The Azuli by Cassidy Shay (best beach reads of all time TXT) 📕

Two days before all of the parents came, I went to dinner with Carl. I stood next to him in line. I held his hand. I sat with him to eat and I walked back to Floor One with him. Everything had become a routine that I went through without having to think at all. He walked me to my cell, which was always the part that I dreaded the most.
“Well,” he said, and then it was silent. I knew that we were being watched. There were cameras in the halls to monitor everyone, so I knew that unless we wanted to get into trouble, a hug and a kiss were required of us.
I didn’t want to stand there awkwardly for another second, so I quickly wrapped my arms around his neck. Going up on my toes, I lightly kissed him on the cheek. Then I leaned against him, my arms still wrapped around his neck, as tears fell from my eyes.
At the time, I was disgusted with myself for being such a baby, for crying over something so small as a kiss. But later, I realized that that wasn’t why I was crying at all. Actually, the reason was something much bigger.
My tears were caused by my loss of freedom. Here was a boy that I was being forced to marry, forced to have children with. Here was a boy who I had to hold hands with, to hug and kiss. Here was a boy that I had to pretend to love. I knew that Carl and I would never be the same as we had been before we knew of the experiment. In public, we were supposed to be in love, supposed to act like we couldn’t even think of ever being separated. This made it so awkward when we weren’t in public that I felt a growing resentment towards him, even though I knew this wasn’t his fault. It was so awkward that every day, I walked down the halls praying with my whole heart that I wouldn’t see him.
With tears still in my eyes, I felt his arms tighten around me, and then felt his breath by my ear. “You need to get some rest, Penny,” he said, guiding me toward the bed. “These last few weeks have been hard on you. Go to sleep and you will feel so much better in the morning.” He laid me back on the bed, and then pulled the covers over me. “Your parents come in two days. Get lots of rest tonight and tomorrow so you look healthy for them. It’ll make them happy.” He mumbled other things as well, but I didn’t understand them. His soft tone and familiar voice lulled me into a sleep so deep and dark that a bomb could have gone off an inch from my nose and I wouldn’t have heard it.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I woke up the next morning and found out that I hadn’t been assigned a DarkRoom for the day. I asked the supervising Vipero, and he looked down at his clip board.
“The note here says that they want you to be nice and refreshed for your parents tomorrow. Go back to your cell and relax.” Without saying anything else, he turned to the group of young girls behind me to answer their question.
I went back to my cell and sat on my bed, wondering about my parents. How would they feel about me getting married so young? Would they look the same? Did I look the same? What if they didn’t recognize me?

I thought about my appearance as a child. I still had the same hair and eyes, and of course the birthmark was the same. But that was pretty much where the similarities stopped.
As a small child, I’d had quite a bit of baby fat that hadn’t left me yet. I wasn’t fat, really, but I was definitely chubby. Since then, I’d thinned out considerably, and grown into a young woman.
Before coming to the Academy, my hair had been long and it always got in my face. After meeting Macy, I agreed that cutting my hair would be much more convenient. Although I kept it longer than Macy’s hair, it wasn’t long enough for me to see it.
Another difference was my scars. I doubted that I would ever show my parents the scars on my arms, put there by the torture tactics that the Academy came up with. But even if I hid the scars, I knew that there was no way that I would be able to hide the emotional changes that had taken place because of what the Academy had done.
I fell asleep thinking similar things. While I slept, I dreamed about meeting my parents. It was going to be the first time that I’d seen them in over ten years. That would make anyone nervous. It was constantly on my mind, and usually when something is on your mind all the time, you dream about it.
Dreams are funny things. A dream strips away all knowledge of reality, so that the dreamer’s mind is open to anything. During the dream, your mind is trapped in a world with no limits.
When I spelt, my mind reached far and wide to find fantasies that I couldn’t imagine. But it worked its way up, starting with normal things and climbing the ladder to reach absurd.
