Designed by onlyyouqj / Freepik
"Zam?" I lightly knocked on my friend's door, but didn't wait for an answer. Xamber often ended up taking a nap after classes whether he intended to do so or not. Sometimes I envied his ability to just fall asleep. I became concerned when I saw Xamber sitting on the edge of his bed and staring out the window with haunted eyes.
"Zamber?" It was like he hadn't heard me. I sat next to Zamber as Kolyver closed the door behind us. Zamber jumped when I touched his hand and turned his gaze toward me.
It seemed to take him a moment to reorient himself. "Hey. Sorry. I zoned out." His voice was as haunted as his eyes.
Kolyver pulled Xamber's desk chair over and sat in it backwards. "You okay, bud? You look pretty pale."
Xamber looked down at his beaten up shoes. "I don't know. Is anything okay anymore?"
I tried to get his attention back on me. "I know what's happening in the Omega Sectors is frightening, but why has it affected you so much? We don't even know anyone way out there."
He shook his head, tears forming in his eyes as he looked back at me. "I knew it was going to happen. I knew it was going to happen and I could do nothing to stop it."
Kolyver and I exchanged confused frowns. Kolyver leaned their arms on the chair's back. "How could you have known, Xam?"
"I had a dream about it. I saw the explosions. I heard the screams. I felt the heat of the flames. I should have said something to someone."
I wrapped a comforting arm around my friend. "Are you talking about the dream you were having when I woke you up?" He nodded as tears streamed down his face. "Xamber, that was less than an hour before the instructor was told what happened. Even if you had said something, it would have been too late to stop. You don't have to bear the burden of this."
"I could feel their pain, Mae. It burned inside me. I can't make the burning stop." Xamber quietly sobbed and leaned his head on my shoulder.
I ran my fingers through his close cropped purple hair. "Everything will be okay, Xam. Do you want to talk to one of the house admins about your vision?"
Kolyver shook their head. "I think that's a bad idea, Mae. Have they ever believed to any of the other dreams Xamber has told them? No. Not once."
Xamber sat up and wiped his damp face on his sleeve. "Kolyver is right, Mae. Admin Sullivan told me they would send me for reeducation next time I brought her one of my tall tales as she calls them."
I held in my anger. "Of course she did. There couldn't possibly be a less harmful way of handling oddities." The sarcasm in my voice was bitter. I'd seen too many kids sent away to the government facilities.
Xamber looked out the window as the artificial light dimmed to simulate what we could only guess was sundown. None of us had ever seen the sun much less a sunset. No one still alive had seen the real light of day. "We have to do something."
I blinked at him in confusion. "And what do you propose we do? It isn't that I don't want to help the Omega residents, but that's pretty far for three teenagers to get authorization to travel. Besides, it was just a system malfunction. The maintenance crews will handle everything."
"What if it wasn't just a tragic accident?"
I stared at my friend's dead serious expression. "What are you talking about?"
Xamber stood and moved to his window, leaning on the sill and staring intently into the distance. "What if it was done on purpose?"
I stood next to him and tried to figure out what he was fixated on without luck. "Why would anyone do that kind of thing on purpose? Hundreds of people lost their lives."
Xamber shook his head. "I don't know. All I know is the explosions I saw didn't look like an accident. What in the air system would actually combust on its own? The processors are nowhere near any of the colonies on purpose."
I crossed my arms, uncomfortable with Xamber's logic. "But to what end?"
"Class warfare."
I turned to look at Kolyver who had gotten to their feet. "What?"
Kolyver glared at the door. "Think about it. Why are only the outer colonies experiencing water and food shortages? Why hasn't more been done to help them? Because the people up top don't want anything done. Fewer people, more resources for those that remain."
I fussed with my braid. "Even if you're both right, what do you think we can do?"
Xamber resumed his intense gaze into the middle distance. "I don't know, but we have to do something."
I took Xamber and Kolyver's hands in mine. "How about we go get dinner and talk about this later?" I pulled my reluctant friends from Xamber's room, trying not to dwell too much on the conspiracy theory they were forming.