I always hated Hallway D. As I walked back to my apartment, the lights flickered around me. The lights stopped and then finally came back lighting up the tan hallway and the white, tile floor. Hallway D is one of the halls that separates the apartments in this building. There are four floors. Three above ground and one below. Residents aren't allowed in the basement. Some say that the floor is where the Rejects go when they aren't decided on. The Rejects are the disabled, injured, and insane people in the community. Others say it's a storage floor. The truth is neither. I know this because I was just there.
At first, it does look like a cleaning closet, but when you look closer you see that it's an old tunnel to an abandoned mine. Everyone knows about the mine. Everyone knows that the mine is forbidden unless given permission by the current ruler. I was quiet and I could hear people walking toward me. I hid and waited to be caught when I saw the rejected men and women walking back in shackles. They looked broken. As they walked past I saw that they were dirty and covered in salt dust, bits of rock and carrying shovels. I watched and noticed that some were bleeding or covered in dried blood. When the line ended I saw two men in uniforms walking behind. One was pushing a cart full of injured people and the other was holding a whip. I watched in horror as the men whipped the already injured people so they would pick up their pace into another section of the mine.
Soon they were gone and I sprinted up the hidden stairs I had found in my apartment and ran to the elevator. I went to my friend Alix's apartment who was a reject and was gone. The thing is that she and the other Rejects aren't allowed to leave their apartments. I was looking around for her when I heard a strange noise. As I turned around I saw one of the men from the tunnel looking around the room through an open door. When I saw him, I dove behind the couch and stayed completely silent. When he came through the room he walked past me. When he went into the bathroom area I ran from the room and went back to my apartment.
Before I ran down the stairs I placed a candle in front of my door for when the lights went off. I went down the stairs to check the tunnel again I saw her. Her short black hair was matted tangled. Her clothes torn and dirty, so different than her normal self. She was with a new group of people that looked the same as the first but smaller. This group consisted of 13 while the other consisted of 30. And where the first group had two guards the one had three. While they walked down Alix saw me and waved her hand in the direction of the stairs. When I didn't go she stopped suddenly and refused to move.
"Girl. Girl! What are you doing, keep moving!" one of the guards yelled at her
When she didn't move the other got out his whip and the third held here down. I watched the guard uncurl his whip, they ripped her shirt and I saw scarred skin that looked like rivers down her back. I ran out and into the first guard and knocked him out. When he hit the ground I ran to the one with the whip. When he finally saw me coming, I had already knocked him down. As the second fell unconscious the third had run away down the tunnel.
"Madalin, what are you doing down here?" Alix asked me.
"I came to find you. When I saw a guard in your room I was terrified that you were hurt." She and the others were bleeding and a mess. A broken shell of their normal selves. I helped her up I realized that they never brought a cart of injured people.
"Alix, in a group I saw earlier there was a cart of injured people they were taking with them. And the people had shovels, not picks."
"Those people were not injured, they were dead. That group you saw was the group of people that bury the dead."
"Oh, " I replied after a minute of thinking. "How often do the groups go through?" I asked.
"They go through three times a day. And trade-off. There are six groups of people assigned that job."
I told the group that they could now come up from the mines when a loud explosion sounded. The thing I found strange was that they didn't even flinch.
"What was that."
"Explosion farther down the mines. They are used to make them larger and loosen the rock salt around it, " replied one of the other workers.
"How often does this happen?"
"Once, maybe twice a day, " The same worker said.
I asked a question that made them think that I was crazy. "Can you leave?"
"What do you mean by leave?" one asked.
"I found a set of stairs in my apartment that led down here. I wanted to lead you guys up so that we could move to a different apartment building."
"But how will we know what room to go to."
"I set out a candle in front of my door so when I shut off the power that I can see what which door is mine"
I shut off the power and we ran up the stairs on silent feet. When we reached the top we easily found my door. We got there and my room and everyone was silent like that if we made a sound we would be caught. I managed to get them all out of my door and into their own rooms. Once they were all out I told them to go pack and meet me in front of the building. As I walked down the tan hall the light flickered back to life. When I met them we all decided to move to a new building. A week later the building collapsed because of the hollow tunnel underneath not being strong enough. All of the workers died but most of the residents were safe because it was during working hours. When the building collapsed everything was destroyed. Even now when you walk through the ruins you can still see the sign that says Hallway D.
