Authors: Megan White
We walked down darkened halls, no light shined down on us save for the intermitted florescent light fixtures that hung from the metal rafters, humming as we passed under them.
It was impossible to discern time of day, not a window was in sight as we walked down narrow hallway after narrow hallway, adding to the demoralizing and terrifying atmosphere.
We came to a stop in front of a pair of giant steel doors. Declan swiftly unlocked them both, pushing them open to reveal the bright blaring sun beaming down on a grass covered corral. It had been days since any of us had seen sunlight. Stepping out into the blinding light was almost painful, but none of us objected to the fresh air.
Faith and I were the last out of the door, something I did not mind. Even though we were in the sun, we were far from free.
The towering cinderblock walls lining the hold were a commanding presence. Atop the wall, was strung row after row of razor wire, as if anyone could manage to scale such a surface.
No Keeper followed us out. They did not need to. They had their wall, and their cameras, and if those failed they still had their towers that stood high above us, giving them the perfect vantage point, “I guess Dustin was right,” Brian mumbled as we both came to a stop near a cluster of picnic
tables, “The only way out of here is in-.”
“
Stop
,” I warned him, shrugging Faith into a chair, “I know. You don’t have to say it out loud.”
“Do you want to know what I
have
to say out loud?”
“
Gah
!” I sighed, flopping exhaustedly into a chair, “I’m sure you’ll say it whether I agree to hear or not.”
Brian leaned in close, so only I could hear, “The little one is going to get you killed.”
“No,” I stopped him again, I knew what he was getting at but never would I
ever
abandon her. “I’m sorry,” Faith’s tiny voice rang through the statically charged air that surrounded us, “I froze,” Her head fell into her shaking hands, “I didn’t know what to do, especially after they took that other girl.”
“
No
,
No.”
I reassured her and grabbed her shaking hands in mine, “You reacted like anyone else would have. No one blames you.”
“You didn’t react,” She added, her bright green eyes searching mine.
Brian laughed, then nudged my shoulder with his, “That is because we’re not normal.” He smiled down at her, “Look, kiddo, just listen to what they say and do it as quickly as their orders leave their mouths. Pay attention to what you see,” His eyes lifted and scanned around us, pausing briefly on every person he saw, “The ones they have taken were either troublemakers like Rin over here, or weak like the first and last. Don’t be one of those.”
“I’ll try.”
“No,” He grabbed her tiny hand, swallowing it up in his grip, “You’ll do.”
“He’s right, Faith,” Stephanie came up behind us and slowly took the seat next to her, “You have to stay strong.”
“I’ll do what I can,” I smiled down at her, trying my best to comfort her, “but that isn’t much. Don’t make yourself a target, okay. I am quite fond of your face.”
“What’s going on over there?” She leaned her head to the side, watching a crowd gather in the center of the pen, “Don’t worry about anyone but yourself.” Brian answered her without much attention to her question, “It would probably be an even better idea for you not to get attached to anyone else. Just for your own peace of mind.” He winked at me, but I knew he was not joking.
“No!” She screamed, pointing to the ever-growing crowd, “
Look
!”
“
Is he stabbing her?
” A lone voice sounded from the growing circle. “
STOP
!” The frightened female voice screamed out from the center of the ring that had gathered, “
You can’t take that thing out! You’ll kill her if you try
.”
Stephanie’s eyes widened once she realized what was going on, “Is he trying to remove her marker?” She whispered to us.
“Looks like it.” Brian’s voice was dismissive as he shook his head from side to side, “Stupid.”
My heart lodged itself in my throat and I pushed to my feet, grabbing Faith’s arm in the same swift motion, I pulled her against the wall, trying to get us as far away from the group as possible. I knew all too well what happened when you defied a Keepers’ rules.
Sweat began to dot my forehead. My eyes scanned the pen, looking for a Keeper to come at any moment. They didn’t. I shielded Faith’s body, hiding her from sight.
“What are they
doing
!” Faith screamed from behind me.
Brian shook his head in disgust, “Asking for a death sentence.”
“
Stop!
” Another yelled. The group was growing larger by the second, “
There’s too much blood!”
“Where are the Keepers?” Stephanie asked in a panic. She had the right to be alarmed; it was unlike them to allow anything of that magnitude to go on for so long.
Agonized screams rang from the center of the group.
“
What’s going on!”
