Project Wildfire

Prologue (Arabian Desert, 2015)

          There were screams nearby. The thirteen-year-old girl in the cell wasn't startled by it. It became life for her. This wasn't always normal life. She used to be with her parents, living a blissful life. At least until they abandoned her.

          The screams got closer as the men dressed in black followed by a man in a lab coat dragged a little seven-year old girl to the cell next to her. This became a normal sight, but she still couldn't help but feel worried for Tia. She was one of the youngest and yet the strongest of them all.

          The men dragged Tia into the cell and the girl could hear her crawling along the stone floor to move as far away from the door as possible, still shrieking a little although the intensity was quickly decreasing. The men in black locked the door and stood waiting. That's when the man in the lab coat turned toward the girl. She stiffened.

          The girl hoped that this was one of the routine procedures although the men in black just stood there, making no advancement to her cell. The man in the lab coat looked at her with a poker face. Shivers went rolling down her spine.

          She wasn't scared because she thought that she was going to be taken or that she would end up like Tia. She was scared that she wasn't going to end up like Tia. She was scared that the man in the lab coat had something else in mind, that he was going to punish her, that he knew what she was planning.

          "You shouldn't resist," he said with the same emotionless eyes. "Don't influence Ms. Hestia Kamber. Resisting is only causing more pain. She is only a seven year old girl. Don't cause her more pain than she already has. Let her be. It is in the best interests for all of us. Otherwise, you might break not only yourself, but her too."

          "Letting go and submitting to your cruelty is what being broken truly means," the girl spat back. The man in the lab coat nodded mutely like he expected this response. He did, however, let his eyes look slightly disapointed as if he actually cared for them, for Tia. As if he actually cared for the girl in front of him looking at him with anger and hatred. As if everything that he did was out of his hands and that he didn't have an option, that he is forced to do all the horrible things he's done and all the horrible things he will continue to do.

          But the girl could see right through it. They all could.

          With that, the man in the lab coat walked away with his hands behind his back and the men in black following with the metal from the guns on the sides of their belts gleaming every now and then under the dim fluorescent lights. More glares and hateful looks followed them as the men walked through the hallway lined with stone and metal cells.

          The girl waited until Tia's breathing seemed to slow back down before speaking.

          "Tia, are you okay?" the girl whispered. She could hear Tia's knees and hands scrape the floor as she crawled to the door to talk to her.

          "Yeah. I was trying to stay awake like you told me to. I sometimes felt like sleeping to stop the pain, but I didn't. I stayed awake as much as I could. But I couldn't stop screaming," Tia replied quietly. She tried to sound strong, but the older girl could still hear the quiver in her voice. The girl felt like someone punched her in the gut.

          "You did good, Tia. Don't worry about the screaming. No one could control that. You did really good. Most of us couldn't stop ourselves from passing out even if we tried. I'm proud of you."

          The older girl could hear some grunts of agreement from some neighboring prisoners who were listening to their conversation. This seemed to relieve Tia a bit as the girl could hear her let out a small sigh.

          The girl continued in a lowered, more cautious voice, "The plan will be put into place tonight."

          With that, Tia took in a deep breath and pressed herself against the door to listen to the other girl.

          "We're leaving tonight?" Tia asked with excitement.

          "Yeah," the older girl seemed to be talking to everyone within earshot. "But it'll be dangerous. Stick to the plan. We want everything to go smoothly or else we could get caught. If we get caught..."

          She didn't need to finish that sentence. Everyone knew what she was thinking, even little Tia. An uneasyness settled over everyone in the hall. There were quiet whispers for a few minutes as the prisoners relayed information up and down the hallways to not be caught on the audio recorders. They were all careful to relay the information exactly as they heard it. They knew even the slightest misconception could lead to catastrophe.

          More than a hundred prisoners of men, women, and children, all slightly skinny from the repressed food, all with hardened eyes and determined faces, waited in a listless silence. They all knew that this night decided their fate: life or death. They knew the odds of surviving were low, but they had to try. They couldn't forgive themselves if they didn't. They all knew that they had to try to get out of the hell hole or die trying. They all agreed without speaking a single word that if they were facing certain capture, they would kill themselves before anyone could lay their hands on them. Anything was better than being taken back by the human disguised demons that put them there.

          More and more prisoners paced their cells and fidgeted endlessly as their time neared. Most of them knew that it would be last time they fought side by side with others, the last time they worked with a team, the last time they fought for a cause. And they made peace with it. So did Tia and the older girl.

         Finally, the 12:00 AM bell rang throughout the halls and the escape plan was put into action.

          Some prisoners did escape. Most didn't.

          As they expected, the plan went ary and ended up with the compound exploding into flames. The dead bodies that filled the area were those of the prisoners and captures alike. Most of them were scorched and scarred with the oxygen burned out of them, the fire sucking out their last breaths, ceasing them to exist. However, some of them did show signs of having bullet and knife wounds before the fires erupted around them. Others died suffocating, clawing their throats and their chests, reaching out, their arms and lungs trying to grasp the air in vain but not finding any from the smoke filling the area.

          Only 57 of the prisoners escaped from the thousands that were in the compound. Amongst them was Tia and the older girl.

          The civilians were told that explosion in the desert was from a small factory that did not have the quality required for standard equipment. The civilians ate it all up. Of course they couldn't imagine anything else and those who did were written off. A debate and discussion of how the laws should be stricter and more enforced for factory equipment was struck up in the country. The explosion was referred to and known of all around the world. But eventually people stopped caring. Maybe if they knew what was really going on in the hundred acre building that was hidden from the public for so long, maybe if they knew that the Saudi Arabian government was forced to spread those lies to the public, maybe if they knew just what powers were at play they would've cared. But they didn't. All the heat that the explosion recieved died down as everyone slowly started forgetting of its existence. It was just one tragedy among the millions of other ones. At least that was what they believed. They believed that it was a normal tragedy, a normal accidant taken place in this careless world.

          And so everything was forgotten.