Through the Lungs and Back

Chapter Six

 After complete silence, red sirens start flashing, and rapid footsteps pound down the hallway. Using natural instincts, I step under the yellow caution tape and I lose myself in the machinery. The machines are very tall, at least twenty feet. It smells like metal and wood over here, unlike the main path.

I trip over a thick cord, and four flashlights shine my way. People in hazmat suits crawl through the mess and pull me out. I don't bother to fight them. I'm pretty curious of what will happen. I can tell that these people aren't volunteers. They're adults who work here. When they pull me into the hallway, I notice that groups of people are being herded out of the hallway. The two people in hazmat suits let me go, then join the wall of other people in hazmat suits behind the crowd. Before I know it, I'm being pushed down the hallway into a larger group of people. When we pass the next hallway, a wave of new people joins the crowd, and it starts to feel like there isn't enough oxygen to support everyone. People are talking loudly, and the faster I turn my head, the more colours blend together. People are bumping into me from all sides. The person behind me steps on the back of my shoes, so I speed up, but I run into the person in front of me. Meanwhile. The two people next to me are pushing me into each other. Soon, we're shoved into a familiar hallway. A hallway filled with strange people with bright hair and clothes. The testing unit.

Static comes over the intercom, and the hallway goes silent.

"Each of you have been given a number. When you came into the hospital, a number was digitally printed on the underside of your left wrist. Please check and see what that number is." The intercom goes back to static, and people begin to roll up their sleeves to see the number on their arm. I do the same. In black blocky numbers, it reads, 50882.

"Now that all of you have checked your numbers, the rally will begin. If your number does not have a five, leave the hallway." About one fifth of the people leave the hallway. "If your number contains a six, leave the hallway." Another fifth of the population leaves. "If your number has a one, leave the hallway." A large amount of people leave the hallway. Definitely more than a fifth. Enough people leave the hallway so it isn't jammed full with people. There is actual space between me and the people around me. I feel like I can breathe again. "If your number does not have an eight, leave the hallway." More people leave the hallway, and there are only about one hundred people left. "Now listen to authority for further instruction." The recording stops.

"Line up against the wall." A man with grey hair and a badge takes charge. I quickly join the other people leaning against the wall. There's a little girl with big blue eyes standing next to me. "You will all be given a number that has nothing to do with what is printed on your wrist. For your own sake, I hope you remember it." The man speaks into a microphone. He starts counting people off by four, starting on the side closer to the beginning of the hallway. When he gets to me, he points a finger straight at my face and says, "Three." I hold three fingers behind my back. The little girl next to me pulls on my shirt, and I look down at her.

"What's four?" She asks. I hold up four fingers. "This many." I reply. She smiles and thanks me, so I smile back. She holds up four fingers and mumbles the number over and over. I switch back to three fingers and I try to tune her out. The grey haired man takes a spinner from a board game, and spins it twice. "Attention!" He yells at us. "If you are a three or a four, step forward." The young girl to my left looks at me with a confused face. I put my hand on her back, and we step forward. The grey haired man spins the spinner again, and now I start to wonder what's going on. My P.E. teacher back at school did this to split us into teams, but something tells me we're not about to play basketball. "If you are a three, step back." The man finally announces. I step back and lean against the wall. "You are free to leave, ones, twos, and threes." I follow the line and walk out of the hallway. People dressed in hazmat suits run into the hallway. Groups of people who were in the hallway getting picked over are all crowded around a huge window that wasn't there the last few times I passed by. When I look through the window, I see five people. I can't see them too well, because I'm far away from the window. I shove my way through the crowd to get a spot right next to the window. "Make way." I hear Ellis's voice as he parts the crowd like it's the red sea. When he walks past me, he grabs my hand and pulls me through the crowd. Then he pushes me towards the window when he gets close enough. "Better?" He asks me. "Yeah, thanks." I reply. He gives me a small smile and a nod. I return the gesture. "You're going to want to see this." He says. Now that I'm closer to the window, I can make out the faces.

