Under My Skin by Shawntelle Madison Read Free Book Online

to the Guild. I dropped the paper and let it fall back on the floor. The suite, the personal servants—all of it—would vanish along with my freedom. I would be sold in less than a week.

CHAPTER FIVE

    The next two days blurred together like dark gray clouds covering the sky. Hour upon hour, we sat in gray-walled classrooms as tutors droned on about politics and protocols. How to perform serving duties for people who had fancy place settings. How to properly speak to the Guild. When we weren’t studying, the older Water Bearers took us to the doctor, most likely, to make sure we were free from infections.
    Not long after a physician in a white suit poked and prodded me, he sent me back to purgatory with a clean bill of health. Okay, maybe not exactly purgatory. I was there to learn how to best serve my community. Astrid had told us we were to be educated about the world where we lived so we could serve.
    And even if I were swimming around in purgatory, I actually enjoyed the lessons.
    “The Guild have controlled Myria for the last three hundred years,” the professor in front of the class said. One third of the new Water Bearers Aspirants filled the twenty seats. The professor, a small man with a round belly, gave us a lecture while showing his presentation through the vid-screen.
    Most of us should’ve learned this as part of our standard history lessons. It was pretty basic stuff about the vast island of Myria.
    The teacher continued. “With the introduction of a new, organized government, we’ve seen a drastic increase in peace and prosperity. There are no more food riots or forced migrations caused by past problems of population control and hunger.”
    My fingers twitched and I looked at the desk where I sat. Not a single compu-tablet. Or even the rudimentary pencil and paper. My gaze darted to the others around me. Two students slept while another played with a scab on his arm. Most faces reflected the various stages of boredom.
    Not that I was surprised. I bet none of these guys, other than Zoe and myself, read real books. They’d learned their history lessons through the standard education the Guild offered, but had they read any of the forbidden books that circulated in the countryside? The books about what life had been like before the Guild ruled Myria? It wasn’t until I read the books of the past that I’d realized what the comm-consoles and the advertising on the vid-screens didn’t show us. For some reason, the Guild never wanted us to know our past history before they took over.
    The world hadn’t always been like this. Before the world shrunk down to a few countries like Myria, there’d been more than I could count. It had been a planet filled with a growing population of people hungry for both the latest tech and the exploration of outer space. From what I’d read, all that changed when disease ravaged the Earth. At first, it was KB12, then the wasting disease, RF9. Plague after plague wiped out the majority of the population until only the most robust remained. My dad was part of the legacy of RF9. Without expensive medication, his lesser form of the disease ate away at lung tissue, making the sufferer weak and feeble.
    “Are there any questions?” the professor asked.
    “When can we go to sleep?” a voice from the back asked.
    “Very funny. Perhaps you’d like to explain to your sponsor why you won’t be ready by the end of the week.” The pleasant expression on the instructor’s face vanished. “Perhaps they’ll bid on someone who’s better prepared to assist them and you’ll end up like me. You’ll spend the rest of your life working at a Training Facility or a Testing Center with no stipend other than a standard salary for working-class citizens.”
    His black warning woke up even the most tired among us. To be honest, though, if they wanted us to pay attention, then why the somber room? My classroom back home had an open window and the teacher forced us to take notes. We had