AUGUST IS A FEVER

3

You don't remember much, your mind and eyes went blurry. Everything was happening so fast, you felt like your brain and everything around it was going a million miles per hour. You couldn't keep up. It was almost like you blacked out, only remembering slivers of memory. The next thing you knew, you were inside of a school bus filled with other children. Zip ties held your wrists together in a tight grip. The sharp side of the plastic was digging into your soft skin. Even just moving slightly would cause it to dig deeper into it.

You were sitting around the middle of the bus, maybe the seventh or eighth seat. What you did know however was that you were pressed uncomfortably against the cold window as it poured rain outside, the sky was full of grey depressing clouds. Tears were silently dripping down your face as you tried not to shiver too loudly as to not get yelled at or even shot by the PSI special forces or PSFs for short.

The group of other children you were surrounded by were stored in a warehouse before the bus ride to nowhere. The thing was you weren't allowed to sleep in there so most of you all only had a few hours of sleep and that was all about two to three days ago.

There was a girl next to you with tangled and ratty dark brown or even jet black hair. The girl looked around your age, maybe a year or so younger. She was still in her pajamas, they probably got her in her sleep. She was silent and looked weirdly calm but mostly exhausted. You sniffled as you tried to stop crying.

"Look straight and shut up, freak." said a PSF from behind you harshly, hate filled in her voice.

You were confused, why were you on this bus on the first place? Did they figure out that you burned the house down? Where are you even headed? The bus ride seemed like it went on and on for hours. It was hell. You leaned your head onto the window only to pull yourself away immediately, the window vibrated your head from the running engine of the vehicle.

Is this a bus filled with other kids who did bad things too? You wanted to scream, wanting to tell them it was all an accident - that you didn't do it on purpose. Then again the kids in the bus surrounding you seemed just as scared and confused, they didn't know what they did wrong or where exactly you were headed either.

You wanted your mother and father back. You wanted Kitty back. You even wanted your weekly Friday multiplication pop quizzes back. Hell, you wanted Damien and all the other students of your class that died from IAAN back. You wanted your normal life back. They were all something you knew deep down you wouldn't ever have again, your life would never be a normal one along with all of the other surviving children of America.

Your hands twitched uncontrollably which dug the sharp edges of the plastic zip ties even deeper into your wrists. You wouldn't have been surprised if blood had been drawn. As a result of the sudden and immense amount of pain, you unwillingly let out a whimper as your bottom lip began to tremble, the tears in your eyes coming down harder. That was when you felt the muzzle of a rifle pressed against the back of your head, you softly gasped as even more tears poured, preparing for the worst.

"Didn't I tell you to shut the fuck up?" Said the PSF with a grimace. You softly whimpered and let your head down, neck going submissively limp as you hoped she would bring the rifle down and away from you.

Eventually the PSF brought her rifle away after enough time she thought it would be to leave an impression on your memory. Your hands twitched uncontrollably again, you jerked forward as you took your bottom lip between your teeth to try and censor any whimpers that might've slipped out again. It hurt so bad, it felt like your hands were being stepped on someone wearing boots with sharp needles on them. Your hands had never twitched like that before, you couldn't control it.

The girl next to you glanced at you as subtly as she could in an attempt to comfort you, or maybe it was just pity. You weren't cut out for this, how did she manage to seem so calm? She looked tired too, temporarily going partly limp every now and then as she dozed off but straightened herself back out quickly. Being drunk off of sleep is what probably kept her from freaking out like how you did.

The ride kept going on for what seemed like forever and the twitching of your hands continued until the sharp cutting of the zip ties stopped stinging and they went numb instead. It felt like when a limb falls asleep.

Maybe it was your depressing mood but the rain seemed to pour even harder. The cold temperature and your lack of a jacket along with burned holes in your clothing, you felt insanely frigid.

You wanted so badly to use your newfound ability to create fire from your bare hands to try and keep warm but you knew if they saw you doing that, the PSFs on the bus would probably kill you on the spot.

If only you could squeeze in a few minutes, a few moments of sleep to pass the time but you saw what happened to the people who had fully fallen asleep, you knew the consequences. The PSFs would yell at them to wake up immediately and you already had multiple verbal and a partly physical warning with the threat of being shot dead.

With your peripheral vision, you saw the evergreen trees passing by quickly outside the window and all the hope you had left in your body drained from you as you got further and further away from home. Or more like the skeleton that you left of it.

Eventually the bus made it to some sort of gated rehabilitation camp. There were guards, other PSFs who stood out on watch as they waited for the bus to enter the property.

Your stomach twisted when the bus came to a stop, the loud roaring engine of the vehicle on the brink of breaking down becoming dead silent.

The reality of the unknown settled deep in your stomach. You had no idea what was happening and why you were being punished. Why did the PSFs seem to hate you all so much?

Your brain was all muddied and you couldn't comprehend anything. Your mind was completely zoned, it was like your hearing was muffled. The next thing that happened was so gorey and traumatizing, you couldn't sleep for another day even if you so desperately wanted to.