Defaulted

Unit 54 - Part I

There isn't hope.

I know that now. I can barely explain it but it's like I've finally woken up. As if before I was just dreaming; I was told what to do, and I did it, but I wasn't comprehending what I was doing. Until now - I'm awake now.

But being awake also has its downsides – the fear of being caught, the everyday anxiety of being different, and the returning memories... But nothing could compare to the endless list of unanswered questions. Why are we killing these people? What did they do? Are they innocent? Are you innocent? Through all the uncertainty, I knew only one thing for sure: this isn't me. And because of that, I needed to escape this nightmare.

I sat up in my cold hard bed, kicking off the itchy green army blankets that were covering my legs. To my left still hung our guns and helmets from "training" the day before – all still covered in dry blood. Looking around my dorm I saw my team mates all still asleep, snoring away, oblivious to what I was going through.

Silently I got up and walked into our shared bathroom; wall to wall of dark grey concrete without even a window. I changed into my plain all-green uniform and black boots, and put my hair into a loose top bun. The light flickered above me as I stared into the mirror hoping that it would turn into a portal so that I could escape this place. Instead the mirror continued to show the reflection of a teenage girl, with wild untamed hair, and sad green eyes. I pealed my eyes away to the wall next to the mirror that was still engraved with our names.

The first day we were sent here resurfaced in my mind. At that time, I didn't understand what was happening. They gave us everything we were deprived of at first: a bed, a room, meals, even a basic education. But then they gave us things we didn't even think twice about: a uniform, a team, a chip in our left wrists, weapons training and an agenda. And 10 years later we gave them results.

I'll admit, our six-year-old handwriting on the bathroom wall was as shocking as ever, but that's only because we were so short that we were sitting on each other's shoulders.

"You done, Red?" Clark said as he stood in the door way frame with his milk-chocolate brown hair flowing only on the right side of his head. Clark wasn't his first name, just like Redley wasn't mine. But that's what we were taught to say when we started training. Jonathon was the only kid I knew in our team who had been with me since before we arrived here - back when his milk-chocolate coloured hair flowed on both sides of his face. Jo was always the one that openly rejected what the higher ups had planned for us. He would swear on his life that he would never use a gun in his life. He said he'd never hold the weapon that murdered his entire family. Clark wasn't Jonathon anymore. Clark was the guy with the highest shooting score in the gun range, the guy at the front of the team leading us when we went into "battle mode" and one of the thousands of soldiers in here who doesn't remember their family.

"Yeah Jo, I'm done", I said as I walked past him but his hand took my arm stopping me.

"It's Clark, Red. You'll get in trouble if you keep saying that", he's voice was rough like shards of glass were in his throat, but his eyes looked more concerned than angry. I nodded, and he let me go. I miss Jo.

I walked out of our room, down the hall to our unit's empty kitchen area. In my memories, all of us kids used to spend as much time as we could in here than rather in training, learning things we couldn't unknow. We'd laugh at the stories we each had from what seemed to be our previous lives. We'd eat spaghetti and hotdogs and talk about everything from "Who's done their homework?" to "What do you think we're going to have for dinner tonight" to "What do you miss most?" to "Do you think we'll ever get out of here?" For little kids, we quickly learnt how to survive in this place – clinging to the hope that one day we might escape. I never thought I'd be the only one left who wanted to leave.

At first, I didn't know why I felt this way, especially when it was fairly obvious that no one else in my team, or unit, or even in the entire compound felt the same way. But I'm pretty sure it started approximately 10 months ago when I injured my left wrist climbing over a spiked fence. Some of the spikes had damaged the chip that had been put into our wrists. For a week after that I'd always be jolted awake in the middle of the night when my chip started spazzing - and I thought that was going to be the only pain I'd have to deal with. But after that, little by little, I started to gain back memories I never knew I had lost. I started to hate what I was doing all over again and the real pain of what I had done started to set in. I had "willingly" killed innocent people.

Or at least that's what I thought at the start. Eventually it started to make sense. That wasn't me - it was the chip. Actually, it was the higher ups that put the chip in me. It was whoever thought it was a good idea for child soldiers to be turned into mindless zombies in order to stop a country from turning into chaos.

The booming voice on the loud speaker woke me from my thoughts, "All soldiers of unit 54 please report to Section 2 for briefing".

"Fabulous" I said sarcastically to myself.