“Where are you taking me?” I asked them casually.
Don’t say that, idiot. It’s quite clear they’re not about to tell you.
“You’ll see when we get there.” A gruff voice growled at me.
Was that some kind of joke? I’m blind-folded, so obviously I can’t see until they take the material off.
After a few more moments of getting jabbed in the back with a long, sharp stick to make me walk, the men around me stopped and held me still.
As if I am going to try to escape. I’m 12 years old and surrounded by grown men.
“Michael!” I heard a loud, rasping voice add to the breathing of the large men around me. “Can you tell me where we are?”
Obviously, now that I am still.
The ground is hard... Concrete, for sure.
Breathing and panting from the large men are bouncing off the walls... Either stone or steel.
Confined and still, not enough air for all of us if supply were to be cut off... Enclosed space.
“Some sort of large cell?” I answered, making it sound like a guess with the last syllable higher than the sentence itself.
Some men grunted from around me. Maybe four, five men nodded. One began to whisper and was cut off by a small wave of a hand from ahead of me.
“Well done, son.” The rasping voice praised from a few feet away, an inch closer than a moment ago.
Shut up, dad. Only praise me when you feel I have lived up to the task.
“Can you take this stupid blind-fold off me now?” I spat.
He wouldn’t be too happy about that.
“Not just yet, Michael.” My dad murmured, coming closer impeccably slowly.
Don’t you dare...
“I am not stupid you know.” I spun around on me heel. “My power isn’t a lie. You don’t have to keep testing me!”
“What do you mean, son?” Dad’s voice came from behind me, along with a slight humming noise.
He thinks me incompetent. Me? Incompetent?
I began to stomp over to the opposite side of the room, away from my dad’s voice.
“What are you doing, Michael? I am over here.” He said.
Liar.
“High quality voice recorder? Really? Stop testing my powers and let me live in peace!”
Now I was holding onto a stair rail and jumping each step to the top.
“What, called your robots off, did you?” I screamed. “Want to see if I can find you?”
“I need to know more about this power of yours. I don’t think you understand, Michael. I am a scientist, and when a scientist’s son is born with a never-before-seen gene... Well, I think you know.”
Yeah, I know. You can’t stop yourself. Have to know more, have to tell the world.
“Leave me be!” I yelled as I continued to climb the stairs, blind-fold tightly wound.
I made it to the top and stopped. Now I couldn’t hear the voice recorder anymore. The next moment Dad spoke, I knew exactly where he was.
“Michael...” Dad whined.
Idiot. It is as if he was calling me to him.
I ran down a corridor and stopped instantly at a stone wall. I ran my hands across the cool stone and found a door. I twisted the handle and threw the door backwards, slamming it into the opposite wall.
Breathing. Male’s breathing. Tall man with a heavy coat, quick breath roughly escaping his chest. I can tell there is salt in the room. I smell it. I feel hands clenching slightly, the pressure rippling through the air.
“Dad, what are you doing?” I whispered uncertainly.
Something steel inside his hands. I can feel the cold radiating off the surface. But the inside is hot.
“I don’t want to do this, remember that. I love you, Michael, but this is for the greater good.”
I breathed deeply now. My hands reached up slowly to feel for the knot of the blind-fold at the back of my head. After a few attempts, I unwound the material just enough to catch a quick glimpse of my surroundings. Of my dad.
Tears.
That was the last thing I saw. Tears streaming down my father’s face, dropping off his jaw line. The steel object was pointed at my head, obviously at quite an unimportant place, or else he wouldn’t shot.
Click, click.
Boom.
