Out of Ashingdon

Assembly of a kind

As soon as the audience observed the girls presence, the room was hit with a deep silence. The only sound was the nurses shoes scuffing against the floor with her every step, and the nervous short breaths of the inmates.

The nurse led a horrified Wren onto a huge black stage, and pushed her down into a single chair upon it.

She suddenly had an urge to run screaming from the room, to throw herself out the metal doors, out of Ashingdon .

Instead she allowed herself to look out over the crowd, looking for a familiar face.

There were a couple hundred kids in this institute alone, she thought, her jaw threatening to fall open in astonishment.

There wasn't a single pair of eyes in the room not watching her.

She dug through the crowd, searching for Thorns sparkling green eyes, or Henry's tufts of Punkin coloured hair.

The search was fruitless.

She sat slumped in the chair, pretending to appear relaxed and oblivious to what was next to come, as a shiny wooden podium was carried onto the stage by a nurse in yet another purple uniform.

This nurse is thinner, younger. She looks exhausted, Wren thought with a smirk.

Her smirk immediately slides off her face and falls to black floor when a very tall man in a smart suit steps onto the stage, previously hidden amongst the crowd. He strides over to the podium with the posture of someone important, and clears his throat loudly into the microphone.

A few kids in the front row cringe from the wet, mucousy sound.

Wren holds back a grimace, determine not to look swayed by the situation in any possible way.

"Joyful morning, inmates."

"Joyful morning, Mr Millennium," the crowd drones.

I risk another quick glance out at the others and then turn my eyes back to my feet, almost certain I won't be able to find the two boys in such a large crowd.

"Oh, don't sound so cheerful," he attempts to joke.

That comment doesn't have such a great effect on the inmates, but the fat nurse that marched me here laughs flirtatiously into her palm.

Gross.

"Any how, I'll cut to the chase. As I'm sure you can all see, we have a new inmate joining us today here at Ashingdon. This is not a very common affair for us at this time of the season, and we are very pleased to be able to take a troubled teen out of society, and repair her under the law of discipline."

At this, he receives a loud five second round of applause, and Wren feels anger bubble up in her stomach as she thinks about how different the reaction to that false statement would be, had the inmates known the truth.

By all the bright smiling faces in the crowd, Wren was beginning to suspect that the inmates here did not know what was going on.

Why else would they be so happy to see a young girl have to go through the trauma they went through on their arrival here? They wouldn't.
These kids were just like her, they were all here for the same reason, so the same process must have taken place with every single one of them in this room.

So why didn't they care that it was happening to someone else, of their own kind?
They obviously didn't know the dangers of this place, they didn't know why they were here.

Sweat pours down her spine as Wren once again rakes the crowd, in search of those green eyes.

She looks left, right, sweeping the room with her eyes alight with fire.

There.

There she sees him, at the back of the hall, leaning against the white wall.

She wants to scream out for him, to yell for his help, but she doesn't.

Because he can't help her if he doesn't know what is about to happen.

"So I expect every one of you to welcome Wren with open arms, as she is one of you now. In ten minutes, Wren's initiation process will take place, so that will be all for today from you. Thank you, inmates for your time, you can now begin your first lesson,"

With that final note, another round of applause flies through the room, and the crowd begins to disperse, leaving all but the tall muscular dark haired boy, standing against the wall silently watching as Wren is dragged from the stage, and taken to the bright basement under it.