The Motor Unit is still.
Completely stunned.
Ayanda stands with her arm outstretched toward the Receptor Gates, fist clenched. She will be catching nothing with these hands. The Yummies glitter uselessly at her feet like spilled jewels that no one quite dares to collect.
Her father’s voice is the first to break the silence.
“You’re causing paralysis. The Big Toe can’t respond to The Command without you.”
“I know.”
Murmurs of disbelief flutter around the crowd. How dare she!
“You’d cripple us?”
“For what?”
Ayanda unfurls her index finger from the others, turns and points towards the upper regions of their land.
“For them.”
She points past the gathered Myocytes, past the rituals, gowns and gates, toward the Nail Plate rising above them like a forgotten city wall.
“The people of the Toenail are sick.”
A few Myocytes scoff. Others glance upward, uneasy.
“They always look like that.”
“Slow-growing. Ungrateful. It’s their own fault, nothing to do with us.”
Ayanda shakes her head.
“No. This is new. And it has everything to do with us.”
She steps forward now, voice steady, carrying.
“The Keratinocyte children are stunted. Their plating is brittle. Discoloured. Flaking away. They’re ill.”
A ripple of discomfort moves through the crowd, they know what she is talking about.
“I’m not the only one who’s noticed. Last week, during the sermon..”
Her father stiffens.
“..you used them as an example. You said their suffering was proof they hadn’t revered The Yummies properly. You said it was their self-made Retribution.”
A low hum of agreement moves through the crowd.
Ayanda exhales. Slowly.
“That’s when I knew I couldn’t keep standing still inside while moving on the outside. What is happening is wrong.”
Her mother’s voice echoes in her memory, gentle, tired, loving.
‘Your father is trapped too.’
Ayanda softens but she does not retreat.
“Falling in line with The Yummies and The Command won’t help the Keratinocyte children. And it won’t help us. It only helps us stay small enough not to notice.”
She pauses.
“I’m not paralysing the Big Toe out of spite. I’m stopping it so that we can feel what we’ve been avoiding.”
The words paralyse and feel make people flinch.
“Listen. Can The Command be trusted if this is what happens to children under their watch? And if we follow it without question, can we be trusted?”
The silence thickens.
“Why do we have so much, while they have so little? Do those Yummies still taste good knowing what’s happening just beyond our reach?”
Someone looks down at their hands.
“Maybe that’s why we need more and more. To drown out what we already know.”
She scans the faces around her.
“They numb us. They keep us just comfortable enough not to act and just disconnected enough not to care properly.”
No one interrupts.
Ayanda’s voice lowers conspiratorially.
“What if we don’t need them as much as we think?”
A tremor passes through the crowd.
“What if we don’t need them at all?”
Shock. Fear. Awe.
“What if, they need us more than we need them?”
The thought hits like an earthquake. This is new. No one has ever dared to think this, let alone say it out loud.
No one moves. Paralysed. This is new.
Then.. a sound.
Not from the Receptor Gates but from above near the Nail Plate.
A voice slow, gravelley and ancient.
“Young Myocyte, you are right.”
Every head turns upward.
From the Nail Plate, an Elder Keratinocyte, a stem cell, steps forward, her form weathered, her movements deliberate.
“We are suffering with The Onychomycosis. And it is spreading. Our children are bearing the cost.”
She pauses, looking around at the muscle people.
“You think you are safe, but this will come for you too, unless we face it together.”
A hush falls as the realisation hits.
Then a different voice “Ahem.”
The Signal comes again, the myoctyes know they should be running to their stations to wait for The Command.
Everyone looks at Ayanda.
She doesn’t move.
This time, inside her, the fear doesn’t boil.
It pops.
Like bubbles.
Ayanda notices the change in intensity with mild surprise.
Same moment, she thinks. Different body.
Around her, the other myocytes begin to panic, scrambling, spinning, clutching their heads knowing that the command will arrive but it will be futile without Ayanda.
What will happen then? What if there is Retribution?
Ayanda watches, steady.
She raises her voice towards the receptor gates.
“Who are you? Where do you come from?”
No one has ever asked that before.
The panic quiets and fearful curiosity takes its place.
They wait.