A scared Tester yelled out. “
What’s happening to them?”
As the circle thinned away from the two that were trying to remove their markers, we saw the scene play out in slow motion.
Both of their bodies were viciously convulsing on the ground, blood spurting around their jerking forms like a fountain.
“They must have hit an artery.” Stephanie choked out as she watched the two thrash around the circle, but I knew well enough that the trashing was not caused by blood loss but by something much worse.
“Did you see anyone touch them?” I asked Brian when he stepped around me to watch the act unfold.
“No.” His words came out clipped, stunned, “No Keeper came out.”
“The marker,” Faith cried out and her small body slid in defeat down the smooth stone surface of the concrete wall.
My heart sank as her words hit me, “They can take us out using the chip.” I clarified in disbelief.
Brian leapt to his feet, “Kill us through a chip?”
“Calm down, Brian”
“
Calm
, how can any of us stay calm! They could kill us all at the touch of a button. Take us all down without any effort.”
“
Yes
, but they haven’t done that so we must serve some other purpose. Remember,” I urged, “stay under their radar.” I grabbed his arms, stopping his aggressive pacing, “Don’t give them any reason.”
It seemed like ages before the two’s convulsions stopped, but it was probably only seconds.
The double doors burst open with four Keepers rushing the hold. They grabbed the two Tester’s limp bodies, vanishing just as quickly as they showed.
We had a kill chip embedded in our bodies. A small piece of plastic that could end our lives at the whim of any Keeper that thought it fun to knock one of us off. How fragile our lives really were that something as small as the tip of a pencil could end any one of us.
I absentmindedly rubbed at my arm, the place where my marker had been placed.
“It could be far worse,”
Declan’s words swam through my dizzy head. “
Trust me
.”
Chapter Nine
Brian sunk to his knees, his back resting against the concrete barrier of the small hold. I did not know what to say, what to do. I couldn’t console him when my own world had crumbled beneath me. To know that a tiny plastic device had the ability to end my life, or anyone’s for that matter, nearly sent me over the edge of my already fragile sanity.
I stood there frozen, watching the strongest of us break down. Maybe that was Brian’s curse. We all had them, but Brian’s was the most obvious. He was strong, physically bigger than any other Tester there. Relying on anything other than his physicality was probably alien to him. He could not fight his way out of there, and he was breaking.
Faith was the first at his feet, her tiny hands holding his, her soothing voice whispering comforting words that my battered mind remained unable to comprehend.
The world had tilted in the moment I witnessed the two Testers convulsing mere feet from me. Right and wrong, humanity, nothing was real anymore. Nothing was sane or made any sense. Our existence was not black and white, love and hate, life then death. We were thrown into a world of gray.
As children, we were taught to do the right thing, to care for one another no matter the consequences, but what if that consequence was your death, was that a price you would be willing to pay to keep your morality?
I stood idly by while I watched two innocent people die at my feet. I was unable to save them, I knew that, but I did not even
try
to stop them. I knew their end, knew that they would die and I watched as they went. Was I any better than the ones that put us there?
I chose to save myself.
As if she could read my thoughts, Stephanie came to stand next to me, grabbing my shaking hand in hers, she whispered, “You can’t save them all.” Her voice was as emotion stricken as mine probably would have been if I could have found the will to speak, “And by trying to, you will only be putting a target on your own back.”
Her waves of red curls swept across her face as the wind took possession over them, making the frightened girl look more angel than scared human. “Your only obligation is to yourself.” She smiled weakly at me, her lips trembling on a staggering inhalation, “Don’t carry a burden on your shoulders that will break you.”
I saw then how much I had underestimated the girl standing at my side. I had weighed her usefulness by physicality alone and watched as she came up short, the same as how I overestimated Brian’s ability to fight. You cannot fight a mental battle with physical strength. Stephanie’s mind, her ability to rationalize and cope in situations of travesty, would undoubtedly take her farther than any muscle or tangible force. This was a battle played within the psyche.
I feared she was right. I could not save everyone. I was probably unable to save myself, but that did not stop me from taking some responsibility. Her words, as shrewd as they were, were too little too late. My faith in humanity had already been shattered.
My voice was gone, but nothing I could have said would have alleviated the terror and pain that remained there. Words meant nothing without action. There wasn’t anything to be said and nothing could be done. We were powerless against the Keepers. All that we had left were our minds; we remained safe inside of our own thoughts. If only mine were clear enough, less haunted,
maybe
I could have found a place of solace to escape.
