Ahead, lay fields of men, women, and children, stretching across a large area. Their bones protruded from their skin and their faces were hollow and pale. Entangling them, orange uniforms clung around the workers, as if they were prisoners.
"Keep working!" yelled a man in a purple uniform.
The workers moved like zombies, forced to do labour like slaves. They had a rhythm that sent shivers down my spine and apart from the orange uniform, the room emitted a spiritless grey hue, illuminated by small, flickering lights that hung high on the roof.
"What are they doing?" Gertrude asked, she clenched her jaw.
"I don't know," I replied, a painful ache pressed against my chest.
Suddenly, an elderly woman collapsed onto the floor, her limbs sprawling like spider legs. Her face looked weak, and her fingers were brittle and damaged from the labour.
"Get up!" screamed one of the green men, this one was holding a baton firmly in his hand. He raised his arm to strike, and I could see the fear shudder across the poor woman's face.
"No!" A voice escaped from me, "Don't hurt her!"
With a face that could haunt my dreams for an eternity, the man turned to face me, and I felt a cold sweat rush down my body.
"Lost?" he cackled, "You lucky ones don't belong here, now do you?" A crooked grin snaked across his face, revealing a mouth full of gaps. With each step closer he took, I felt smaller and weaker, contained under his controlling grin. A trembling hand grasped mine and pulled me away, sending a painful sting through my arm. Before I could process what just happened, Imara was dragging me through, under and over machinery, with Gertrude by her side. A long pole swung above us as we ran through the people, stumbling and bumping into bits of metal.
"This way!" Imara screamed. She dragged us to a door which, unfortunately, was locked. Behind us, were half a dozen men running towards us with their batons in hand. My feet felt rooted to the spot, and I didn't know what to do, so I looked desperately around in search of an escape. Towards my right, was a vent that was partly open, big enough to squeeze through.
"Here!" I yelled, pulling Imara and Gertrude with me, and I ushered them into the vent before following hastily behind them. A hand clenched onto my foot, and I turned around to see that one of the men had my ankle in their iron grasp. I yelped and used my other foot to kick at the man's hand. He staggered backwards and I pulled the vent to a close, echoing a high-pitched sound. I had managed to narrowly escape the green men's clutches, and I relaxed against the side of the vent, catching my breath.
After I gathered myself, Imara led the way through the vent, making random turns at crossroads and searching around in the dark.
"Is everyone alright?" Gertrude asked, breaking the silence with her shaky voice.
"I think so," I replied, rubbing on my ankle where a bruise was beginning to paint itself on my skin. "Imara?"
"I'm fine. I should have never agreed to this, however, I would've left you two on your own to face this danger," Imara huffed, deciding which direction to go in this time.
"Everything will be okay," Gertrude muffled with uncertainty in her voice.
After a long silence and around half an hour of hopeless crawling, Imara eventually spotted light. She stopped and Gertrude bumped into her.
"Hey, why did you stop?" Gertrude groaned, wiping her face in disgust.
"There's light! We've found an exit!" Imara announced, raising her body in delight, banging her head on the top of the vent. "Ow!"
"Let's go, there's no time to waste, people will be looking for us," I murmured, lowering my voice as someone walked past. They stopped and bent down to investigate the vent.
"Imara?" Matteo gasped, "What are you doing in there?"
"Shhh!" Imara hushed, "You'll alert people."
"What happened? Are you okay?" he whispered, concern growing in his voice.
"I'll tell you everything later, just help us get out of here."
"Us?" he furrowed his eyebrows and leaned to the side to look behind Imara.
Gertrude and I waved, almost cowering behind Imara.
"I'm not even going to ask," he said as he waved his hands about. Matteo pulled open the vent and helped everyone squeeze out. "Just tell me you didn't do something stupid," he sighed, checking our faces for a positive expression, and after receiving none, he sighed once more, pushing his fingers onto his temple.
"There!" a scratchy voice shouted. "Get them!" a crooked finger was pointing right at us, and when we saw that each of the people were wearing green uniforms, we scanned the area for an exit, but we were surrounded.
"What did you do?" Matteo asked, his voice shrinking.
Before I could answer, a sharp sting stopped me from speaking. I felt my neck and pulled out an object, my vision beginning to blur and my legs almost vanishing beneath me. In my hand, I was holding a small, empty device with a long needle at the end of it, and as I realised what it was, my head had hit the floor, and everything went dark.
"Just forget," a gentle voice insisted.
"Just forget," the voice repeated, this time firmer.
"That's it, that's it," the voice eased, this time with a subtle chuckle.
Was I dead? I wasn't exactly sure where I was, but a blinding, bright light greeted me as I opened my heavy eyes. My head throbbed as I sat myself upright on a medical bed.
"Ah, you're awake," the voice spoke again, this time, I recognised it. It belonged to Abasi.
"Where am I?" I asked, rubbing the ache on my forehead.
"Nowhere you'll remember," Abasi answered, "Not after I deal with you."
"What are you going to do?" I asked, my body trembling. I edged away from him towards the end of the bed. "Where are my friends?"
"In another room, you're the first to wake," he grimaced, forcing a terrifying smile onto his ghastly face.
"Don't hurt them!" I commanded, pulling all the courage I could find out of myself.
"Who said I was going to hurt them?" Abasi cackled, making my body tense up and my fists clench. He wiped a small cloth along a syringe that contained a dark, crimson substance that looked terrifyingly like blood.
"What's that?" I questioned.
"This'll make you forget what you saw," he replied, taking his time, enjoying my fear.
"You won't get away with this!" I screeched.
"I most certainly will, and nothing can stop me. Not even a measly child," he cringed at the sight of me.
"You're hurting innocent people, and I will tell everyone about you and-" my sentence was stopped in its tracks by an unexpected pain. Abasi had jabbed the syringe into my arm.
"Just forget," he chuckled.
"Just forget."
YOU ARE READING
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Ciencia FicciónEnya lives in a world of danger and terror where Earth is in remains from human destruction. She begins her journey to find a new planet to start a life full of possibility. However, she finds something she shouldn't have and her life becomes ever...
