Broken Homes Orphanage Part 1

“Crimzon! Crimzon! C’mon get out of bed already. Mirai will be sad if you don’t hurry up, you promised her ice cream! We’re going to miss the transport to the arena!” Irin keeps knocking on the door, you can feel her getting tense through the door.

The door opens and there standing in front is Irin, a spunky teenage girl with her arms crossed with an intense facial expression. Next to her is a younger girl, Mirai, standing slightly behind with a smile, ear to ear, waving her arms as to get my attention, “Good morning Crimzon! Let’s hurry we have to go!”

Mirai grabs my arm with both hands and begins to drag me out of the doorway of my room. We begin our way down the stairway and Irin begins to follow behind us and leans forward almost whispering, “Jeez did you forget about today? Mirai has been looking forward to this all week, she can’t wait to eat ice cream.”

Trying to maintain composure as we enter the living room and through the front door, Mirai smiles every so often as she checks and looks at us following her. I smile back when she does and lean a little back toward Irin, “What exactly are we doing today besides getting her ice cream?”

Irin smiles and gets closer to my ear, “I’m going to kill you brother! Did you forget that our evaluation at the arena? Mirai is also coming with us because we are adopting her out of the orphanage?”

We make our way through the front door as a young lady stands looking out toward the transport. As we get close, she turns around smiling and says, “Oh, I see the two of you were able to wake him up. Here you go, this should be everything you’ve earned in the last few years working around the area. I put a little something for Mirai’s ice cream day!”

Mirai grabs the sling bag with a big smile, “Thank you so much Miss Aiko!”

Miss Aiko smiles and hugs Mirai, “You are most definitely welcome! I know you’ve been looking forward to this. Just have fun today okay!”

“Thank you, Miss Aiko, we’ll be back later today”, Irin leans to give Miss Aiko a hug and begins to push me along, “Okay Mr. Sleepyhead let’s get going.”

“Crimzon, please look after your ‘sisters’ for me my dear”, Miss Aiko gives me a short embrace and pulls me in, “I’m counting on you Crimzon.”

I look back to see Miss Aiko waving, but as I look at her eyes, they water as she keeps her composure, smiling. Why does this feel so familiar? I burst out, “I will! I won’t let you down! We’ll be right back.”

We make it into the transport and take our seats next to the window to find Miss Aiko smiling. Mirai sits in front of the window and waves at Miss Aiko. Irin sits next to Mirai, and I take the opposite seat of Mirai and look out the window. Remembering what she said repeats in my head and my response, I did not hesitate at all. It was as if I was trying to reassure someone I already knew, reassure them of something…

Irin looks at me and catches my expression, her face drops from a joyful smile to a worried expression, “Hey, are you okay?”

Realizing Irin’s look, I try to brush it off, “Yea, I don’t know what happened. Maybe just got a lot on my mind.” Because there is a lot going through my mind right now!

As I look out the window as the transport begins to lift off the ground to see Miss Aiko smiling and just as we lift it looked as though she spoke, but I can’t hear anything as we lifted off. My attention goes back to Irin who still looks worried, “I’m okay Irin, trust me I’m fine. Something just popped into my mind.”

Irin crosses her arms, “Are you sure? You’ve been acting off since yesterday. Did our training take a lot of you? Did I hit you that hard!?”

She leans in to examine me, and I lean back into my seat smiling with a puzzled look, “Okay, maybe I’m not okay. I just can’t remember much of anything the last few days. Maybe nothing at all?”

Mirai tunes into the conversation as the transport has lifted off the ground and begins to look at Irin and me. Mirai softly says, “Irin, maybe Crimzon has that memory sickness Miss Aiko was walking about. She did say that she felt he might experience it again soon.”

Irin leans back in her seat; her facial expression drops to a sadness of uncertainty. She looks out the window, pats Mirai on the head, “I guess you’re right Mirai. Miss Aiko did say that. It just means we have to explain everything to him again. I’m just concerned that it’s been happening more frequently and hope that nothing is physically wrong with him.”

Curious about everything I look at Irin, puzzled I ask, “Why would Miss Aiko say that I may experience this memory sickness and what exactly is it? Does it happen often to me? Is there something that happened?”

Irin takes a deep breath; she looks down and begins to fidget with her hair. She seems reluctant and at the same time irritable wrestling with her thoughts. As her fingers roll through her hair she looks up with a somber expression, as though she lost something.