I remained a statue as I watched Faith bend Brian’s massive form to rest his head on her tiny shoulder. The smallest of us comforting the largest.
“Watch as the biggest of us fall so easily
.” Something my father always said to me, and for the first time, I could see that with my own two eyes.
“
When they fall, Rin, they fall hard.”
I couldn’t help the slip of laughter that left my lips as I stood and watched tiny Faith being crushed by Brian’s massive body.
Soon that laughter turned into hysterics.
“Oh, Lord,” Stephanie returned to my side, eyeing me as if I had lost my mind, “I think she has finally lost it!”
“Erin,” Faith’s small voice spoke out against my uncontrollable torrent of giggles, “are you alright?”
“I-I,” I continued to laugh as she rubbed a soothing hand down Brian’s hair. It was the wrong reaction but I couldn’t control myself. It was like laughing at a funeral that should have taken you to your knees. Laughing when you should be crying, nothing made sense. Laughing was the last emotion that I should have expressed, but it was the only sensation I felt, “Look at you!” I spat through my painful giggles, “You’re rocking a gorilla!”
Stephanie looked from Faith and then to me, her eyes worried as she went. “Yep, she has lost it.”
“
No!
” I laughed, grabbing my aching stomach in my hands, “He’s just so
big
!”
“That’s what she said.” Brian finally spoke, lifting his head from Faith’s shoulder.
We all looked to him, not knowing what to expect until Faith let out her own small chuckle. Steph shook her head, evaluating our sanity I was sure, “Oh, here we go again.”
I continued to laugh, and soon, Faith was taken over by her own hysterics, and eventually doubling over on the ground next to Brian.
“You guys just watched two people
die
and you’re laughing?” Stephanie was in near hysterics of her own, but her words did not bring us back, not just yet.
Maybe we had lost our minds, or at least a part of them. Maybe the situation was too much for any of us to handle and the only way of protection from the reality that stood as the angel of death before us was laughter. Whatever the rhyme or reason, we allowed it to pour over us. The reality would soon seep back in. It would take over our already fragile minds, wreak havoc on our psyches and haunt our dreams, but for a short microscopic moment, we welcomed the respite. We allowed it to wash over us and we had no shame in bathing in it.
I watched in slow motion as Stephanie and Faith shot straight up, both choking on an abrupt inhalation of breath. I froze when the color drained from Faith’s once rosy cheeks. I should have known. I should have been able to
feel
as death came near, but my body deceived me. Now it was too late.
I knew who stood silently behind me. My skin crawled, the hair on the back of my neck stood at attention, the two most basic human reactions to immediate danger. Our core senses, our instincts, knew danger was near even before our minds could register it.
I turned to come face to face with the most sinister expressions I had ever had the misfortune to witness, “Is there something humorous you would like to share?” Declan’s voice was ice cold, more arctic than I had ever heard come from him, his stoic eyes raked over me, disappointment radiated off his rigid body.
I cleared my throat and stepped away from him, fearing he’d take me back to that room, “N-no.”
“No,
what
, Erin?” He spat, taking a determined step forward.
“N-no, sir,” I corrected myself, my voice betraying my nerves as I tried to remain still in front of him.
Faith cowered into Brian’s hold as she watched Declan come at me, “Remember who is in charge here, Erin.” He warned, stepping closer to me, invading my personal space to grab my arm. He lifted it to his face, his chilling fingers absentmindedly tracing the faint bruise that lay atop my marker. My stomach clenched and my head began to swim with the fear as to what he may do. It was a warning, the clearest one he could give, ‘Obey, comply, or die.’ I had no other choices and no foreseeable way out.
I could feel Stephanie tremble next to me. I knew her mind well enough to know it was running a mile a minute. She had been the only sane one of us, she had already gathered her fate, but watching a Keeper so close,
seeing
their heartless wrath up close cemented that for her, for all of us.
Declan’s nail dug into my flesh painfully so, until his finger pushed upon the plastic chip that lay nestled just beneath my skin, catapulting the gravity of that revelation into perspective. He made me
feel
the tiny object that could end me. Feel the object that I had watched end two other lives right before my eyes. He made me realize that I was helpless to him, to The Supremacy that ruled over us. Helpless to the ones that held our fragile inconsequential human lives in their hands to do with whatever they wished.
