Darklandia Read Online Free PDF

eight students, including Darla, gawked at my outburst.
    “Miss Fisk? Are you all right?” Professor Gage asked, though the smile on his face belied any true concern.
    I could not be further from all right.
    “Yes, Professor Gage,” I said, as I stared at the dull surface of the pistol.
    “Then please examine the weapon and pass it to your neighbor,” Professor Gage replied before he turned back to the other students. “Feel the weight of the gun in your hand. This weapon was used by many darklings to kill themselves and other darklings by blowing large holes through their bodies. Guns were also often used as blunt objects to beat someone into submission.”
    Beat someone into submission.
    My heart thumped wildly as I slid my fingers beneath the gun. It was heavy as I lifted it off my desk. As I examined the weight and angles, I understood how it could be used to “beat someone into submission.” I was also beginning to understand that there were other ways to pound someone into a state of total obedience… ways that didn’t require guns or beatings.
    My eyes followed my sec-band as I handed the gun to Jennifer White. Under the influence of the rations, I loved my sec-band. It kept me safe. It carried my identity and all the knowledge I acquired in school. My sec-band allowed entry into my home and my Darklandia pod—my memories of my father. This titanium band attached to my wrist also had the power to render me unconscious, useless, obedient. The sec-band was charged with electricity to disable whoever was caught siding with the darklings. Only those who weren’t beaten into submission by the rations sided with the darklings.
    My stomach clenched inside me and the hunger pangs that plagued me through the night threatened to divulge my secret to the class. I had to get away, but all I could think of now was my grandmother. I wanted her back. Her rapture wasn’t necessary. She could have been raptured peacefully in her bed, in private, not before a crowd of smiling faces silently cheering on her executioner.
    Executioner. Where did I learn this filter word? It must have been in our Darkling History book. Darklings executed prisoners, only they called it “the death penalty”. They didn’t attempt to make it sound mystical by calling it a rapture .
    An overwhelming prickling pain in my nose overshadowed my hunger pangs. My cheeks and eyes seared with a dangerous warmth that spread through my face and lodged in my throat. I gritted my teeth attempting to stop the inevitable from happening, but I was powerless against the force of it.
    I glanced at the camera in the corner of the ceiling before I clapped my hands over my eyes to hide my treacherous tears. The sting of the electricity entered through my wrist, paralyzed me, raced through my nerves like gasoline set on fire, and exploded in my chest.
     
     

4
    I woke on the sofa of Headmaster Tate’s office. The angels’ uniforms appeared as blurry daubs of blue at each end of the sofa. My thirst and hunger sated. My exhaustion mostly gone except for a light tingling sensation at the base of my skull and the stiffness in my left arm. More importantly, the despair, the aching grief that had etched a shadow across my grandmother’s memory, was gone.
    The headmaster’s tall, slender body appeared over me. I averted my gaze and noticed the needle shoved deep inside the crook of my arm. A foam board taped securely to the underside of my forearm held my arm straight over the edge of the sofa. A thin tube dangled from the needle then curved upward toward a bag of clear fluid suspended on a hooked stand, sort of like the coatrack where I hung my tunic every day after school.
    “Sera, do you know why you’re here?” the headmaster asked in his silky voice. I shook my head and his head twitched to the side making his white pompadour quiver. His smile weakened for a moment before it returned to its permanent plastered state. “You haven’t been drinking your