, basically. We're the underbelly of society, scarred and ugly and useless to others." Whisper's eyes grow darker as she takes in this fact.

She's right. The people who see it would go mad. They'll hold riots. Fights. War.

Carmen's words echo in my head. "In a war, people die."

Sacrifices will be made.

"You're not...draft-looking, though," I say, raising my eyebrows, pretty surprised.

Whisper laughs bitterly. "You wouldn't want to see me for me."

"But that's what Edit's doing to you! Whisper, you've been hiding behind this façade, this curtain, this veil for too long, don't you think? You shouldn't let Edit get their way. That's what I'm here for." I argue.

"You know nothing about me," Whisper snaps, her voice cold and sharp, a sword piercing my heart.

"I tried to be perfect, and I wanted to be the best. Look where's it's taken me. I have no choice, Amber. I can't just wake up every morning and look at myself, the real me, and think, hey, you don't look that bad. I can't, but you'll never understand that, so stop pretending that you know every blasted thing on this planet!"

My throat feels dry, and something invisible is stuck in it, making it hard to breathe.

Whisper takes a staggering breath. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean that. It's just a natural reaction after...everything."

"I get it," my voice comes out choked and hoarse as tears start to burn the back of my eyes.

I attempt to push away the thoughts that tell me that Whisper is right. All along, I've been trying to act like a smart alec.

"Anyways, I'll show you," Whisper's eyes soften a little, "but you can't tell anyone. Not the kids, not your friends, not anyone. I'm dead serious about this one."

"Okay," I agree.

"Do we have a deal, Amber?" She sticks out her hand, a light brown that was a major trend a few years back.

I shake her hand.

"You can't tell anyone," she repeats, taking a deep breath. Her next words get my breath hitched in my throat.

"Especially Kota."

I'd wished it just was a coincidence, but horror fills me as Whisper's face and skin fades, replaced by the terrifying image of a broken, bruised girl.

Dakota's adoptive sister.

Emily.

Scars that resemble claw marks stretch from her left eye to her chin, and bruises and cuts swell her right cheek. Her dark eyes study me carefully. In them, I see doubt, fear, insecurities. Everything I'd owned since I lost my sense of touch.

I tear my eyes away from her mangled face and find her arms. My eyes widen. "Property of Edit Facility—The Black Hole" was carved into her arm, apparently, a white scar now spelling out the words.

"Oh stars," I gasp.

Whisper—Emily—returns to the façade she'd worn a second ago, but the image of the real, raw her remains imprinted in my mind.

"Aren't you supposed to be dead?" I yell, my eyes open wide.

"Key word: supposed. I can't die, Amber, at least not now. But to everyone else, yeah I'm dead. I became a draft. And drafts don't live." She forces a smile.

"I tried, Amber, to be the most perfect girl there. Some people had told me a while back that if I was a good girl, they'd let me go." Her gaze flickers to mine, and I see the same emotions of pain in her brown orbs. "Am I supposed to be surprised that there are still liars on this planet?"

I lower my eyes.

"I don't understand it, you know," I notice the miniscule catch in her voice, "what those liars are after. What benefit do they actually get from lying? The pleasure of seeing people getting torn to the ground, crying themselves to sleep, wondering what hope there is left in the world? I...I don't even—"

Emily takes a huge gulp of air. "When I told the other drafts that, I got my first scar. When I tried to escape myself, they hit me."

Like Athena.

"When I continued to struggle, they carved that into my arm." She points at her right arm, quickly withdrawing her hand as if the scar was poisonous.

"But when someone broke the sensor for the first time, I managed to grab a few kids and leave."

Chance saved Dakota's adoptive sister. Does he know that? Will I ever get to speak to him again?

I refuse to tell myself no.

"And then we been using the food in here, which has lasted us for pretty long. We're planning to get more resources soon. I'll manipulate my Edit and just—"

"You can manipulate Edit?" That's impossible!

"Yeah, but it's..." Emily scratches the back of her neck, "unadvisable. Like Edit, there are its side effects, and they aren't exactly pleasant."

"Like?"