One of them is Ilaria, and another one is my mom. "Don't flip out, okay? They're doing this because they want to save your family." Ellis says. I still don't entirely understand what's going on, but I can't take my eyes off the window. "If it makes you feel better, the blonde lady is my mom." Ellis says. He sniffs and rubs the sides of his face. I probably wouldn't have put it together, but now that Ellis said it, I do recognize the blonde woman. She's sitting upright in a hospital bed, just like Mom and Ilaria. I don't know who the other two people are. The twenty remaining people enter the room through a purifying chamber. A purifying chamber is a small room that is seperate from the room where the sick people are. There are two doors. One to the outside, and one to the room. They are never open at the same time so harmful chemicals, bacteria, or viruses are not released into a larger part of the hospital. This particular hospital has a lab attached to it, so it is much larger than others, and it has many more purifying chambers.

People in hazmat suits enter the room after the twenty people. The twenty people sit down in chairs against the back wall. The little girl waves at me, but I don't wave back. Something bad is going to happen to her, and I don't want her to think that it's because of me. One person in a hazmat suit wheels a cart over to one of the patients I don't recognize. "Who's in the hazmat suits, doctors, chemists, what?" I ask Ellis. Maybe he would know since he's a volunteer. "We don't know. Personally, I think they're from the lab. And no one calls them people in hazmat suits. They're just hazmats." Ellis replies. I guess I have a lot to learn. The same hazmat who wheelwd the cart over to the patient pulls a giant syringe off the cart. It is the largest syringe I've ever seen in my entire life. The hazmat holds some sort of a transparent sheet over the underside of the person's elbow. "That's a vein finder. It keeps inexperienced doctors from sticking patients in the wrong place." Ellis says, referring to the transparent sheet. The patient closes his eyes when the hazmat sticks the syringe in his arm. Instead of injecting something, the hazmat fills the syringe with the patient's blood. The hazmat puts the blood filled syringe onto the cart, then moves on to the next patient, Ellis's mom. Her expression remains rock solid when the hazmat draws her blood. Now I know where Ellis gets it. The hazmat then moves on to my mom, and I can't watch anymore. I don't want to forfeit my spot right next the window that Ellis provided me, so I look down at my shoes. I don't understand how my mom and my sister get the disease while I'm fine.

Ilaria wasn't supercharged. That's how. I don't know if my parents were supercharged or not. Maybe none of the people who got sick were supercharged. In that case, I should be okay. But if people who aren't supercharged are the only victims, why are quarantines being put into place? Maybe there are more people who aren't supercharged than people who are.

After blood is collected from each infected person, hazmats go around putting different coloured stickers on the twenty peoples' shirts. There are five people with green stickers, five with blue, five with red, and five with yellow. Most of the hazmats walk up to the window to place signs. One of them gets taped right in front of my face.

5 out of 20, green, no treatment

5 out of 20, blue, treatment with previously made medicine

5 out of 20, red, experimental

5 out of 20, yellow, treatment with new medicine

Open spots will be replaced

The girl I was standing next to has a blue sticker. She has a better chance at living than the other people. That makes me happy. I don't want to see a little girl die like that. I don't want to see anyone die like that. Since the sign says, open spots will be replaced, I'm going to guess that not very many people are going to make it out of here.

Ellis breaks my train of thought when he nudges my side. "Watch." He says. I direct my gaze to the hazmat wheeling their cart over to the twenty. "We call them the unlucky twenty." Ellis whispers to me. "My mom made me volunteer so if something like this happens, I won't be part of it. I can sneak you in the system if you want to have guaranteed safety." Ellis whispers to me. I ignore him for now and I watch the scene unfolding before me. I'll take him up on his offer later.

Hazmats take the syringes from the cart and inject small amounts of blood into the unlucky twenty. After that, most of the crowd leaves, probably searching for hiding spots. Certain people group up and leave together. "Party's not over." Ellis says. We watch hazmats direct the unlucky twenty into different elevators elevators labeled from one to twenty. Ellis presses his hand to the glass as the window closes back into a regular wall.

"Now let's go put you into the system."