The process of elimination

Part 7

Thursday 27th of july

When Cassie woke up, the walls and roof were gone. She was lying on bare dirt. The walls and roof had been the last manmade things left. Now they were in a world of nature. It scared her. She looked over at her parents who were sitting huddled together and Mitch who was staring into space. The world was so quiet. Like there was nothing left alive. It was terrifying. The air was cold but the sun was out. "It'll warm up." Cassie told herself and sat up hugging her knees. She was in the same outfit she'd been wearing when all the other clothes disappeared about a week ago. It was all she had left. Her dad waved her over.

"We need to find other people." he said. "Safety in numbers. We're going to the beach."

The beach was where everyone had gathered when there was rumours of a fire last year. People might now return in their time of need. Cassie, her parents and Mitch walked silently down the empty streets.

There was a crowd on the beach. The whole island was there. A tall man was standing on a rock and saying that they had to leave, they had to find another place, where things didn't vanish. A woman argued that they couldn't leave, they had no boat and no tools to build one. Cassie caught sight of Maya shivering in a thin dress and Rosie, sitting on the ground, unable to stand without her crutches. A woman was offering her coat to a man without a shirt. Two men were fighting over a scarf. The air grew colder. Cassie shivered. Her dad put an arm around her. A child cried. A man walked to the edge of the cold water and proposed swimming. Maya's dad said they could find fallen branches and tie them together with strips of clothing. A woman said that would never work. A man tried to start a fire with sticks. Cassie and Mitch moved to sit near Rosie. Maya joined them as did one of Mitch's friends, Luke. Within minutes there was a large group of teenagers sitting on the sand huddled for warmth. Slowly the adults stopped talking. The group was silent.

A baby cried.

It echoed over the water. The cry died down and started up again, Thin high pitched, hitting you hard, voicing the panic and sadness of the moment.

"Can't you shut that kid up!" A man yelled and voices broke out again.

And then there was a louder voice, yelling through the crowds from somewhere above. Everyone stopped talking. The voice was naming family names. "Cassava, Tuckett, Meldrin, Lee." They flowed out in no particular order. People flinched as they heard their names. "Doldrums." Mitch took a deep breath. Cassie patted his shoulder. "Simons." Cassie closed her eyes. The names continued. Everyone who lived on the island was named.

"You all have lived on this island as long as you can remember. Many years ago, this island didn't exist."

Cassie raised her head, staring at the sky as the voice continued.

"A war, covered this planet for many years. People were acting out, dying, or going crazy trying to stay alive. And we realized. We realized that we knew almost nothing about human behaviour.

Mitch clenched his teeth. The baby cried again. There was a chorus of shushing.

"What would a human do, when faced with the unknown? How could we rely on a person when even they didn't know how they would react? To keep our planet alive we needed pinpoint perfection. So somehow we needed to study human behaviour."

Everyone was still, silent, waiting.

"During war many people died. These people left behind unwanted children or war babies. If you are over 45 now, then you were a war baby in the outside world."

Cassie glanced at her parents. Her mum was silently crying, her dad had her arm around her.

"You were brought to live on this island with a few select adults who could care for you. Over time those adults all died. Only one survived and we were forced to take him from you."

Mitch shuddered. Cassie's mind flew. His grandfather. Vanished from a locked room, no windows. Could this be how? But surely if he'd known he would have told them?

"This left the island completely full of people who knew nothing about the outside world. Because this island is a dome. You can't leave. We control everything. And now we have removed almost everything."

"Almost?" screamed a woman. "You've taken everything! Everything." she broke down crying

"You have all been wonderful test subjects." continued the voice. "We have studied your reactions to loss, to the unknown and to hardship. Each of you has reacted in a different way and each of you has been recorded. However the outside world is a different place. And you will not be able to survive out there. So we are going to put you through one final test. In 30 seconds, we will remove the oxygen. Thank you for participating."

Cassie froze. The crowd around her was still. A loud beeping filled the dome. Then the realization hit them.

People were running, screaming. A man sprinted into the water and started swimming as fast as he could. Rosie screamed from the ground as multiple people stepped on her in their rush.

"What do we do?" Mitch yelled. "What can we do." he was staring at the sky, yelling, shouting, shaking. Cassie stood rooted to the stop, watching the panic. She watched the seething mass of people, waving arms, taking deep breaths, yelling, screaming, gasping. People running, trying to hide but how could you hide from something that was everywhere? People were grabbing at the air, but how you protect something you couldn't touch? Cassie watched as the edges of her vision went black. She closed her eyes and felt the ground rise towards her.