When the wall completely faded away, I was shocked to see a woman standing in the doorway. Her long dark hair hung off her shoulders, lying regally on the long white lab coat she wore. Gracing her feet was a pair of knee high, pure black, leather boots. I guessed they must've been the boots I heard in the hall.
Behind her were two muscled and armed men in navy uniforms. In her hands, she carried a clipboard which she now looked over intently. She looked up from her clipboard and scanned our scared and nervous faces. There was a look in her eyes that I couldn't quite place. It was neither cold nor calculated. They seemed more like a deep abyss that held so many untold and dark secrets.
Her eyes settled on one of the kids that had just woken up a few minutes ago. I never got his name. "You," she called and pointed to him. "Come with me." The poor guy was still disorientated from the effects of the drug and so he was slow to react. She walked over to him, her tall figure looming over him like a wave. "I don't like repeating myself. I will only say this one more time, stand up and come with me."
This time, he registered her words quickly, sensing the iciness in her voice. He stumbled a few times while trying to get up, but he eventually made it to his feet. He was escorted out of the room with both guards standing on either side of him. As soon as they were out the door, the woman punched some keys on the keypad outside and the wall rematerialized.
Throughout the room everyone released breaths they had been holding since the woman entered the room. "Who was that?" someone asked.
"The more important question is where are they taking him?" said a girl in the back of the room.
''What the hell is all this!" exclaimed another kid.
"Guys calm down; worrying and breaking down won't solve anything. We need to stay calm and level-headed."
"So we're are just going to stay here and wait for them to take us out there and do who knows what to us."
"No, we're going to wait here and figure and figure out what is happening and until then, there's nothing we can do." I was surprised when I saw that Chase was the one who was reassuring the crowd.
Seeing the reason in his statement, everyone settled down. It was ten minutes before the sound of the heels against metal returned in the hallway. The wall faded and the guy they had taken spilled onto the floor. "You next," she pointed at Chase. "Come with us."
My emotions exploded in a mix of anger, sadness, and shock. "No! No, you can't take him." I shouted defiantly at the top of my voice, tears already forming in my eyes.
"I wasn't asking for your permission." She signalled for the guards to take Chase away.
"No wait stop! What are you going to do with him? Leave him alone, please!" I stood up, ready to charge, but one of the guards stepped in front of me. Chase motioned for me to be calm. How could I be calm?
These brutes were dragging my twin brother away to an unknown location to do only God knows what to him. "Chase...," my voice broke.
"It'll be fine Alex, don't worry." He flashed me a reassuring smile before he was quickly whisked away by the guards. I crashed onto the floor in a heap of sadness and dismay. "It's okay," Peyton scooted closer to me. "I'm sure he'll be fine. He looks like he can take care of himself. Besides, I don't think they will hurt him."
I quickly remembered the boy who the guards brought back before they took Chase. I stood up and rushed over to him. "Hey!" I yelled. His head was hidden between his knees and arms. "Hey!" I yelled a little louder to get his attention. This time his head rose and he looked at me with a look of confusion and anger on his face. "Where did they take you and what did they do to you? Tell me everything."
He paused for a few seconds trying to build up the confidence to tell us what he knew. "They took me down a series of hallways that eventually led to this huge dome roofed room. The room looked like a science lab or something. There were tables with test tubes and chemicals all over the place. There were five people other people in lab coats and a bunch of other armed men, maybe about 9." He looked around at all the eager faces now staring at him and waiting for more information. "The weirdest thing about the room was this thing they had in the middle of the room."
"What was it?" Peyton asked.
"I can't really say, but it was like a coffin. Except it had all these dials, buttons and wires inside and outside it. The lady in the lab coat told me to step in it and when I hesitated she got the guards to put me in it by force. When I was inside, they shut the lid of the device. At first it was a little dark, but then this blue light appeared and it went across my body for a while. Then the light disappeared and the lid reopened and the lady told me she was done with me."
"Is that it?" I asked, hoping there was more to this story.
"Well when I was leaving I noticed that there was an image of body on this huge screen. Except my bones, muscles and organs were all showing."
"So they took you there to get your x-rays done?" asked Adam in a sarcastic voice.
"I don't know what they did. I only told you what I saw."
"Can you remember anything else? Like any little details that could give us a clue?"
He scrunched up his face in a look of concentration. "Well the scientist had this logo on their lab coats. It was a blue letter "P" with two rings around it, kind of like the sign for an atom."
"I've never seen that logo before." I muttered.
The sound of the heels returned again and this time when the wall faded, it was Chase who walked through. He didn't look harmed or shocked, just a bit confused. I ran and wrapped him in a hug. "I was worried..."
"It's okay," he replied. "I'm fine."
The guards pulled up the next victim and hauled him out of the room. That's the way it went. A few minutes after taking one person, they would return later dumping the victim and taking the next one. Finally the moment I dreaded came. It was my turn to be taken. I was the last person.
"Come on, let's go."
Just before I left, Chase quickly whispered in my ear that it would all be alright. I wasn't completely convinced, but at least it gave me some reassurance.
Just like Carter described, we walked down a series of hallways until we came into a huge room with a domed roof. The room was decorated with several large holographic screens, touchpad tables and many scientific tools. Roaming the room were the five people in lab coats that Carter talked about. They all had the "P" logo Carter described on the chest of their lab coats. Scanning the room were eight armed guards.
"The sooner you get this done, the sooner you can go back to your brother."
"What do you care?" I snapped back at her.
She turned towards the coffin-like device and punched in some buttons that caused the lid to rise. She turned to me and motioned for me to get in. "I assume you already know what to do?" I gave her a cold stare and nodded my head in agreement. Everyone else who had gone in had told me this was safe and it wouldn't harm me but I still had my doubts. I gazed warily at the strange piece of technology before. As I stepped into the machine, I had a feeling I was stepping into something much bigger than an x-ray machine. Unwillingly I got into the machine and lay down with my chest up. The second I fully lay down the lid slammed shut and the tiny space went completely dark. This was a really bad idea, I thought, but now it was too late to go back. The machine hummed with power as a blue light appeared and flew across my body.
"Here we go..."