I saw the spark of understanding flash through Declan’s eyes and my breath caught on the enormity of his warning. He let my arm flop to my side, effectively releasing me from his mental hold.
Turning, he slowly walked to the center of the corral, “You will
all
obey,” He addressed us in a chilling tone, “If you do not.” He turned and pointed at the barren ground that had once held the convulsing Testers, “One touch of a button will end your life in the most excruciating way imaginable.” An insidious smile crept up his lips and he paused to look at me, “Every fiber of your being burning. Cell after cell frying until the electric current flowing through your veins reach your brain, but not even then will your death be instantaneous. What is only seconds will feel like hours to you as your brain fries, short circuiting on the voltage pulsing through your body.”
His words hit me like a wrecking ball to the chest, knocking out every-last breath I had inside me. I stood frozen in his visual grasp, his words finding their visceral mark inside of me. I knew from watching the two convulsing what was happening to them, the same thing that happened to John on the bus. I knew what electrocution looked like, even what it smelled like.
Faith was soon at my side. She buried her frightened face into my shoulder and let out a pained sob of her own.
All laughter was gone. Our short mental amnesty vanished as the cloaked Keeper’s words reverberated through the pen.
Obey or die
. That was our lives.
We knew more would die before their test was over, maybe we would all die, but that end would not come by my own actions.
‘Obey or die,’
his unspoken words echoed through my mind, but I couldn’t help but wonder at what price I would be paying if I
did
obey. Was a life of imprisonment worth living?
They all saw death as a price to pay for defiance; I was beginning to see death as freedom. Freedom from the pain and torment they had inflicted upon us. Freedom from a life that was anything
but
living.
“Line up!” Declan’s cold voice broke me out of my thoughts. He smiled over the crowd, “Your play time is over.”
We were ushered down the darkened hallways with the same haste that we had been herded out to the pen, only this time there were four Keepers surrounding us. I could not stop myself from wondering if they were afraid of some form of revolt, or if their numbered presence was to help solidify our powerless stance against them. Whatever the reason, the only word that came to my mind was ‘animal’. That was all we were to The Supremacy, mindless animals that they either worked or destroyed.
As I was still holding onto Faith’s tiny trembling form, we were the last to reach our cell door. We had only been there for two days but she already felt as though she had lost weight, weight that she did not have on her small body to lose. I knew she had to be starving. We all were starving.
I straightened my spine, gearing myself up for a possible mortal blow. As I passed one of the Keepers, I bowed my head to him, hoping he would take the simple gesture as one of submissiveness, and I pushed Faith into the cell ahead of me. Whatever the repercussions for my inquiry, I did not want her to face the same fate.
I looked to my feet before I addressed the cloaked Keeper, and in an understated voice, I asked, “When will we be fed?” It was a simple question; we would not survive long without sustenance.
The Keeper grabbed my chin with his chilling fingers, he yanked it up so our eyes were forced to meet, “You will be fed when we see fit.” His voice, like his eyes, were devoid of all emotion, hallow, vacant and impassive.
It was moronic of me to think that any one of them would care about our discomfort. They prided themselves on their ability to kill us with the touch of a button, spent time and resources creating such a weapon. Watching us starve would just be an added bonus for them.
I found Faith huddled in the corner. Her tiny hands were pressed tightly to her stomach as she leaned against the wall near Brian and Stephanie. I knew that gesture well. She was trying to quiet the growls, trying in vain to stave off the painful rolls of her abdomen. Watching her suffer was more painful than my own discomfort. Her pain seemed to be tied to something imperceptible inside of me.
I pulled her into my lap, a worthless gesture because there was nothing I could do to help her other than put more of a target on all of our heads. No matter what I did or said, it made everything worse.
“I’ll be fine.” She whispered, then rested her tired head on my shoulder, “I’m tougher than I look.”
“You really are, kiddo.” Brian piped up, landing a playful punch to her arm.
“
Ouch
, okay,” She giggled, rubbing her arm, “not
that
tough.”
But we all knew well enough to see that she was far from ‘okay’, none of us were okay. A glass of water would hold off death just long enough for a Keeper to get a few extra moments to watch us wither away.
Looking through the room, all you could see were the broken faces of the surviving fifteen. Just yesterday, we were a group of twenty. Twenty scared Testers thrown into a dark and claustrophobic cell. How quickly five of us had fallen.