Quarantine Kids

The Cleansing- One

It's dark and wet. My bodies bare and I'm laying on a cold flat surface moving through something. I lean up and the lights come on suddenly, I blink ferociously. I look around at the white walls that consist of big and small holes. I look down, I'm on some sort of a conveyor belt. There's a loud boom and then the walls start to close in I scream for help. "Hey!!!" "Help!!!" "Somebody help me please!!!" Then there's a soft, calm woman's voice that comes over the intercom. 

" Hello, Cody Aaron you have been brought to this facility to help secure the safety of our future generation. As you know there was a deadly disease that took out 76% of the population in the united states you are the remaining 24%. After the cleansing you and the rest of the quarantine kids will be placed in a highly sanitized camp that well protect the bodies and minds of our future. The cleansing will now begin in 5. 4. 3. 2. 1.
"wait!"

Scorching hot water shoots from the walls burning my body and the pressure so powerful it feels like my skin is being torn from my muscles. I scream a the top of my lungs but I still can't hear my voice over the intercom counting down the minutes until the cleaning is over. I crouch down into a fetal position staring up at the siren flashing red light. I can't feel the pain anymore, I can't even see through the water splashing in my face and I remember back to when I was little when my family and I would go out in the summer and shoot each other with water guns and throw water balloons.

I remember Tabatha Parker, she was my closet friend and lived only a couple houses down. We were almost like sisters, she might as well have lived with me but then the disease came and took her father first and then he mother. Tabatha and her sister were in disease control for a week before Tabatha was gone too,  for our community it was like their hope died with Tabatha because after her death it became obvious that most of us wouldn't make it through this outbreak alive.

The water stops and I enter a doctors office with white clothes folded and placed on the table. "Please dress yourself in the clothes shone in front of you." I don't try to ask questions I just simply grab the stiff shirt and pull it over my soaked body along with the underwear and pants. "Please stand in front of the camera to your right." I look around and find a camera in the corner of the wall to my right. I adjust my body to the angle of the camera and a red parallel lazer scans my body making a beep and turning green when it's done. "Please step forward and place your finger on the tablet in front of you." I find the tablet. "Please place your index finger on the tablet." it repeats.

I place my finger on the tablet and it scars making a beep and turning the screen green when it's done. "Please sit in the chair to your left and place your head comfortably into the socket provided." I take a seat cautiously placing my head in the middle of the round medal equipment. "I will be giving you a new social security number that will be tattooed in black light ink on the back of your neck." "Please keep still while the machine alters your skin's surface." It hurts but not as bad as the cleansing did. I stay still and count to keep my calm, I focus on the feeling of the numbers. There's a 8, 6, 1, and a 3.  "Please wipe the blood with a antibacterial wipe as you're exiting the door to your right, thank you for your cooperation.

I grab a wipe and exit the room. I walk through a dark hallway ,bare foot with only a few dull lights on the walls to light the way. As I walk there's one, no two, no there children that follow behind me coming out of the several doors in the hallway, each of us trying to find the end. I hear whispering, it's the kids behind me. "Where are we going?" "Sh, I don't know but keep your mouth shut." I gulp and wipe the warm blood off my neck and I get chill bumps. A door opens in front of me and I jump from being startled, a tall dark haired boy walks out and gets in the front of the line.

He walks with certainty, with rage and opens the door that everybody else was to afraid to open without hesitation or fear. I follow him through the door and stay close but not to close that I get noticed. The shiny white room is huge with tall ceilings and lights figures lighting the room so bright I have to squint a bit from being in the dark so long. There has to be a few hundred kids here with no idea where they are or what their suppose to be doing, like me. There's a loud voice that comes on the intercom and a woman on a large flat screen in the front of the room appears.

"Hello and welcome to currently the safest place in the entire united states of America." "I am Lena, and I will be your guild until you get to Camp Quarantine where you will be kept and processed for the safety and future of our next generation." "As you will notice there are several buses that will departure you to Camp Quarantine, we will call out your name and assign you a bus to get on." "Callie Ray, bus 1." "Taylor Brown, bus 3." There has to be hundreds of more names called before I hear  "Lindsey Parker, bus 5." *Tabatha's sister, I can't believe it.* I find bus number 5 and run for it, I step up into the bus and look for an empty seat and there he is. It's the same guy I saw come out in front of me in the line, I hurry to sit by him. "Hi I'm Cody." He stares at my hand waiting for a shake and continues his task of looking out the window.

I look for Lindsey but I can't find her and then I remember that somebody has to bring her on the bus, she's and infant and can hardly speak a word. I wait a minute and as the bus gets more crowded I still can't find Lindsey, I start to panic and rush to get off the bus but the engine starts and the doors close trapping me in and Lindsey out. I sit back down putting my head in my lap trying to conjure up a plan. "Getting cold feet?" "It's alright I'm sure the government will take great care of us." He stays staring out the window and I can't bring myself to argue back right now or try to understand what he's saying,  god I need some sanity right now.