Once I realized that I only had two choices, the decision was easy.
I would go to Etia and give Alaska Hess her book myself or face punishment from the Elders, exile or... worse.
Immediately, I started, a solid plan motivating me to move, pack, work as fast as possible. In a flurry of action, I packed all I thought I would need. Food, clothes, tools, and of course, Alaska Hess's book.
OK, I thought, staring out into the black abyss of space, Etia the corner of my vision, you can do this.
I stepped off what had been my work, my home, my one safe place in the universe and I fell into space.
And I fell.
And fell.
And fell.
I fell.
I didn't grow up wanting to be a mechanic, nobody did in Etia. No, being a mechanic was reserved for the people who were deemed damaged goods, damaged brains. The people who didn't fit into Etia's perfect ideal of a lifestyle. Most often, mechanics were low-level criminals, people who stole, people who vandalized, the one's with desperate minds, the hidden needy.
I hadn't been desperate because of being poor or hungry, nobody was on Etia. I was desperate because I needed an escape and that wasn't allowed.
From afar, Etia was paradise. Nobody was hungry, poor, cold, disadvantaged. But if anyone from the Creches bothered to look into what was actually happening, they would find that Etia wasn't as perfect as it was designed to be.
Everything from sports to hobbies to school had at least seventeen rules in place to supposedly keep it running smoothing. But with the rules, I always felt closed in, restricted to the point of death by suffocation.
So I rebelled. At first it was little things like putting away my school supplies a little bit different, then taking notes different, then not taking notes at all. I kept pushing my limits to see what I could do different. I never got caught, probably because no one cared to look at what I did anymore.
Then, I pushed too hard. Hard enough to break.
And when it broke, my whole life collapsed around it.
And I fell.
