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Chapter 8: Hunger

I'm sorry for the wait. With all of this sudden support I wrote this as fast as I could. So please escuse all typos (hah). I think I caught all of them but if not I apologize.

If you comment like a lot I'll love you forever. Not that I won't love you anyway. [sigh]

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Chapter 8: Hunger

~E L L I O T~

Waiting is the worst kind of torture. The anticipation bubbling and boiling in my stomach is worse than any physical pain they could put me through. At least, I hope there is no worse pain then waiting for your own death. The purposeful ambiguousness of it all makes my hair stand on end.

I exit the mystery building back into the open air. I don’t have the heart to complain about the sun on my skin or the dust in my eyes. There are worse things at stake than my physical comfort.

Typos from Norton have gathered behind the building, sitting on the sandy ground.They are all clad in the same orange uniforms. I recognize a few faces, relief splashing through me to know they survived the trip here. A child is curled up on the ground. His knees are pulled up to his chin and his eyes are closed. His eyes are covered by his hair and he breathes heavily. He must be no older than nine or ten. He’s crying and no one is there to comfort him. 

I sit on the ground with Leo and Oliver. I have to say Oliver’s name a couple times and tap on his shoulder to get his attention. We exchange a few words but his distant eyes encourage me leave him be. My brother and I play round after round of tick-tack-toe in the sand while Oliver watches us with a blank expression. Leo insists on being the o. I half-heartedly argue at first. But he claims it is for good luck. 

“Well, I guess we need all the luck we can get huh?” I joke and put an x in the middle. He wins almost every time.

My mother and sister join us a couple minutes later. The same orange uniforms. The same crest fallen, exhausted looks. I beat my mother in five games of tick-tick-toe and Blair puts her head in my lap. 

Thirty minutes pass and the pits and the backs of everyone’s shirts are a much darker orange. The flow of Typos coming out of the building comes to a halt. My heart clenches when I can identify the several missing faces in the crowd.

Harry is the last to exit the building. I don’t know that because I looked at him. I know that because another soldier called him over. I distractedly mark an x on the ground when he walks past me. The cadet trails slightly behind him, snickering about something or another. They head over to the shade where the other Correctors are standing. All of their eyes are on us– all of us. They are watching us like we will suddenly pounce on them. I can almost see the spew of unsaid insults on the tips of their tongues. We may out number them but each gun on their belt and the lack of weapons on our end works in their favor.

I lose another game of tick-tack-toe.

“Stand up!” The angry looking man that banged on my door at the beginning of this nightmare stands in front of us. A painful looking sunburn, even more intense from before, covers his skin; making his short, pudgy features slightly intimidating. The brute at his side, tall, muscular and armed, is why we all shuffle to our feet. I dust the dirt off my pants. 

“We are separating you into groups of eighty!” The lieutenant yells. Without being given a command, the brute steps forward. He takes the arm of a young girl and yanks her to the side. She shows a little resistance to his violent movements but the refusal is weak. He takes another, an older man, and shoves him toward her. “This will be the number of people in your block where you will be resting tonight.” The lieutenant explains after a few more people have been pulled aside. Suddenly everyone seems a lot more willing to go along with it.