"The bruises and cuts? One for each hour I continue to manipulate my Edit. It takes extreme concentration and whatnot, but nowadays the pain from beating myself up indirectly is pretty familiar, so I'm fine with it. It's the same way I manipulated you just now. I'm not sorry about that, by the way, or else the kids and I wouldn't get any help."

Oh, stars.

"But once Edit is taken down, you replay your campaign video and save the world, I'll go back to my unattractive face, so stop looking at me like that," Emily forces a smile.

I stay silent for a while.

"Where did you get the manipulation power thing from? I mean, I know that Edit staff can materialize objects out of thin air, but I've never heard of manipulation." The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them.

"I learnt it from someone...for a price." Emily doesn't elaborate, and I don't push her either. She has her rights to privacy, and sometimes I think it's better to leave the past where it should remain—behind us.

"From what I know," Emily continues, "you're a fighter. You've fought through the loss of your touch and Edit and—"

"How did you know?"

"You're basically a celebrity now," Emily scoffs, "and I'm Dakota's sister. Adoptive, anyway."

"She's been communicating with you?"

"No, but the trackers...and the video you shot and played? I think majority of people know your life story by now, f they bothered to watch it and be scared of Edit, that is," Emily flashes me a smirk. But it's an almost sad one, not a playful, sarcastic one.

"They aren't?" I was half-expecting the people to start rebelling against Edit after watching the video, but really, what could I have thought? That I'd have a whole population of people that are controlled by Edit under my rule?

As if that would happen.

"Edit is basically a permanent fixture in their lives now. When you were addicted to it, would you have ever wished for it to disappear? No." Emily points at me for emphasis.

She's right.

"You would have rebelled against those people who want to take Edit down, namely you. And for your information, it is a very likely occurrence. They probably thought you'd fabricated some story to scare them. Anyone can do that. But if the people see us, then there is going to be a whole different story." Emily gestures to herself and waves her hand at the closed pod door, seeming to want to convince me that showing them to the world is a good idea.

"But—"

"Think about it, Amber. Think about it." Emily leaves me on the crate and walks off, and just before she opens the door she looks over her shoulder at me.

"You could change the world. Don't forget that."

Then she leaves, leaving me there in a daze, my mind clouding with the decisions I have to make, and the consequences.

I remember when I was just a young kid I'd thought I was fearless. Everything was within my control, and I didn't need to be afraid of whatever I did. My parents sheltered me, and I had Chance.

I wish I could go back and tell myself what I know right now, but it's too late to catch me. I'm falling into a never-ending rabbit hole, and it's so confusing. Lights are flashing and I suddenly realize that all I've ever known isn't real, and my parents, my "friends", the people I know and love, they're all just people who have only known how to touch and go.

I'm afraid. I'm going to admit this loud and clear.

But everyone always has this afraid in them, anyway. It's impossible to be fearless, to be strong forever. There's always going to be something bigger, something more powerful out there, and it's going to hurt you, it's going to push you down and scar you and tell you you aren't good enough, that you can never defeat them.

What puzzles me is why they do this.

What will they gain from seeing us fall to the ground?

I need a rebellion. I need something to help me, something to back me up when I charge into Edit headfirst. Because it doesn't matter that I've fallen once, that they've stopped me once. I'm going to try again and again, until they kill me and I die.

Then I realize, in this split second, I've become fearless again.

I'm not going to let them control me. I'm not their puppet on a string, not their obedient dog.

I'm me, and there's no definition to that.

The walls that Edit has built, the lies they have told, all of it will fall down.

I can do this.

Wishing all of you (who celebrate it) a Good Friday. May God bless you.

Song above is "I Dare You" by Bea Miller. Dedicated to my (oh-so-very) interesting siblings, who through late night conversations about Panem and dystopian societies and science fiction and fantasy novels, childish pillow fights and piercing laughter, midnight karaoke sessions and discussions about certain book characters and school troubles, have (unknowingly) inspired many thousands of my story plots and motivated me to motivate others to be who they really are.

Thank you for the terrible days too, when you guys tell on me and dig up some embarrassing story that I wrote when I was six and making me cry and yell and in the end make up with you guys.

You guys make up my life, basically. This chapter is yours.

-NeverEverGiveUp-