The sound of machines startles me in my sleep. Was I sleeping? I don’t remember. As hard as I try, I can’t. Why can’t I remember anything? I open my eyes only to be met by the roaring machines I heard just seconds ago. They’re all above me, but I can’t tell what they are used for. Enormous fans on the ceiling create a slight breeze and a low hum in the vast room that doesn’t seem to have an end. Everything is white, blinding me and blurring my sensitive vision. I try to stand up, but I find I am already standing. Already standing, and surrounded by a sea of people. Men and women can barely be told apart, as all of them look exactly the same: pale, tall, and muscular, with nothing growing from their bald heads. Along the sides of the room, I notice conveyor belts all up and down the walls, transporting more of the people I am surrounded by to an unknown destination. As I whip my head around to investigate my surroundings further, I feel my hair lightly brush against my neck. My hair. Tentatively, I bring up my hand and pull my hair forward, and I feel the silky texture of the thin, black strands against my trembling fingers, which I notice are a warm olive complexion, as I slide them down.
Slowly, I turn around, wincing at the sudden, sharp pain that emerges in my side. I slowly pull up the simple, white garment covering my torso, almost scared as to what I might discover underneath. I notice the number “40076” is inked onto my wrist. I see a large gash spreading from my ribs to my hip bone, unsure of what it might be from. I spot a small shard of glass at the bottom, and as I delicately pull it out, I hold back a cry of pain, suddenly paying attention to the fact that I am not alone. It looks to be half of a broken syringe, and there are a few ounces of a blue liquid inside of it. Peering around once again, I notice the words “Control is Power” written across the wall ahead of me.
I close my eyes once again and try to make sense of what is happening around me. I am not the same… I am different… Yet, again, I am suddenly drawn from my little world of darkness, however this time it is not a sound pulling me away, but a hand on my shoulder, shaking furiously. I gasp, the first sound I’ve heard escape my lips, and turn around in a flurry. A hand shoots up to cover my mouth, and I am met with wild blue eyes, holding a look of terror I can only imagine mine hold as well. His eyes visibly relax when he looks at me, and before I can even think, the man in front of me speaks, a sound so strange to me, yet so calming to hear.
“You’re going to have to listen to me very carefully. You and I are different from these… things.” He says the word as if it were a vile smell that just entered the room and he couldn’t stand it. “We’ve been waiting for weeks, but we haven’t been able to find any more of us,” he continues, “but now you’re here. This changes things. There’s still a chance.”
I open my mouth to speak, but my brain isn’t able to process the words, and I am rendered speechless in a moment when communicating is the only thing I want to be able to do.
“You’ll be able to speak within an hour.”
It’s like he can read my mind…
“Your brain just has to adapt without the injection. I’m 39786 by the way. But you can just call me One. Number’s kind of a handful isn’t it,” he says slightly chuckling to himself.
Injection… I look down to the floor at the syringe I hadn’t even noticed I’d dropped, and the trail of blue liquid seeping out of it. I glance back up to meet his eyes, and as I do I finally get the chance to fully take him in. He’s wearing the same clothes as the rest of us… should I say “us”? Are they even real people? I hold back a small chuckle at the absurdity of it all, however I don’t know why the feeling came over me. Continuing up to his face, his eyes are wandering around us, probably trying to see if anyone is watching, and I notice the small stubble forming on his chin and jawline. He looks slightly older than me, maybe 30 years old. But how old are we really? Are either of us even an age? I slap him on the shoulder to get his attention, and point to my mouth, which is drawn in a tight line, to show him my desire for communication. He chuckles to himself, but when I stomp my foot out of frustration he full on laughs, a beautiful laugh, at my… at my what ways?
“You’re like a little toddler throwing a tantrum,” he somehow gets out through spurts of laughter.
A toddler… a child… my childish ways. There aren’t any children here. But he knows that. And… I know that. How do I know that…?
“Look, we better get moving now we’re almost at the end of the belt. I know this place inside and out, so we’ll get out of here in no time.”
The belt? I snap out of my thoughts and look around to realize we’ve moved almost all the way down the warehouse. I guess the platform we’re standing on has been transporting us. I see the plaque above the white wall at the end of the room, ‘Control is Power,’ start to raise up, and I realize it is not a wall, but a massive door holding us in, as if we’re the prey they just caught and they want to let us out and shoot us for sport. I hear One murmur a quick profanity as he grabs my hand and pulls me to a corner tucked in behind one of the blinding machines. My side throbs in pain once again, and I notice a red liquid, I’m guessing my blood, seeping through my white shirt. A loud beeping noise sounds throughout the building and the room flashes between red and white.
“Code Red. Number 40076. Code Red. Number 40076.” The loudspeaker’s voice kept repeating the code. Where did that number sound familiar? Suddenly remembering, I look at my wrist and see the same number, 40076. I hit One to get his attention and shove my wrist in his line of sight. I watch his eyes widen as he sucks in a sharp breath.
“We need to get out of here. Now,” he whispers with a sense of urgency his voice didn’t hold before. He grabs my hand once again and leads me down a narrow hallway to the side of the room. The farther we run, the louder the alarm seems to get. Next to me, the blurry walls slowly change from white, to light grey, to dark grey, and I am now running in a black tunnel, blind to my surroundings. One’s hand is still on mine, and somehow, he is able to lead me until I see a small light. Overwhelmed with relief, my legs start moving like they hadn’t been before, and I am caught up with One now, whose face I can barely make out next to me in the weak light. I’m almost there. I’m almost out. I take the last few strides, the alarm now deafening I am so close to one of the speakers, and when I’m almost there…
One’s hand, which I hadn’t noticed had left mine, grabbed my own once again and tore me away from my freedom, and down a small hallway, somehow blacker than the one before.
“What the hell are you doing?!” I gasp and quickly cover my mouth, completely unaware that I was about to speak, and that I can finally say what I so badly need to. But as soon as I’m about to speak again, One’s hand shoots up yet again to cover my mouth and silence me.
“You might be able to talk, but you sure as hell cannot right now because right in front of us are troops sent out to kill me and you. Get down. Now.”
Troops were trying to kill me. Kill. Me. Was it really that important if I escaped? Snapped from my troubled thoughts, I hear shouting down the hall, coming from the illuminated room, the only light in the darkened hallway.
“I swear to God get them now! I cannot have another one gone. We’ve already lost too many rogues this year and goddamnit Sergeant if you cannot get a hold of this one, then I swear I will personally see to it that you lose your ranking and I will personally give you the injection! I am the Boss here and you do not tell me what to do! Now go and get them damnit!”
“Sir, yes Sir!”
A door opens and slams, and footsteps begin to sound around the luminous room, first at a sprinting pace, but slowing down gradually to almost a stop, as if trying to lure us out and surrender before they find us. I hear One’s small voice beside me whisper, “there’s a window right in front of us, down this side hallway,” he gestures to my left, “As soon as the troops go by, you’re going to run down there as fast as you can. Don’t worry, they can’t hear you, they can only hear the Boss giving them orders from the room.”
As we hide behind the corner, I see the shadows of the men stalk by slowly, taunting my fear. After what seems like hours, the sound of the footsteps gradually decreases down the passageway, and I finally am able to lean back against the wall to let out a sigh of relief. I can see the window at the end of the hall, and just as One instructed, I sprint, as fast as I can, down the narrow hallway, closer and closer to the small window that can be my final step towards being out of this vile place. I look back to see if One is behind me, hopefully following in pursuit. But he isn’t running. He is standing at the end of the hallway, in the same position he was when I left, smiling.