A whole new world

A walled, white world

[The title is not racially charged.]

I unsteadily enter the room, but nothing happens. The other three are nudged in after me. One of the guards quits stumbling around in the room, grabbing and switching a lever. A light flips on above the group, lighting up what appears to be a decontamination chamber. The door behind us is slowly pulled shut, locking behind us, and a gas puffs into the room, looking like a cloud, and feeling a little prickly against my skin. The shoulders and hips of 4 other people pressed against me. This chamber was only made for maybe 10 people to fit, 15 if your lives depended on it. Its uber-sanitary white walls were certainly a change, but they irritated my eyes with just the light reflecting off them.

The silence in the air was thick, almost feelable. Nobody asked anything, or handed out orders. The prison guards stood stoically still, something that feels like they practiced this alot. A nagging question I could see on all the other inmates faces, at least, i think.. is 'Why decontaminate just to meet some visitors?'. Normally being in this kind of thing could easily piss me off, but it was way too early to be getting riled up at anyone here for just standing next to me. I mentally counted the seconds we were all locked in here together.

20..21..22..23..24..25..

Half a minute of the most awkward thing ive been in, it felt really off putting. Starting when i hit 25, a loud vaccum started sucking the decontamination gas out of the room. It was annoying, but muffled from the sheer mass of bodies all around me.

26..27...28..29..30?

The door on the other side of the room hissed open. The front guards uniformally exited one at a time, but it took me and the other inmates a few seconds to figure out that pushing through each other didnt get us through the door faster, and the back four guards "gently" helped guide us through. There was another dull room that we emerged into, fitting in with the prison colour scheme flawlessly. The doors I eyed all around us were un-soothingly metal. It wasnt anything like our cells, but it made this room feel just that little bit more intimidating.

I was unceremonioisly ushered into one of said side-rooms.

I was greeted in the room by what you would expect from a visitor center, if it were empty. The only person I saw waiting here was a weirdly dressed gal sitting on the other side of the visitor booth, watching me walk in. Figuring she's who im here to 'see', I make my way to the visitor booth, sitting uncomfortably on the stool.

The woman is dressed in stereotypical scientist clothes, a white lab coat and black formal pants covering her. The girl was caucasian, blonde hair and.. what i can only guess were some contacts, since her eyes had a hazel color with a deep red shimmer depending on how you looked at them. Coloured pens poked out of her breast pocket, and she wore a strange red-lined gasmask. She had a clipboard and a small stack of papers with her, and i thought i could see the handles of a leather briefcase poking up from below the talking desk. There wasnt much else I noticed about her, she was a pretty normal person otherwise.

"Hello Sean."

I was already off-put a bit. This random person knew my name? Ive never seen her before!

"Dont worry, theres no need for alarm. I was given your file when you were chosen to be examined. Basic information, if you will."

"Ok.. why am I here?" I responded, the first question I had come to mind I blurted out, followed quickly by another. "And everyone else? Also who are you? And whats with your mask?"

"Calm down, I'll get to it when the time comes. For now, you can call me K; Doctor. K. As for your other questions, im here in behalf of a medical corporation looking for a few people willing to take part in medical trials to develop a cure for a new disease."