/THREE/
The next several hours melted together in a symphony of chaos, the strings of time plucked until the sounds of reason existed no more. At one point, I was in the back of a van, nodding in and out of consciousness, as one of those men pressed something, a cloth, against the back of my head. When my eyes opened again, I saw the pavement once more while I was dragged by two of my kidnappers, the sun hitting my skin every so often. There was a dark room. The floor was cold and hard, but I could only focus on the pounding sensation in my head, and the dizziness it caused when I attempted to stand up. And then, I was in a chair.
A bright light blasted my eyes, worse than the sun itself, and I shielded myself the best I could from its assailing rays, realizing that my arms were chained to the armrests. Metal scraping against concrete tore my attention from the blinding light, a man pulling up a seat across from me, ten feet away. Once my eyes adjusted, I could make out the shape of the man's face, his nose crooked and chin covered in a patchy, black beard.
"Who are you?" I strained to say from a dry throat. "What do you want?"
"Samuel Keane: Age Seventeen. Student at Liberty Secondary of the Jasmine District. Apartment 1302 of the Royal Oak. Mother's name is Giana Keane. No father. You also were just accepted into the Inner Circle's very own University."
My heart sank. But I did not react. I held my tongue and waited for the man to make his point. He tipped his chin towards me, his gray irises catching the light for a moment. I tried to maintain eye contact, to seem like I was strong, but I was frightened. My heart threatened to burst through my chest and run away with each passing second, and I could feel my breathing become heavier.
The holo on my wrist vibrated, a display popping up and presenting a video feed. It was of a camera in a specific alley, at a specific time, with a specific dead woman. And me. I stood far from her body, but it was too dark at the edge of the video to see the murderer. I watched as she reached out, and then her head fell, and then the pool of red liquid followed. There was no sound, but I could hear her screams in my head.
Hurried breaths could not help quell the panic that began to build in my chest. My heart expanded with each thud, pressing at my ribcage, begging to escape.
I tried to turn, biting away tears, but one of the suits behind me grabbed the top of my head and spun me back, forcing me to watch the rest of the film. It switched from one camera to another, this one located on a nearby streetlight, aimed directly at me as I darted through the throngs of the crowd that night. Last night...
Sheer panic was written all over my reddened face as they zoomed in on me. It was over. I was screwed. I couldn't make any more excuses.
"Your levels are through the roof," the man said, one of his eyes lit up with a teal, geometric shape hovering in front of it. He blinked and it went away. "Well, that makes our jobs easier. No need to interrogate further. We've found a mishap which needs correcting. You'll be sent to the Corrective Behavior Facility for three years in order to correct your behavior regarding stress. Failure will result in termination."
As he stood up, I lunged forward, screaming, my heart sinking into my stomach now.
"No!" I howled, pulling against the chains, trying to tear myself from the chair. I didn't care if I broke every bone in my body. I had never felt this sort of fear or pain before. It was a worse pain than when Dad died.
Two men grabbed my shoulders, shoving me further back into the seat. I threw my head around, fighting, embracing this urge to live. I knew if I went with these people, that I'd never come back. This wasn't fair.
No... It wasn't fair! I clenched my teeth, squeezing my eyes shut as tears dripped down my cheeks. I wasn't strong enough. My head dropped, my chin touching my chest as my shoulders quivered. The men waited long enough for my crying to subside before they released me from the chair's hold and escorted me away.
#
I listened to the ringing in my ears as the van drove, one suit seated next to me, another across. Lowering my tear-stained face, I stared at the metal floor, allowing myself to feel each bump and jostle. We had only made a few turns before continuing straight onto some road, but I couldn't tell where we were at since there weren't any windows back here.
Before they threw me into the back of this metallic box, they stripped me down and dressed me in a red jumper, a signature of the Facility, a jumper that I'd worn once before. I balled my hands into fists.
Neither of the men spoke. They folded their arms, mimicking each other's movements as if they were robots, and leaned back against the wall of the vehicle. I couldn't understand it. They had no emotions at all. Just stoic, robotic men. No real purpose but to be a cog in a machine. I closed my eyes, my jaw tightening. Did they not care? Was another person just disappearing not important to them at all? How could they say this was a Utopia when they couldn't care less about their own people?
I bit down on my lip, preventing a whimper from slipping out. They were just robots. They didn't care if people died. The only thing that mattered was making sure the machine worked. Ensuring that the Utopia was the only thing in this world. Anything against that was a lie, a conspiracy, to harm the machine. People never mattered. Only the machine.
A sob fell from my lips. I gasped in air as I realized I'd been crying again. This wasn't the world I knew. No. This was the reality of a world that didn't exist.
How naive was I to have believed it all? I dug the sole of my shoes into the floor. How ignorant could I have been to have accepted this world? My father died and I was sent away for crying. I saw a woman killed and...
My hands shook.
"Do they not matter...?" I muttered. One of the suits perked up, leaning forward.
"Hm?"
"Do their lives not...fucking matter?" I growled with a ferocity I never felt before. It burned in my lungs. Sadness was one thing. But this wasn't sadness. My hands wanted to break, to punch, to wring the life out of those idiots and give them a taste of their own medicine.
The man sitting next to me began to shudder, his shoulders moving up and down as a low murmur resonated in his chest. Was that bastard laughing? I glared at him, my reddened eyes wide open with a seething hatred.
"You think this is funny?" I screamed.
I lunged forward, throwing my fists and cracking them against his jaw. The man across from us jumped towards me, but I kicked out my legs, my foot smashing into his groin with a sickening thud. Both men yelled, using their bodies to try and pin me down. I slammed my head back and forth, swinging my fists from left to right, uncaring of what damage I would cause to myself or the others.
"I'll kill you!" I barked, standing to my feet. They wobbled as the vehicle continued to drive on. The first suit punched the wall of the van closest to where the driver would be.
"Stop the car! We need Sedation!" he called out.
As he yelled, I came up behind him with my fists in the air, bringing them down in a powerful swing, smashing my hands into the back of his head. He cried out in pain, a noise so satisfying to the rage in my heart that I turned to confront the other suit with a confident smirk. I relished the fear that flickered in their eyes. They were confused.
Now, why weren't they being sent to the facility? My brows furrowed and I snarled like a wild animal, taking a step forward to prepare for my volley of attacks. And suddenly, I was flying. The car skidded to a stop, causing both him and me to be flung into the air, slamming against the back door. It busted open, but the air expelled from my body as the world spun around me.
Toppling head over heels, my head smacking into the pavement a few times, my body crashed into a bush just on the edge of the road. I groaned, my head rolling as my eyes blinked rapidly. A canopy of leaves shielded me from the sun and the bright blue sky.
"No..." I muttered, forcing myself to stay conscious, through the agony and pain my body was suffering. I felt the burning on my arms and back where my jumper was most likely torn.
I could hear the suits yelling a couple yards away, barking orders to each other in a frantic state, their speech quickened. If I had the time, I would've laughed. But I knew this was my only chance. With the strength I had left, I dug myself out of the shrubbery, and stumbled deeper into the woods.