The Outsider

by Michael McKellar, Melrose High School

The Elevated lived in Paradise. With lush grasses and steady streams, their idealistic landscape was magical. It was beautiful.

And evil.

And unfair.

And wrong.

All their needs were attended to by the Custodians with apt diligence. Life was easy for them. They had no worries in the world. They were free to live out their days unbound by grief or sorrow. They had no clue. They were blind. Either that or they didn’t care…

Ode was born in a dusty room, to a mother who had no love for her and a father who was long dead. She was raised in a hostile environment, plagued by the corruption and horrors of her society. She was born Vitiated. Ruined, imperfect. Her life was doomed, until her worth ran out.

Through years of never having enough to eat and being beaten for mere thoughts, she grew street-wise, learning to avoid trouble whilst also being able to scavenge food scraps from those more fortunate than her. Managing to keep both her and her resentful mother alive against all odds.

Her days consisted of receiving the meagre rations provided by the Custodians, getting beaten by her mother and being harassed by the other Vitiated. It was a pathetic existence. She was trapped in an endless cycle of horror and starvation. Blood and murder lurked around every corner. She hated it. She dreamed of a different life.

If only she were born Elevated, then she could live in Paradise. Free to do or say whatever she wanted. She would always have enough to eat, in fact, she’d probably be rather plump. She could spend her days exploring the vast forests and swimming the depths of the impossibly clear lakes. All from the safety of the Adytum. What a life she’d live.

This day started out just as any other did. Her mother, screeching her name like a raging banshee, as if Ode was the route of all her problems; commanding her to go and receive their rations. Ode made her way out of the squat, ramshackle house in the centre of a sprawling mess of similar dilapidated houses. Thousands and thousands of them squished together like sardines in a tin. Most of them were in a state of decay, their tenants unable to afford the repairs that were so desperately needed.

The endless maze of buildings formed a massive ring, hundreds of kilometres wide, around the Adytum. The place of the Elevated. A paradise surrounded by kilometres of hell. The Adytum and the Outside were separated by a huge, menacing wall to make certain that the Vitiated could never get in. But looming over the city, it provided a constant reminder. We are better than you. Above you.

The bustling street provided Ode with cover to go about her daily tasks uninterrupted by the Custodians. She was on her way to Timore Square when she heard a noise. The eerie sound of tinkling bells. That was odd. The people around her had stopped moving, some even crying out. It was the Culling Bells; a ‘mercy’ for the people of a sector. To let them know that they were all to be executed.

Ode’s blood ran cold. It hit her like a knife in the back: “I don’t want to die,” she thought. “Not yet.”

She jumped into action. Running, while her brain worked overtime, figuring out how to escape. They would have already set up barricades in this sector and set up guard stations to watch for Vitiated trying to flee.

Her movement was attracting attention from the Custodians. They’d be watching her. So she stopped. Time was of the essence, but she couldn’t afford to have the Custodians tailing her. She began briskly walking towards her destination, the border wall. Between the Adytum and the Outside. It was her only hope. She’d seen Custodians pass into the Adytum via discrete steel doors in the past. At first, she’d assumed that they have a lock or code to open, but during her brief observations she noticed that they required a phrase, said out loud to the door. It was a curious thing and one that she’d very much like to learn more about. But now was not the time. She made her way to the border wall and ran her hand over it as she walked, feeling for a latch or indent. She was running out of time.

The screams had begun behind her, indicating the start of the cull. She increased her pace. Growing desperate for an escape, her hand grazed an indent. “There!” she thought. As she stepped back, she could make out the vague shape of a door, blended perfectly with the slate grey stone. She racked her brain for phrases that the Custodians may have used as a password.

“Think, Ode. Think!” she chided herself.

The screams of the dying Vitiated edged closer to her, acting as a verbal warning that she needed to hurry. A thought came to her, “I am Ode Liridona, Elevated.”

The sound of steam releasing filled her ears as the door popped open. It worked! She hurriedly pulled the door wide and entered. She was in. She slowly looked up to study the landscape ahead of her. The Adytum was gorgeous. Magical.

“I’m inside the Adytum,” she thought to herself as she began running through the lush forests ahead of her. “I could live out the rest of my days here. In peace,” she thought. “I’m finally free.”