Genesis

Criminals?!

     "W-What?" I asked confused, what did he mean when he said--

     "We're criminals. We didn't happen to end up together by chance, all wearing the same old grey uniform. We were brought here from the same place; New Indus Juvenile Detention Center."

     New Indus Juvenile Detention Center. 

     N.I.J.D.C.

     I resisted the urge to gulp, my throat drying up by the second. The center on the edge of the city was one of the first of its kind, built during the crises of the 2030s to keep the most dangerous minors on the continent from doing harm. Among the strictest and most secure in the world, it was built for the rapidly rising juvenile crime of the Rage Outbreak. Adults steered clear of the place and children were forbidden to play near it. Students told legends about the fabled crazies who wound up there, and all the heinous crimes they were rumored to have committed.

     The silence was suffocating, so I asked the first reasonable question that popped into my mind;

     "How did you all get here?"

     He didn't seem to notice my startled expression and began to walk and explain. I followed beside him.

     "Well, it was just a regular day at that place when there were reports on the news about ragers, of all things. Most of our supervisors didn't take it seriously at all, and if it hadn't been for the quick thinking of four keepers, we would have all been slaughtered."

     "Keepers ?" I asked him.

     "It's slang for peacekeepers," he said before letting out a scoffed chuckle, "A term which doesn't really fit the job description. They're just a bunch of sadistic jackasses who get off on having power over us. Well, except those four keepers that I mentioned, who realized what was really going on at the time."

     I listened attentively as he continued.

     "Instead of running home to their families, they gathered up all the kids they could find in time. They made us load all of the facility's educational outdoor skills gear into big vans, then they packed us in too and drove us out into the woods," he stopped walking and looked into the distance for a moment. I thought perhaps he was thinking about the people he had left behind, before he continued to speak, "We were squished in the vans for what seemed like forever, and when we finally stopped, we got out not too far away from here."

     "So then where are the keepers now?" I asked him.

     "Gone. Not dead-gone, or at least I hope not. Gone as in they up-and-left us. They probably figured they'd be better off on their own. Either that or the death threats spooked them off."

     There was a moment of silence before Dorian spoke again.

     "Anyway, we're doing okay here now. Relatively okay, that is. It was chaos when we first arrived. Everyone was out of control, there were many senseless fights, there was no food, and the alleged cannibals were getting extra creepy. When the guards were nowhere to be found, it only got worse."

     "But everything seems so peaceful now. What happened after?"

     "That guy happened," Dorian answered, pointing past the huge fire-pit in the center of the clearing and past all the lively people that sat around it in fold-up chairs, and further away from the clusters of camping tents varying in color and size. He was pointing at a guy with ink-black hair who was sitting alone about thirty meters away from us, leaning back against the bottom of a tree, looking as if he were asleep.