The Medical School

Chapter Eight

I wake at the gong on Day Five with a weight in my heart. Today will be the worst day in ten innocent children's lives. I'll have to listen to the screams and crying all over again as new children are taken prisoner.

I'll have to walk past them on their first day, just like the girl with the eye bandage had done to us. I'll have to find something to say to them. I've decided that I can't just stay quiet.

Today's torture chamber is the Retinal Examination Lab where our eyes are tested, and obviously, examined.

I have to read certain things from certain distances. A flashlight is pointed straight into my eyes to see how far and how fast my pupils dilate. They take a ton of up-close pictures, probably so they can make my eyeballs 3D on a computer. My eyes, and everything around my eyes is measured right down to the millimeter. Once again, crazy proportions are calculated.

By lunchtime, I'm seeing dots and bright spots as I walk down the hallway. Lucy, who's walking next to me, won't stop rubbing her eyes. I want to tell her to stop because it's bad for her, but I don't have the heart to. The poor girl is going through so much already that I don't want to upset her further.

Work is stopped at five o'clock today because of the Room rearrangements. I had the forethought to bring my pack of cards with me for the day, expecting that we were going straight to Room Two. We all stand outside our new Rooms, and a guard slowly walks past us, ensuring that we've moved up to the right places.

I wonder if the guards and workers are the same people changing outfits, or if they signed up for a single position, I wonder again. It's a strange thought to be having when a bunch of kids are about to be sent to their deaths.

As if to prove me right, Professor Charleston comes up the staircase to meet the eight horrified-looking kids standing there, all of whom will be sent away shortly.

"Well, well! Who's ready to go on our surprise road trip?" he asks with that annoying cheery smile. The prisoners just stare at him blankly. "Well? Come along then!" he says.

Some guards push the kids down the spiral staircase and out the front door, all of them too scared to scream. I look down at the floor, unable to watch.

Twenty-five days, and that will be us, a voice in my head whispers. I burn the voice with my mind. I will not think like that.

A minute passes, and then I hear the sound of a bus driving away, the children never to be seen again. I truly hope that they can escape somehow.

"Into your new Rooms!" the barking guard barks.

We all step into Room Two. It's completely identical to Room One, just as I suspected. I lie down on my corresponding bed, and for the rest of the night, try to block out the sounds of wailing children next door.

-

The gong, the door unlocking, and the frightened children standing outside Room One. That's the order of things I experience in the morning.

I look at the new children, and the new children look at me. I have to say something, but I still haven't decided what. I can't say 'I'm sorry', like the girl had done, because that was no use, and I also can't say, 'it will be alright' because it won't.

Instead, I say, "Be brave. Just be brave." And I mean it.

"Sit at the Table with your new Room number on it!" barks the barking guard.

Five days ago, I was in the same place as the new kids. Now, they are going through everything that I had gone through. I don't want to think about it.

"Table Six! Lab Six! Table Five! Lab Five! Table Four! Lab Four! Table Three! Lab Three! Table Two! Lab Two! Table One! With me!"