The Ink Infection [Brief hold and Editing]

Chapter 10

I woke up, rubbing my head with my hand. My head was hurting like crazy. I turned my head, which was lying on a stone floor, with three metal walls surrounding my sides, and the wall in front of me was barred with iron rods. The iron rods were long and strong, reaching from the floor to the ceiling. In the middle, a door-like shape was cut in the columns of the rods, resembling a door made of tinier iron rods.

I was trapped in a cell.

There was just a toilet in the corner of the room, and that was all there was. I heard clanging on the wall and shouts.

"Let me out of here, you freaks!" someone shouted, banging on the iron door.

A guard in black uniform walked past my cell, holding a baton in his hand. One of the cell's door opened with a creak, and I heard the screaming. The whacking sound of metal against the body. The door creaked again, and the same officer passed by me, his baton bloody. I shuddered. Apparently, there was no mercy in here.

I hoped that the person who got beaten was alive. . I sat on the hard grimy floor, and sighed. Where were my friends? Are they alive? I hope they were somewhere safe. Someplace other than this horrible place. There were no windows to see whether it was morning or night.

My stomach growled, and I winced at how loud the sound was. I haven't eaten anything since lunch because I couldn't grab dinner before going to the Homework Station. It must be the morning or afternoon if my stomach is this hungry. 

The guards showed up at my cell, and I saw the ginormous baton hanging at his side. I gulped in terror, unable to take my eyes off of it. The guard pressed a button at the side of the wall next to my cell, and a loud buzz followed. The guard opened my cell door and motioned me to step out.

"Out!" He ordered, roughly grabbing me by the collar and flinging me outside the cell.

Outside, white lights were streaming down from the ceiling, too bright for my eyes to adjust. I squinted my eyes, and saw a long line of other students in the middle of the hall, with occasional guards standing next to the line, holding the baton menacingly in their hands. I trudged on with the others, not willing to be beaten to death. 

I could hear other people's stomachs growling. I guess I wasn't the only one who was hungry. Feeling a little bit relieved, I walked quickly behind a student, looking down at my shoes. They were full of soot and dust, making me wonder how long I was passed out for.

Towards the end of the hall, I could distinguish the line separating into many thinner lines after passing through an arched doorway. As I neared the arch, I heard voices.

"Assigned to C83. Next!" The voice called.

"Hurry along you filthy animal!" shouted one of them, their hands reaching out of the tiny window in the arch to hit one of the students on the back.

"Neil Brown. Top three of Advanced. Assigned to A03." replied the voice inside the arches. I couldn't see who it was, behind the dark, tinted screens of the window. "Well, what are you looking at?" shouted the voice. 

I moved on quickly to not get hit. In front of me, there was a little letter under each doorway that ran from the letter A to E. I waited behind the line of people headed for the door, A. Soon, I passed through the doors to see long bleachers, reaching up to the ceiling. Below, there was a white narrow platform, with another same row of bleachers on the other side.

The entrance to the school! My mind perked open, wondering why we were sitting on the bleachers. Were there new students coming in? Was this how they treated the students before I came in? Was I knocked out for the rest of the year? Did I miss a whole school year? Possibly, that couldn't have happened. I would've certainly died from starvation or dehydration or something. Something was up.