“Well, first the three of us are the last of Broken Homes Orphanage run by Miss Aiko. We arrived at the same time, and we’ve known each other since we were eight. Then two years ago you started having the memory sickness, it happens randomly and when it does it’s like you’re someone else completely. You don’t remember anything or this world we live in, it’s like you’re a shell of yourself in this world. Once you get acclimated, you’ll be fine until the next episode of memory sickness happens.”

Irin has a sad look on her face as she looks at me, her eyes begin to look teary as she holds her composure. From what it sounds like the memory sickness is a lapse of the current me until this recent episode, where I may have entered this body. But this body, with the name Crimzon, this cannot be a coincidence. As I look at Irin, the projections flicker from the flat attachments from under my eyes display her name and age. I look at Mirai and it does the same.

<Name: Irin Age: 17>

<Name: Mirai Age: 8>

“Irin, what are these things under our eyes and what do they do? I can it identify you and Mirai with your age. When I look into the mirror, I can see my information as well.”

Irin chuckles and seems to wipe a tear from her eye. Her somber expression has melted away, almost relieved that something was consistent from the repetitive encounters dealing with me in this state.

“You always start off with that question every time you have this memory sickness. They are called Iris+1 and provide some biometric data. We get these when people like us are going into the tournament next week, but we’ve had them since we arrived here at the orphanage. It acts like an additional peripheral by digitally displaying the data to the iris of our eyes. Perfectly safe. At the tournament we’ll be given additional equipment to read our biometrics and that information will be used for possible recruitment by what is referred to as the Five Bodies: the organization called Atlas, other corporate entities, nations, kingdoms, and factions. Best way to put it, this tournament is like an audition for our future.”

“Does the tournament only have people our age? And is it safe for Mirai to be participating?”

“Yes, it’s perfectly safe for Mirai to participate and although everyone describes it as a tournament, it’s called “The Rite”. The Rite is an assessment where we’ll go through a battery of tests, examinations, and in addition you can choose to participate in tournaments that show off a participant’s physical prowess. There are multiple formats of examinations that we can go through and depending on how we do, we can be recruited to any of the Five Bodies to secure a job, necessities, or citizenship. All sorts of people will gather there so anything can happen. We promised Miss Aiko that we’d take care of Mirai as she’s been like our little sister since she showed up.”

Irin turns to Mirai, fixes her hair clip and gives a reassuring smile. Mirai is calm and attentively listening to everything we say. Mirai is calm and relaxed. Irin is composed but she is battling a thought in her mind.

“Irin, are you okay? You seem like something’s on your mind. How long have we been there at the orphanage? Are we siblings?”

“As far as I can tell we have been there since I can remember. Miss Aiko said that we’re not related but arrived at the same time and growing up we just looked after each other. Then two years ago you started having the memory sickness, and shortly after we found Mirai in the back by the trees where she was drenched and unconscious. Miss Aiko took her in and ever since then we’ve been always together.”

Irin continues to explain our time at the orphanage and the upcoming week with the tournament. At the tournament, the Rite, everyone comes from all over the world to recruit for corporate entities, nations, kingdoms, factions or the organization called Atlas. According to Irin Atlas, is an organization that oversees everyone globally. Next are the corporate entities, due to their global reach they are the biggest organizations far bigger than the nations and kingdoms, which rule over large populations. Factions are independent organizations that are on a far smaller scale to corporate entities but tend to have more freedom in how they operate.

At the Rite, candidates come of all ages and can be evaluated for their intellect, physical abilities, technical skills, application skills; everything. Irin said that if there was a particular job a candidate wanted to do like being a pilot, all they needed to do was score high in their tests and they could be recruited. For candidates like us coming from an orphanage, Irin and I can be guardians for Mirai, allowing us to leave the orphanage together. Irin tells me that before I began to experience the memory sickness, we agreed that the main priority for us is to find someplace we can help Mirai grow then go from there.

The transport begins to descend as we look out the window our display from the Iris+1 demarks the island we are descending on called Juniper. A lush, green island blended harmoniously with technology and architecture that I’ve never seen before. In the center of the island, a huge arena surrounded by different terrain spans for miles, one area in particular looks like ruins of old buildings swallowed by the forest. The transport continues to descend as we arrive to the arena called the Arck.