Ignis

Chapter 2

"Please, sit on the table." The tallest doctor told me, gesturing to the chair with his shaking hands. He had thin brown hair and big brown eyes looking anywhere but at me.

Slowly, I head towards the metal table and hop up onto it. The cold metal almost stings my hands. Swinging my bare feet back and forth, I wait for the doctors to start.

The check ups are always the same, kind of what normal people get at the doctor, but more extreme. When they take my temperature the thermometer is hooked up to a big machine recording the temperature in everyplace in my body. Before the machine would freak out saying that it was too high but the specialists seem to like it that way, so they kept it on mute from now on. Every month or so they give me different injections and put me to sleep. All I know is that afterwards I wake up I feel really sore.

They check my heart beat and I hear one of them whisper something to the other. They scribble down notes and once again check my temperature. On the screen it shows the amount of temperature in my heart, and it's too small and far away for me to read it.

I'm out of the room 20 minutes later, longer than usual might I add, and I head down to my room. Guards are entering and leaving holdings with boxes in their hands. I walk up to my holding and the guards are just leaving by the time I get there. They eye me and continue walking into other holdings. Once I'm inside and my doors close I notice a pile of boxes on my dresser. They have individual flaps with words on them. There's two big flaps on the front and back, they have a rough texture to them. The ones between are smooth and much thinner.  

On all of the holding's walls there are framed rules telling us what to follow. Some examples are:

You and the people around you are referred to as holdings

Specialists are the men and women who perform your check ups, you may not speak to them unless instructed to.

Follow your regular dress code

Do not speak to other holdings

Do not speak to the guards unless instructed to, and follow every order they give you.

But there's a new one now.

These new additions to your rooms are books. They may only stay in your holding and must be taken care of, every 2 months you will get a new supply of different books, and your old ones will be removed. Books contain facts and stories which you may read for your enjoyment. These books should give you more understanding of language and your check ups will now test you on that.

The rest was just common sense that I decided not to waste my time on reading. I count five of these so called books, and I randomly select one. It's titled The Glass Woman. 

I'm about five chapters in before I get extremely bored with the story. So far it's just been plot development. It's about some Steven guy wandering into a forest and seeing a glass statue talk. Since I don't really have anything else to do I keep reading until dinner. Two soft beeps signal that it's time for me to head to the dining hall. 

Dinner goes just how breakfast did, except some people tried to sneak their books into the dining hall. The guards quickly take them away, and let them off with a warning. After eating dinner and putting my tray away, I head back to my holding.

I have one more hour until I have to sleep, so I continue to read my boring book. About Ten more pages in, it's starts to get really good. So good that I'm  almost filled with disappointment when the curfew alarm comes on. I put it back on my dresser neatly standing straight with the other books, and lay on my cot.

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After my check up, I walk in a fast pace to my holding to finish my book. Once a week, we head outside in this closed in space with plant life. We have one hour to do as we please, and breathe in the fresh air. Since that only gives me one hour to finish my book I quickly pick up my book and fumble it in my hands to open it. 

5 pages left, a giant plot twist occurs. Apparently the glass women is fake! The boy lives a life excepting it and pretending it never happened. I look for the remaining pages but that was the end of the book. I got this weird feeling in my stomach, and my eyes felt hot. I started breathing heavily until I blacked out.

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I don't really remember what happened, but I must have only been out for 10 seconds or so. I heard a weird flickering sound, and I felt heat down on the ground. I looked down, and saw this wispy red light flickering back and forth. The book was turning black and disappearing, like it was being swallowed up. Having no idea with what that weird stuff was I screamed as loud as I could out of fear. Within seconds guards burst into my room and see the book. They weren't as shocked as I was, but they were surprised that it was there. One of the guards grabbed me and injected me with a shot. 

As I drifted away into sleep I saw  one of the guards grab one of the red cans on the wall outside my room. It sprayed out white foam onto the book.