The Others

Cattle

   "Aye, I think so," Stefan replied. "It's almost too bright out today." He turned to face his friend, Clutch. He wasn't much to look at: pale as death, scrawny but tall, he had a buzzcut and the same dirty, white clothes everyone wears. Not that they had a choice. They sat on a hill in the sun, their eyes fixed on the fence that separated them from freedom. "should we go find some shade?" Clutch asked with his eyes squinted like an angry squirrel. He looked over at that fence, around twelve feet tall, razor edges with miles of brown, yellowed grass beyond it. "yeah, I think it's about time." The pair began to get up and looked behind them to see the rest of their world. Other teenagers gathered in circles and talked amongst themselves, enjoying what time was left being outside. They jumped and laughed in the distance, doing what Terrans do. Stefan brushed his shorts off with his hands and started to walk ahead of Clutch with his face lightly glistening with sweat. There wasn't much to talk about except the heat bouncing right off their foreheads. Clutch had his mind on something, he always does, "hey, Stefan."
   "Yeah?" He said back, slowing his pace to match his friend's, the grass crunching underneath their feet.
   "We should go check out the wall tom–"
   "NO! You know better than that. Haven't you seen what happened to the others that did that? They came out and took them away, I don't want that for you and I sure as hell don't want that for myself."
   "I'm not saying that we have to get that close to it, we could just–"
   Stefan looked at Clutch, he knew it was a bad idea. It was for everyone else that does it, they never come back. "lets not and say we didn't. You know how everyone else would feel if they heard us talking about this!" There was more anxiety than anything surrounding the idea of going near that fence. It stretched a mile or so in each direction, towers of metal every now and then. Big, dark domes attached to places among the fence. In the middle of the compound was a small building that had a stairwell leading deep underground.
   "You're right, you're right. I'm just curious." Clutch said, folding his arms and letting out a big sigh. Not just any sigh, but the "fuck you for treating me like a child sigh."
   "I want to know too, but we know full well that it's wrong."
   Clutch looked at his friend's sunburned face and said: "I'm not saying that you have to come with me, but I am saying that I am going to go over there whether you like it or not."
   "Whatever, get taken. Be another reason no one does this." At this point, Stefan thinks Clutch is joking. There's no way someone would actually try that again. Stefan didn't know the guys, but when They came, they weren't happy. He saw how They pulled out sticks and beat them viciously before having a truck drag them away. It was terrible and for some reason clutch seems to have a thing for pain.
   They felt like they were walking forever, that The Room (a small building in the middle of the compound) was getting farther away.
   Eventually, the two boys got there and the whistle blew. Playtime was over. The rest of the walk was silence between the two, their conversation was a bit too heavy. The chain link gates swung open and everyone started to run inside shoulder to shoulder. The noise was terrible, yelling and screaming as the others trampled over one another down the stairs. It was like this every day, the same thing. Stefan got to the bottom of the stairs to see the all too familiar chamber. A huge concrete room with 12 single file tunnels leading to each of the cell blocks. Stefan and Clutch took the third one from the leftest side. Each person moved quickly, rushing to the end of the tunnel with a sensor that scans each and every neck that passes through it.
   Stefan finally passed through, went straight to his left, and into his room. And by his room he means the room he shares with thirty people who sleep five to a bed. Clutch would be there soon enough before the evening meal.