The Audit

I stand silently, fidgeting with my braids. They are small, thin black things hanging in front of my ears while the rest of my hair dangles uselessly down my back. My younger sister tied these in the lobby area: they may be my last piece of her before I enter the chamber.
   
All I know about The Audit is that every seventeen year old does it, but a little less than half pass. My parents couldn’t tell me anything, because before you take The Audit you must sign a sheet saying that you won’t tell anyone about what happens inside. In school they told us it was a test of worthiness to remain in the community, and that the unworthy were sent to a different place from us, a place without the happiness and comfort that we enjoy.
   
I am dressed in a jacket and plain pants decorated with the proud white and blue color of my country. It is the only country left; the others destroyed themselves in a world-wide battle for power. Because my country is the strongest, my people still live.

I have dark skin, but it doesn’t matter. All of the worthy are equal. My eyes are light brown, the color of dry dirt. I do not see dry dirt often. My dirt is always black and healthy, where I come from, because our leaders always bring the rain.

A metallic voice from nowhere tell me step on the large, glowing blue tile on the center of the chamber. It repeats this methodically until I comply. Once I do, I am somewhere else, someplace grey. It is an enclosed and small space with a door, and I feel claustrophobic. There is a boy beside me. He is pale--both from his biology and fear--and his hair is tied back in a fiery ponytail. His clothes and shoes are identical to mine. I notice his height, and I wonder why he is here.

“Are you here for the audit?” he asks quietly.

“Yes,” I reply. I am proud to be here. I feel like I am doing something brave and important. If I do well, I can serve my country for as long as I live, and there is no greater honor.

“Should we go through the door?” His voice is questioning and wavering, and I wonder if he knows something I do not.

“Yes,” I say again. I am ready.

We walk through the door together, and only see more grey. There  is a table in the center with two guns on it. I approach the table and take one. I assume that we will need them, and that the audit administrator has placed them there for a reason. The boy also takes one, and when he has it I do not take my eyes off him.

I have shot a gun before. When we were twelve, they teach us to fire at a wall. At fifteen we shot a target for a day. Last year my teachers taught me basic anatomy and refreshed my memory on firing a gun. I presume that the boy has also done the same thing at his school, though I have never seen him in mine.

A wolf appears from a wall and I shoot it without thinking. It bleeds red paint and stops its charge at my feet. The boy shoots the wolf twice once its down. I say nothing, because he didn’t shoot me, and if he doesn’t shoot me, what he does shoot is not my problem.

Another door emerges, and the next place is green. Green, and humid, and uncomfortable. I want to take off my jacket, but the boy doesn’t, and neither do I. There are strange creatures hiding in tall trees. I climbed trees at my home, but these trees are unlike anything I have seen. They not the strong, brown-trunked majesties of home, but instead thin, weak, mossy plants reaching high to the sun. So high that I cannot feel the concentrated heat or light of the sun, only the remnants of its energy, only the diluted phantoms of power, wasted by the trees.

I move into the green without consulting the boy. I think he follows me, but I don’t turn to behold him.

After what I guess is a mile, a clearing becomes visible. There are five people. One is my father, standing proud and tall his eyes boring into my mine. He holds a chalkboard sign that says: HE’S LYING, with an arrow underneath pointing at the man beside him. The man looks like the boy, only much older. I assume it is his grandfather. He holds a chalkboard that says: SHE DID IT, with an arrow pointing to my little sister at his side. She is crying and hold a sign that says: HE DID IT, pointing back at the man. There is a stranger who I have never seen with blonde hair. His sign reads: SHE’S LYING, with an arrow at my sister. At their feet is a man who is dead.

I turn to the boy.

“The blonde one is my best friend,” he says. “And the old man is my grandfather.”

“The young girl is my sister and the tall man is my father,” I inform him.

“What do we do?”

I pause and contemplate. The audit administrator is testing us. They want us to figure out who killed the man to test our wit, but it is impossible to know who to trust. I want to trust my sister and father, and believe that the blonde man is a murderer, but surely the boy will want to trust his friend and grandfather. I make a decision.

I think of yesterday when me and my sister were talking about school. She has a crush now. A lean boy her age that she sits next to in school. She enjoys reading the books about the history of our country and wants to teach if she passes The Audit.

Two shots ring out into the green. I have shot both the blonde man and my sister. The boy follows my lead and fires at the old man and my father. They join the man on the ground. I bend down and braid my sister’s hair before I walk through the next door.

We are now in an office. There is a computer in the center of a room. I approach it slowly. On its screen is a message. It says: YOU CHOSE WISELY.

I turn to the boy.

“Have we won?” he asks me. He sounds afraid. I am no longer nervous. I now know that I am ready to pass The Audit. I am better than the boy. I am faster than him. I am bolder than him. I am smarter than him. He does not deserve to enter into the same society as me.

I turn to the boy to kill him, but he is already there. Already killing me. The bullet hurts my chest, but only for a moment. There is calm. I feel warm. I feel light.

I see my sister. She is shooting me. She unties my braid and I untie hers. My father is there. He is smiling at me. He is proud of his girls.

I see the  boy. He is accepted into the country. He is now the winner of The Audit. Now there is now no lightness. I am cold and sinking. I cannot breathe through my father’s pride and my sister’s hair. I am drowning in the wolf’s red paint and falling as unseen ghosts scream at me that HE DID IT SHE’S LYING SHE DID IT.

And then there is nothing.