Room 103

Part 1

Rebecca waited in line anxiously. Her hands fumbled her ID nervously as she kept pace with the slow moving line. She didn't know what she was going to hear once she reached the front desk. From the looks of it, nobody liked what they heard either. Each person dragged their feet, hung their head low, and walked out the door gripping their papers. A blue or green slip was held in each one of their grips and she was terrified for which one she was going to get.

Her brother Milo was right behind her. They looked as if they were distant siblings but the truth was they were twins. Milo was the oldest by two minutes, as he liked to remind her all the time, but Rebecca was the mature one out of the both of them. "What are you thinking about?" Milo whispered to his sister. Her response was a quick "I'm trying not to." He continued on, numb to a response he has probably heard a thousand times. "I think we will get lucky! Be relocated to a place where there's a lake or a beach. Maybe it'll be in the same region? Or maybe we would stay here. What if we add more animals to the farm? Or adopted more people into our home..." Sometimes, to Rebecca, it was like he didn't think about it all. "You know there are too many people on the farm anyway. The minimum for adoption is 10 people. We are at 105. Imagine adding another 20 or more. Plus there's not nearly enough work to go around and food to be shared."

The farm has always been a familiar home to them. Their mom was in charge of birthing livestock and Milo and Rebecca would always watch from as close as they were allowed, counting the seconds till a calf was born. This, although, was not a native trait to their mom. She initially was relocated from warehouse 6, in region 2, and loved to remind them of the grim reality of warehouses and the luxury of their life on the farm. While Milo continued to fumble ideas and possibilities of relocating and staying, Rebecca could not stop thinking about the chance of being relocated into a warehouse.

They were over populated, the poorest solution to overpopulation itself, with bodies and beds filled to the brim. Personal space was a dated reality and food was mundane as the walls around them. What if she ended up there? Obtaining a life of routine factory work and little space. However, what she also knew was that she was 18 and it was time for her to move or be moved.

The line cruised along till she made her way to the front. Now she could see slips being handed out. A green slip meant leaving the region. A blue slip meant adopting something or someone else. She heard of people living out in the Arctic but couldn't quite find it feasible. The Amazon also seemed bizarre but as more people inhabited the earth, the places we once never dared to go to were suddenly habitable. At this rate, she couldn't understand why a planet or a universe habitable enough hasn't been found but every inch of the earth now was livable.

Milo was more afraid of parting with his sister than the idea of where he was actually going. Talking about it more only distracted him from the fact that with in a week from notice they will be removed from each other's lives completely or relocated together. He secretly requested that he'd be moved with her but was unsure if she did the same. He could never know what she was thinking. As they were the next two in line, he hoped that maybe nothing would change. The two open windows upfront yell, "Next" at the same time and Rebecca and Milo move quickly to individual windows. Rebecca looks at milo as to remind him he's not alone. She had also been ignoring the idea of leaving her family but didn't expect for her to stay either.

The lady behind the window shuffling papers doesn't bother to look up at the Rebecca. She greets her with a cold "Identification" and Rebecca proceeds to provide her the information. She tries to peer over to see which slip she might get but is blocked by the black strip of glass at the bottom. After a daunting two minutes the lady finally says, "There you go" and from the small break in the glass at the bottom a slip pushes out. A green one. "I'm leaving" she lets out, not truly shocked by her relocation. Milo walks over, head down, dragging his feet. Speechless. She grabs his paper. Green. Warehouse it reads. She catches her breath and then looks at hers hoping for once that it'll read warehouse too. She flips it over and looks at it confused. "Report to Room 103" it says. Milo grabs it trying to search for a similar answer to his own or a better one "What the hell is Room 103?" The person in line adjacent to them peers over "Room 103, heh? That's a place you don't come back from."

Rebecca grabs milo before he could say anything and heads towards the door. "Don't listen to him Milo," she says, trying to convince herself as well, "It's obviously a place if I got assigned to it." "You're right," he says, "Maybe there is a mix up. What if..." they are interrupted quickly by the men guarding the door, "ID, Slips." They both give them their slips and quickly receive them back except for Rebecca. "Room 103" he says, "Come with me." The men grab Rebecca and Milo is escorted out the building yelling after his sister. Her brother's screams all seem to drown out to Rebecca by the sound of her own heartbeat. She hardly moves in disbelief and watches as the distance between her and her brother starts to increase. Soon he disappears entirely behind a close door and she finally lets out a crying sound. It echoes the hallway and seems not to bother the men carrying her. Finally down the hall they reach Room 103. Rebecca stands up as the men let her down and she tries to read the words on the door. "For Project X" it reads. The men knock as Rebecca's eyes scan everything and finally, after minutes, the door opens to Room 103.