Removal

Removal chapter 2

                                                                     Chapter 2

          It was dawn before we arrived at their camp, Alison being carried by Cyril for the past hour. My shirt clung to me, damp with sweat and early morning moisture. 

        I wished for rain, for snow to fall and relieve the stinging of heat against my skin. My vision blurred and was begining to slow.

        I ran my hands through my hair and closed my eyes. I felt the self-control slipping away from under my fingers. Sitting on the ground, I dug my nails into my scalp. I knew it would hurt later but now, I couldn't feel it. My body was numb.

        I opened my eyes, a pair of combat boots standing in front of me. I didn't look up.

        "You could have killed them." I said, anger rushing through my veins.

        I felt cold rush over me. I looked up to the old man holding a bucket over my head. For the first time, I got a close look at him. His skin was pale against the black clothing he wore. His head was covered in white wisps of hair, and a jaged scar ran across the right side of his face down to his mouth.

        "It wasn't my comand." He said in a monotone voice.

        "It was hers?" I motioned towards the tent I had seen her enter earlier.

        "Yes."

        I shook my head. "She looks like a kid." I felt more confident with my words the more I spoke.

        "She's sixteen years old." He said looking towards the trees. His gaze was as if he was trying to remember something long lost.

        "She can't be. That would mean she was commanding people more than half her age." 

        "Oh." He looked back at me. "But she is. She is not just commanding us but she also leads us. Our home is hers. Our lives are as well."

        "How?" 

        "She was the one who began Storm. We follow her because she made the ideals we live by. She was the first soldier. She commanded the building of the fence and she," He paused, "leads us all. All 80,000 of us."

        My mind slurred my thoughts together. I nodded my mind blank of anything else I could do. I remember the first time I saw the wall. It was a massive sturcture over 100 ft tall ( 30.48m ), making me nearly fall over looking at it.

        I had stowed away in a cart, hoping to be able to see the Seekers in action. Seekers were our soldiers, the women and men who went out to look for signs of survival, and for signs of threat. I had only been seven. Aki's mother had been there. She had tried to protect me from Storm, and because of my ignorance, she's dead.

        I looked down to avoid his gaze. I felt guilt crawling up my neck.

        "Anyway," He waved his hand dismissing the conversation. "I was sent over here to tell you and your friends that assesment will begin in the morning."

        I nodded again.

        "If they decide you are not a threat, they will have you lead them back to your town. They will negotiate with your people."

        "So were going to be their bargain pieces?" I stood, more strength in my legs.

       "Basically." He chuckled.

        "What do they want from us. We don't have anything, we hardly have food!"

        He shook his head. "She wouldn't want your food."

        I watched as he pulled out something from the pack that layed near him.

        "What would she want?" I asked, relizing that the thing he was holding was a thin rectangular, see through piece of glass.

        "Good question."

        He tapped the glass, the place where he touched reacting like water after a stone was thrown into it. I took a step back. Advanced pixilized images flashed on the screen. Lists, pictures, designs zoomed past as quickly as his finger swyped past it. 

        My breath caught in my throat. It was something I hadn't seen in ten years. I memory in the back of my mind. It was electricity, it was technology.