In the first dream, they looked exactly like they did before I left on the train. They were two, young, healthy adults who were anxious to see their children.
This dream brought Jack and I back to when we were tiny children. Our reunion was as if we had only been separated for hours instead of years.
But then, as Jack and I hugged our parents, we grew. Jack and I turned into the teenagers that I knew from outside of my dream. Our parents aged as well. But once they got to the proper age, they didn’t stop. Instead, they continued to age until their hair turned white and their teeth fell out. Their backs were hunched, their skin wrinkled. They got older and older, more and more frail.
Jake and I kept hold of them, though. We didn’t let go of our parents until they burst into flames. When this happened, Jack and I watched as their bodies were reduced to a steaming pile of ash on the floor.
In the next dream, my parents arrived with smiles wider than the Grand Canyon. Their smiles remained constant, and they never said anything that could be taken as rude. Compliments rained down on the inmates of the Azuli Academy for the first five days that my parents were there. Everyone loved them, and I couldn’t spend five minutes with them without someone coming in to talk to them.
For the last five days of their stay, their attitudes changed. They placed a carpet of insults over everything and everyone. But that wasn’t all. Their appearances changed to those of monsters, with oddly shaped features and crooked teeth.
No one wanted to talk to them anymore, and I couldn’t walk down the halls without receiving glares and hearing whispers about “the girl with the monster parents.”
When they left on the tenth day, their smiles weren’t happy, like they’d been the first day. Instead, they were almost relieved smiles, as if they couldn’t wait to get away from the terrible people of the Azuli Academy.
The final dream was no better or worse than the first two. When my parents came through the door, they acted normal, and they looked normal. Except for their size.
They were the size of mice. I picked them up in my hand, and I wasn’t sure how to react. What do you do with parents the size of mice? I tried to talk to them, but couldn’t head their tiny voices. I tried playing card games with them, but they couldn’t lift the cards. Walking them from one side of the room to the other took forever.
After a couple days, they changed. They didn’t act any different, and they didn’t change in appearance. They just grew. It happened when they were standing in the hallway. They just started growing, and didn’t stop until after they were hunched over, their backs against the ceiling.
“What’s happening?” I asked, but didn’t understand their answer. Now that they were bigger, their voices were deep and booking, so all I heard was the sound of thunder. They couldn’t fit into any doors, so they had to stay in the hallway. The other Azuli shouted and cursed at them for being in their way, and blocking other doors. The worst part was the wedding day.
My parents couldn’t fit through the door to the stairwell. My mom couldn’t see me get married, and my father was unable to walk me down the aisle.
I slept until lunch, when I was woken up by Collin coming in to clean the cell.
“Well, hey there, Penny. Why are you sleeping so late? You feeling alright?” he asked, leaving his cart at the door and coming to sit on my bed.
“I feel fine. Just… my parents are coming tomorrow. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to react to all this. Will they even recognize me?” I sat with my back against the wall, and he joined me there, just like he always did.
“Well. I can’t really give you an answer to that question. I didn’t know you when they did. But I do know you now. And I can tell you that you’ve definitely changed, even if it’s just a little bit. It’s been ten years. You’ve gone from a scared little girl to a defiant young woman. You’ve gone through puberty, and you’ve developed in many ways. I’m sure they’ll still recognize you, but they’ll also notice some changes.” One thing I loved about talking to Collin was that he was always so honest and helpful.
“Okay. Well… can you tell me what I look like? I haven’t seen my reflection for ten years. I want to know what I look like now.” I looked into his eyes as I said this. Before, my appearance wasn’t really important to me. No one cared about their appearance at the Academy. There was nothing that you could see your reflection in, so it would be a waste of energy to worry about it. But with my parents coming, all of a sudden it seemed more important that it had in the past.
“Well,” he said, taking a deep breath. “I’m not really sure how to describe the appearance of someone. But I’ll do the best that