The Monsters in The Shadows

THREE

MY FIRST THREE MONTHS AT THURMOND were the best of the worst.

Never thought I would actually admit that, but it's true. Very much so.

I spent those months with the other freaks from Cabin 27, doing what all the other Greens did all day, everyday. Spending long hours making uniforms, shining the PSF's leather boots, yanking weeds out of the Garden-that kind of thing. All while keeping our heads down, desperately trying to avoid pissing off a PSF. As nearly impossible that  is.

You know what's funny though?

Eleven-year-old me was fully convinced I got sent to prison. 

I mean, in a way, I was.

I had spent so many nights wondering what the hell I did in order for me to be here. Me, along with thousands of other freak children, all destined to be locked away forever; our only crimes being that our minds were all fucked up.

Poor us.

Ok, it's not all that funny when you think about it, but whatever.

My last day of the three months was a cold one. The kind of snowless, rainless, bitter cold that chilled you down to bones, no matter what you wore. Not like our standard uniforms did much to protect us from extreme weather anyway.

Garden work moved slower than usual, and my body shivered almost violently in the afternoon air. All the Green girls from my cabin were placed in eight rows of eight. The Green girl named Sam stood on my right, mumbling about how she "didn't want to get frostbite" and how "our uniforms did nothing to keep us warm".  Ashley-who stood at my left- told her to shut up before a PSF heard her.

I flexed my fingers, trying to get the blood moving in my hands. "Its almost lunchtime anyway," I whispered to Sam. "You're just gonna have to wait it out like the rest of us."

She groaned, throwing the carrot bunch she spent the past half-hour yanking out of the ground into a large sack. "I hate this place." She hissed, her voice raising with each word. "They keep us here, force us to not speak, to do their dirty work, and for what ?! Because we're different?!"

Sam was shouting now. I shushed her tensely.  Ashley glanced over her shoulder several times.

"Sam.."

The one who spoke this time was the dark haired girl I saw on the bus to Thurmond. I found out when she came to Cabin 27 some time after me that her name was Ruby. She spoke in a timid voice, shifting from foot to foot, watching us. "Sam," She repeated. "You have to calm do-"

She was cut off when the overhead speakers rang out warning blares- one short, one long. 

"The White Noise..." I said, my voice shaking.

The PSFs must have heard us, and now we were about to pay for it. I dusted my hands on my pants, and covered my ears. Ashley did the same, while motioning Ruby and Sam to follow. all the other girls around us followed as well. It wouldn't help; we all knew that, but we covered our ears anyway.

You probably don't know what the White Noise sounds like. Let me explain:

Imagine you can hear a dog whistle the same way a dog can. Now, imagine that dog whistle was a million times louder than normal, loud enough to drill itself into the center of your brain. Imagine your nerves feeling like they're being shredded, that the world seems to erupt all around you until the only thing you remember how to do is scream.

And you scream until you either pass out or lose your voice.

Only we can hear it, the Psi freaks, and the Camp Controllers used that fact to their advantage. They blast White Noise any chance they get and sometimes it feels like they do it just to see us writhe in pain. 

So every time I hear those warning blares, I shut my eyes tightly and do the countdown in my head:

5
4
3
2
1-

White Noise blasts from the speakers.

The scream I've been holding in rips through me.

All around me kids screamed, desperately clawing at their ears. Someone pushes me from behind and I fall to my knees, but no before a white hot pain flashes behind my eyes and  I'm seeing things.

I'm seeing a boy in a school uniform looking at me and laughing, a older man dressed in black  smiling creepily as he reaches to grab my arm, and a little girl-no older than 10-laying in a small wooden casket. Each scene fades away like flashing lights. 

And I'm back to reality.

My mouth filled with hot bile. My vision flickered in and out and tears spilled from my eyes. Someone shoved me again, this time from the side and I fall on my face.

Then the world went dark around me.