نوال بشارة (nawal) wrote in invol_rpg, @ 2013-01-02 02:26:00 |
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After posting her journal entry, Nawal looked through the list of names of new students she had compiled from the directory. One name stuck out to her in particular -- Enely Must, Estonia, the girl who had been kidnapped and escaped. Kidnapping had been Nawal's greatest fear when she was Enely's age, and it still was. Even as she could empathize with Enely's sudden shift to a new and unfamiliar environment, Nawal couldn't begin to imagine what the kidnapping must have been like for her. The mere thought of it sent shivers down her spine. Closing the lid of her IVI-issued laptop, Nawal decided that she would give Enely a personal welcome. Her adjustment must be even more difficult than the usual, and she might appreciate speaking with someone who had also struggled with dangerous powers (she made a mental note to mention that support group she had tried to start earlier). It wasn't difficult to find Enely. Her new room, a previously unoccupied single, was directly across the hall from Nawal's. Nawal liked her roommate, but she couldn't help but feel a flash of jealousy. She sometimes had to navigate the room carefully, to avoid touching Logan and giving her a difficult and destructive power -- but she supposed Enely's entire life comprised that dance of avoidance. She bit her lip and rapped her knuckles on the door. Enely had been finishing up her maths homework (simple stuff, really) when she heard the knock. It was funny how much that sort of thing rattled her now, but after her initial jump she calmed, sticking a pencil in her book and shutting it before she got up. She took her time to get to the door, pausing a moment to check how she was feeling. It was a shame that her skin never really felt hot to her so she couldn't gauge it, but she at least felt confident enough that she wasn't going to lose control of her emotions and burn from a distance. Peeking out the peephole she saw a girl whose name she couldn't place but knew lived on the floor. Opening up the door, she peeked out. "Hiya." "Hi," Nawal said, feeling suddenly sheepish about approaching the new girl in her room without any warning. She smiled at the girl. Even though she was younger, Enely was already taller than Nawal, who was on the tall side herself. It was hard to imagine her so young, and having already experienced so much, but Nawal realized that she was only a year older when she was sent to prison. "I'm Nawal Bechara," she introduced herself. "From Palestine. I live across the hall. I meant to come say hello earlier, but it's been -- a difficult time for a lot of us, lately. I know it's been difficult for you as well, and if you ever need to talk or have any problems, please let me know. I am also the president of the student council, so really it is my duty to help you." "Oh. Thank you." Enely opened the door the rest of the way and stepped backward, unsure if she should invite the girl in but not wanting to be rude. So she opted for the middle ground, to indicate that Nawal could step inside the door if she wanted while they chatted, but not to imply they would be having a long conversation if Nawal had intended to make it quick. "I'd shake your hand if I could," she told the student council president, glancing downward at the hands that could no longer touch. "So please forgive me." Leaning against the door now she tried to remember if she knew anything about Nawal, but though there was something she should remember, she was drawing a blank. "I can't think of anything right now, though most of the time if I have problems I need to just lock myself in my room. But still, I'll keep it in mind." Nawal nodded. "I know how it is for it to be difficult to be around others because of your power," she said. Even though she knew she was able to relate on some level, Nawal had quickly come to learn, at IVI, that the situations for dangerous Vols differed greatly depending on where they lived and the exact nature of their powers. Isolation, she knew, perhaps more than anyone else. She understood wanting to keep people safe by keeping them at a distance, but not the inability to touch, at least for anyone beyond Logan and Caleb. She lingered by the door, wondering if she should enter and have a conversation with Enely, really making an effort to get to know the new girl, or if she was bothering her and should leave. She couldn't tell. "Do you want to come in?" Enely couldn't read minds, but she felt the awkward pause. Conversations in the doorway felt fleeting, shallow, and now, finally, Enely was starting to crave human connection that wasn't from her friends and family back home. And she'd noticed Nawal before, a girl who lived on her floor, but also -- aha! That was it. She'd seen her in the documentary that had leaked online, the one that showed her how her own teammate had killed his parents and how others had hurt people too. Like she had. Perhaps it had been the documentary. Perhaps a change had occurred that day when she realized how so many of them had it just like she did. She knew, on one level, that was the case, having read news about Vols before she ever was one herself, but suddenly putting faces - faces she knew - to those stories changed things. Made her realize that this was final, this was her life. Maybe wanting to get to know people now was a stage of acceptance that she would be here at IVI indefinitely. She knew just wanting to finally get to know people wasn't enough; she had to do something. Enely knew how cold she could sometimes come off, and she had to compensate for that. It wasn't something she'd