The Exiles (1st Draft)

Fin

Fin

   I couldn’t move. There was no sound. There was no pain.

   Slowly, my senses came to me. I was strapped to a cold, metal table. I was still in my school uniform but it was now blackened with ash. My burnt arm throbbed along with my head. I couldn’t look at it. I smelled charred.

   The room was small with reflective but completely seamless walls. I tried to free my arms but the straps were too tight around my wrists and ankles. I was beginning to panic.

   It took a moment for me to remember why I was there and what had happened. A feeling of dread consumed me and I felt sick as I imagined my punishment. I screamed out, thrashing as best as I could within the straps. My shrieks echoed and bounced off the walls. I couldn’t let this happen…

   “Stop!”

   I did and looked around for a source to the voice. There wasn’t anyone there nor a speaker in the wall. I waited for it to speak again.

   “Infinity Serena Morganson, correct?”       

   I thrashed again.

   The voice laughed emptily and continued. “You have been charged with property damage, illegal possession of weaponry and murder-“

   “I didn’t do anything!” I shouted.

   There was silence for an unsettling amount of time. I lay there, still and quiet. They wouldn’t believe I didn’t do anything. Even if they knew it wasn’t me, they’d probably still send me ‘out’.

   The sick feeling returned at that thought. I couldn’t leave my family. Especially not Julius. He wouldn’t understand that I hadn’t done this. He would know me as a killer for the rest of his life. Mother would have to quit work to be home for him. Father would be ashamed at what I didn’t do. If I could only see them for a moment…

   “Do you understand the extent of what you have done?” 

   I turned my head as best as I could. The voice was now a man and he stood right next to the table. His silver suit matched the walls surrounding. His face was solemn but I detected the hint of spitefulness in his tone. His tag said ‘Officer Carlo’.

   I didn’t answer. My throat was raw from screaming. The rest of me was suddenly exhausted.

   Carlo raised an eyebrow, lifting his chin with it. He spoke between his teeth. “You killed ten innocent people. You destroyed homes, injured citizens and disrupted the peace. It will be near impossible to forget this horrific day.”

   I tried not to let what he said get to me. I didn’t do it. The growing guilt in me told me otherwise. But I hadn’t done it. There was no way I could have.

   A horrid thought came to me. I held back a waterfall of tears. “Julius.” He had been close enough. It might have hit him.

   The man’s lip twitched. “Is he alive? I suppose you’ll never know. Even if he was, you’d never see him again.”

   The guilt exploded into sobs. Anger replaced the sadness of what had happened. “I just want to know if he’s okay!”

   “There are some things you aren’t supposed to know.”

   I could swear I saw a small smile as he vanished. Replacing him were four, white clothed men. They held me down as one readied a shot. I didn’t give up though I knew it was useless to fight.

   I didn’t feel the needle, only the following effects. My body went still against me. All feeling, physical and mental, escaped but I still lay awake, staring into their cruel faces. I tried to speak but found that I couldn’t even control my mouth.                                                             

   I knew what they were going to do, the same thing they do to all criminals. But I wasn’t one. There was no way I could convince them of that.

   It seemed like hours that I lay there, silent and motionless, as they prodded and bustled around. My thoughts weren’t even clear at this point. I wasn’t thinking at all.

   I think I laughed at nothing. I hate side- effects.

   “All clear.” One man said.

   Carlo came back out and the others vanished. He smiled cruelly at me and told me to open my mouth. I giggled and obeyed, my vision was still blurred and I felt like I was floating.

   Something fizzed against my tongue and slowly I came back to myself.

   “Welcome back. It’s a good thing we’re getting rid of you. You’re a nut.”

   That wasn’t my fault. “What did you do to me?” I demanded. It didn’t come out completely clear but he got the gist.

   “Again with the ‘things you shouldn’t know’ thing-“

   I pulled against the straps again. I was too weak to do it long.

   He took a wary step back and snarled at me though he knew it was impossible for me to escape on my own. “It’s time to go now.”

   A buzzer noise quickly sounded and the straps came loose.  Carlo jerked me upright and easily cuffed my hands behind me. I didn’t try to fight, all my energy suddenly drained. The circulation to my fingers was strained by the tightness of the cuffs.

   I could hardly walk and with the little support Carlo gave me, I’m surprised I didn’t fall.

   The wall slid away and he dragged me through a series of bright, white halls, keeping a gun at my head the entire way. I had no idea where he was taking me. I knew where I would eventually go but I didn’t think it would be so soon. I was mistaken.

   He unlocked the cuffs and shoved me into a very small, glass walled room, locking me in. He then slid a visor over his face and entered a room identical to the one I was in besides it had a panel of buttons and controls.

   A feeling of dread…no, beyond that even… came over me. Carlo threw me and I landed onto solid concrete. I was now facing it. The door to my new home.

   It was of thick steel that could only be opened from where Carlo stood.

   I leaned against the separation between us. “Please, let me speak to my family!”

   “You think they want to speak with you? A murderer?”

   A tear rolled down my face. I couldn’t go out there. I’d heard that you die as soon as you step out of the dome. I was leaving my home, my family, my life…

   “Have a nice future, Exile.”

   The buzzer sounded again but louder and more piercing. A huge thump echoed off the clear walls as the steel one began unlocking. It clicked menacingly and slowly.

   I screamed at Carlo but he only smiled with his chin up and nose in the air. I plastered myself to the wall, knowing my attempts were futile. Nothing could save me now.

   The enormous door slid away sluggishly. An impossibly bright light filled through the crack. I shielded my face with my hand as it grew. It began to burn against my skin. I cowered to the darkest corner but soon there was none.

   The glass wall behind me moved forward, shoving me outside. I fell onto, not pavement, but hard, cracked ground. It was hot and dry. I couldn’t see from the light that burned so harshly.

   The wall clicked as it returned back to it’s original position, closed. I tried to run towards it but stumbled on my weakened legs. My skin reddened with each passing second. I screamed and threw my fists against the wall.

   The world now lay before me and my home locked me out.