Mid-Story Sentence Competition - Runner Up

It was my sixteenth birthday when they took me away for the Ritual. My mother tried her best to prepare me for the ceremony but no amount of knowledge can prepare you for that kind of loss.
‘You must watch at all times; that is the Law.’ It was also a symbol of control passing from your hands and into the State.
‘You have narrow wrists, which will be of some comfort.’ The doctor’s words cut through the atmosphere as they strapped my arms to the table. Fifty years ago when the Ritual was conceived they’d used knives, scalpels and even bone saws at times but now the procedure was completed using lasers.
‘You’ll feel no pain,’ the doctors said but they lied. The heat seared through my skin, my flesh, my bone: my soul. They placed both hands onto a silver tray and brought my replacements to me as the air was engulfed with the aroma of burnt meat. I hated how my new hands looked so cold and metallic.
‘You’ll have to get used to these.’ My mother removed the naturalistic looking skin gloves most of the population wore over their metal hands and held them close to my face, the light reflecting off their steel surface.
‘But remember our time is nearly here.’
She’d prepared me for more than the Ritual; she’d embraced me into the Resistance.
The pain became too much and I started to pass out as they attached the first hand to the exposed flesh at my wrist.
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When I woke Celestine was in the room, which was impossible. She’d been sent away for what we’d done. Everybody knew about the Ritual, it was drummed into us at an early age and there were numerous classes about it at school, but I could only perceive it as my punishment for my ‘unnatural’ emotions and the fact my father caught me kissing another girl; kissing Celestine. I forced myself to look at my new silver fingers but all I could remember was the last time my hands touched Celestine.
When I looked again she’d gone, disappeared back into my memory.
‘The Ritual is what keeps us all safe.’
I hated most of what we were taught at school, propaganda forced into malleable minds, but some of the history lessons were fun, depending on which teacher we had. Ms Jarvis was my favourite, always trying to add some humour into the tedium, making the lessons as interesting as she could. There was a mischievous, rebellious spark behind her eyes I recognised in my mother and I liked her from the first moment she walked into our dour, clinical classroom. One day she never came to school and there was talk she’d been sent to a place nobody ever returned from. School was never the same after that.
My mother was always my most important teacher.
‘The Ritual is what keeps us all safe. This is what they’ll tell you; your friends, your teachers, every adult you meet – your father; especially your father. But it’s all a lie.’
I was thirteen years old and she’d decided I was ready for her truth.
‘What do you know of democracy?’ Father was away doing important things so mother took me into the garden. We were in that beguiling time which settles in the middle of spring and summer, when the world is awash with colourful flowers, noisy birds and insects of all varieties.
‘School teaches us democracy was the evil of the world hiding behind promises of goodness and equality. Only when it was swept away could we find peace and security.’ It was a mantra I repeated, that we all repeated, but it never felt right to me.
‘Your history books are wrong, Sophia. They’ve been altered and corrupted to keep us all in line. In three years’ time, you’ll lose your hands and the State will know what you do at all times; will be able to control you at all times.’ She looked at her own fingers as she spoke and I wondered if in some room somewhere a State official was recording all this. She noticed my concern.
‘One of the very few things the Resistance has been able to achieve is to broadcast static over the receivers in our hands when we need to.’
‘The Resistance?’ It was the first time I’d heard the word. I didn’t know why but it felt good to hear it.
‘The Resistance is what’s left of Democracy. Without that, it all falls apart.’ A butterfly covered in vibrant red and yellow hovered before our eyes before coming to land on the fake flesh on my mother’s hand. She looked at it wistfully.
‘I wish I knew how that feels.’ I’d never seen my mother cry before and it came as a bigger shock than what she told me that afternoon.
‘A century ago our nation changed for ever, most of the rest of the world soon followed suit; none of it was for the better. This is what they don’t teach you in school, what has been erased from the history books.’ The insect on her hand was another enraptured listener to what my mother said.
‘The warning signs were there but people either ignored or embraced them. The world slipped into a dangerous state as if it was slipping into a restful dream.
 ‘Our leaders used to be voted in by the people but as you know the office of President of the nation is now hereditary; Kings and Queens of an Empire in everything but name.’ The blue of her eyes were agonisingly sad.
‘There were protests in the early days, some were violent and tragic, but they were always quashed until fifty years ago they created the Ritual: it was cunning in its simplicity and its savagery. Every citizen sixteen years and over has their hands replaced with metallic substitutes, inside of which are the chips the State can control at any time.’ She moved her hand just an inch and the butterfly drifted off into the air as if it had finally realised where it had been resting was something unnatural; something no living creature would want to touch.
‘If they wanted to, a State controller could disable these hands of mine so they would be unable to move. If I picked up a weapon the sensors in the chip would recognise it and not only would the hands be frozen they would send an electrical shock through the rest of my body. The software inside the chip is programmed to recognise thousands of keywords the State identifies as being dangerous to their existence.’
I wondered why she was telling me all of this now.
‘There is talk of reducing the age of the Ritual from sixteen to thirteen; some important and influential people want to make it even earlier.’
I had visions of small babies crawling around on metallic hands, of a child never knowing the touch on its mother’s face or the sensation of knowing how a flower should truly feel.
‘We have three years to get you ready.’
She didn’t only mean for the Ritual.
My mother had a group of female friends she met on a regular basis at our home, supposedly to talk about the things their husbands wouldn’t be interested in. Some of them brought their young kids along and they would play on the grass while the adults talked amongst themselves and spoke to me about the plan.
In the hours we spent during those gatherings, there were short periods when the transmitter interfering with the recordings was switched on so we had privacy to talk about revolution. If so many devices in our location malfunctioned at the same time they would know in the Control Centre. It meant I’d spend ten minutes at a time with different individuals as they told me what I needed to know.
‘The only mistake they’ve made in the last fifty years is to merge all of the smaller Control venues dotted around the country into one main Control Centre in our capital. We need to destroy the Machine in that Centre. Then we will have enough people ready to cause an uprising.’
Three years to get ready.
Three years to learn the true history of my country.
Three years to fall in love.
Three years before I lost my hands.
Three years and it was time for the Coronation of our new leader.
‘You will only have one chance when you are inside, Sophia. Just one chance to destroy the Machine and everything connected to it.’
‘How will I know it’s the right time?’ I asked.
‘You’ll know,’ she said.
The Coronation was that time. The old leader was dead and the doors of the Control Centre were flung open for the ceremony to take place symbolically at the feet of the Machine.
Nobody cared I’d put a bit of weight on around my waist.
‘Teenage girl fat,’ they said so I could hear it.
I smiled at the thought of innocent childish hands carefully tying the explosives around me. My eyes turned towards the huge hanging painting of my parents, the President and his wife, the tyrant and the resistance, hanging above my head. They’d said the crash was an accident but I knew she’d driven it off the bridge and into the river on purpose.
‘How will I know it’s the right time?’ I asked her.
‘You’ll know,’ she said.
The security motioned me closer to the Machine; it was more important than me. I put one cold metallic hand on to its surface and lingered my fingers over the detonator.
I would only get once chance at this.