Don't Look Back! Part 2

Chapter One: Beyond the Barrier

Forced by the masses, a young woman carried a girl on her am. "Come on, Darian, keep up" She turned her head to glare at the boy holding onto her hand as she pushed through more people to get to the front.

"Mummy, I'm tired" The little girl yawned, rubbing her eyes as she looked over the woman's shoulder into the eyes of another woman behind her.

Giving her a kiss on the cheek, the young woman hurried, through a group of people, around a corner into an open space where at the end, military stood, the guns held up into the air, counting the people that entered the barricaded area behind the trucks. "It's okay, sweety, we're almost there"

"Where are we going?" Darian muttered, running after his mother, his arm pulled up whenever she needed to squeeze through the crowd. "Ouch, you're hurting me"

"It's okay, Dary, it's okay, you'll be save" she said over and over as she reached the front, held back by an officer in a black uniform.

"Ma'am, you can't come in. There are too many already"

With a sigh, she sat the girl onto the ground and turned to her son. "Darian, take your sister, keep her save, okay. You will be fine, I promise" With those words, she rose from the ground, and glared at the officer. "Please, take them. Protect them"

Nodding to another soldier, the officer waved a man in a lab coat towards them. With the hand held out, he gestured the woman to wait.

The man, dressed in a lab coat, big round glasses resting on his crooked nose, crouched before the children. First Darian, holding a thermometer to his head, lighting into his eyes with a torch, and, with a sensor, checked his status. "The boy is good" he said, turning his focus on the small girl that hid behind her brother. "Hello, little one. What's your name?"

"Lucy" the girl said, taking her thumb out of her mouth for the time she spoke. As soon as the last letter rolled over her lips, she sucked her thumb again, her hand holding onto her brother's sleeve.

A smile on his face, the man leant closer. "Don't worry, little Lucy, this won't hurt" Like before, he checked her temperature and scanned her. With an affirmative nod towards another soldier, he rose and glared at the mother. "We'll take them" He turned around and walked back to his work station.

"Mummy" Lucy let out, picked up by a soldier and carried off beyond the defence line of the military.

Kneeling before Darian, the mother cried. "Take care of your sister, Darian, and behave well, okay? I LOVE YOU" She placed one last kiss on his forehead, before another soldier lifted him onto his arm and carried him through the tent into another room where Lucy had been placed on a small bed.

Running around, their voices loud and agitated, doctors in lab coats, assistants with brief cases and documents, and nurses with stethoscopes scattered, checking on patients, mostly children and some teenagers.

Opposite to Darian, who held Lucy in his arms as she cried, his hand brushing over her head, sat another boy on a bed, surrounded by curtains. His hair black, a dirty face and wide eyes, watching the people around him.

"Let's go" A man in uniform ordered the others and at once, the nurses and doctors left the tent and stormed to the trucks that the military guarded. Followed by the assistants with brief cases and documents, some more equipment they had packed in a hurry and soldiers that made sure they all got into the trucks, one of the doctors gave a soldier a list, and then shut the door behind him.

A straight back, the list before him, the soldier walked along the beds, each of them occupied by at least one child, gestured at the bed numbers, and one by one, the other soldiers picked up the children and brought them to a train where they had to sit in silence until the quest began. During the train ride, no one spoke other than a Sargent and a uniformed man next to him.