ever had to do before but, well, everything was different now. She took a few steps into her room and pulled her own chair out from her desk, motioning to the other one for Nawal, though Enely didn't move to sit down until she knew if the other girl was going to come in and chat or not. Her head was filled with questions she wanted to ask the girl, but she didn't say anything yet. Was it the time to bombard this girl with personal questions when she had come to be friendly and offer help with living at IVI? Instead she just studied the other girl carefully, trying to offer her a small smile. Nawal smiled and followed Enely into her room, sitting sideways in the proffered chair, not quite making herself comfortable but not quite ready to leave either. Nawal knew that she had some problems socially -- four years of near-isolation could do that to a person -- but she got an unmistakable feeling from Enely, that she was alone and needed someone to listen and understand. Maybe, Nawal thought, maybe I could be that person. She ran her fingers along the top of the chair's back. "With all this change being so sudden, it must not feel completely real all the time." This time it was a real - though slight - smile that showed up on Enely's face. Perhaps 'smirk' was a better word, but there was little difference between the two. "That's exactly it," she replied. "Two months ago I thought maybe I was getting a fever, which I hid because I wanted to go to a dance and hang out with my friends. And now all of this." She wondered if it seemed odd to Nawal that she was so easily sharing. Enely wondered that sometimes, if it seemed odd to anyone that the semi-quiet girl could talk about things she was still having difficulty dealing with. Maybe it was. "It's nice to not be in isolation anymore," she continued. "When I first got here I felt like I still shouldn't be around people -- when I didn't feel like I was going to wake up from this nightmare and be back home -- but now..." She frowned, trying to find her words. "It makes more sense that this is where I belong. With others like this." Was she saying too much? She wasn't sure, but Nawal had asked. Nawal nodded slowly, looking at Enely with concerned eyes. "I don't think we'll be here forever," she said, repeating a sentiment she had dearly hoped was the case since the beginning. She wasn't going to be marked forever by what she'd done. In Israel, her detainment had no end in sight, but here, there was a chance. She was going to Canada soon, to see her sister. "People like you and me, we do need help. There are not many places that we can be safe, and so can everyone around us. Here, it is not perfect, but we will learn, and we will improve, and someday..." her voice trailed off. Maybe, Enely thought. Though even if it was true, damage had already been done. She couldn't ever make that up. And Nawal -- she'd killed someone, hadn't she? Enely didn't remember the details, but she remembered from the documentary that there was a death. Enely was at least lucky enough that her mother and the other woman hadn't died. Or even the kidnappers. At least, she hadn't received word they'd died, and while she knew she hurt them badly enough, she didn't think it was bad enough that either one wouldn't eventually recover. "And someday we'll stop being so cursed?" Her words were dry, caustic, but then she looked away, regretting letting them escape. "I'm sorry." She pursed her lips together, then looked back up at Nawal, questioningly. "I... I don't think I remember what your power is, actually." "They call it molecular combustion." Nawal paused after speaking, considering, then raised her hand and snapped her fingers. There was a pop in the air not far from her hands, a brief burst of flame, a tiny flash of heat as the molecules rapidly reassembled themselves. Nawal had spent months in training working on that. "It's -- it can be erratic. When they first manifested, I burned myself, badly. This was before we knew what Vols were, and I thought maybe I was cursed too." Enely reached out for it, but the air was only warm by the time her hand swiped at the space the flame had been in. Perhaps not the smartest thing for a normal person to do, but Enely wasn't afraid of fire. It couldn't hurt her, at least as much as she had experienced before. Turning her attention back to Nawal, she considered the other girl's words. She probably was lucky that when her incident occurred they knew about Vols, that they brought in the IVF to deal with her. She didn't know what might have happened otherwise. "And now?" she asked. "Now what do you think?" "It's still a curse, in a way," Nawal mused. She closed her hand into a fist and lowered it into her lap. "Nothing can really erase what's happened to us or what we've done, but we can move on. We can try to make the world a better place for Vols like us." It was hard to imagine that, not with how things were now. With Vols being such a recent phenomenon -- odd to think about, since it was such a reality for Enely now -- it was difficult to know if they were growing in number or if they would continue to be a minority among humans. What sort of world would it be that could accept Vols? "It seems like it's going to be a tough road until they stop hating us," Enely quietly said. "But you seem to really care." "I do," Nawal said. She nodded. She understood, far more than she cared to understand, the hate and fear people felt towards Vols, but she also believed it could be overcome. Nawal wasn't sure if she really believed this, or if it was something she believed because she wanted it to be true. "I think it must get better for us. It can't hardly get worse." |