Hide and Seek

No Escape

I opened my eyes. The setting around me blurry. I rubbed my eyes and then looked around again. I was in a small room with metal walls, roof, and floor. That's when I heard the muffled crying in one of the corners. I looked over to see the unknown girl from before sobbing into her crossed arms. I felt the instant adrenaline run through my body. I frantically searched around for Zia and Calli. There they were, in the corner as well. Zia was crying, Calli trying to comfort her. I could hear her repeating the same sentence over and over again, "It's going to be ok Zia, it will all be ok." It wasn't going to be, they both knew that. I walked over to them, crouching down to the left of Calli. "Hey Zia it's fine, we are all here together!" I said in desperation for her to calm down. "Fuck off Astrid!" Zia screamed in my face. I fell backwards. "What the hell!" I thought, "she never acted like this!" Calli also stepped back and repeated for her to calm down. I don't think it was working though. Obviously. 

There was nothing else to do except wait or talk to the other girl. I decided to talk to her seeing as she might just want to talk to someone after all of that. I definitely did. Walking over, I realised that she was already looking up at me. A bit creepy but she looked innocent and sad. I sat down beside her. "Hey, did you want to talk?" I tried to start the conversation. I wasn't the best at talking to people. I never was. She looked away from me and then down, closing her eyes. "I feel like I need to, but I can't." She replied. Her voice was powerless and soft. I could tell she was scared. I think we all were. "My name is Astrid by the way," I told her. "Nice name, mine is Lana." She smiled. She was so young but was forced to compete in a life or death situation. This life was unfair for everyone eligible to compete. Everyone. 

Suddenly, one of the walls of the large, metal room started to slide open. Lana started to panic. I got up not noticing her. All of my attention was focused on the giant plane outside. Its engine was already running and looked like it was about to take off. The massive opening at the back of the plane was where I was guessing we were getting in from. That's when about 8 men in military suits came from around the plane towards us. They had guns, lots of them. They were strong too, so there was no fighting them to getaway. It would be like trying to get away from a hungry grizzly bear. No hope. Two large, muscular men took each of us towards the entrance of the plane. As we entered I noticed a few other girls probably from other countries of towns.

We were forced to sit down at one of the rows of seats along the walls of the plane with the other girls. As we were told, we all sat down. It was uncomfortable, but I dealt with it. I didn't want to complain just in case something bad happened. Just before we took off, one last man got on the plane. He was wearing a white coat and glasses with a briefcase looking bag. He stopped in front of the first girl to the far left which happened to be Calli. He opened the briefcase to show an odd-looking needle with something inside of it. He grabbed her arm so her wrist was facing upwards. Then he injected the stuff into her. "Ugh..." she grunted as the mysterious object was injected into her arm. Then he just moved onto the next girl. And then the next. Until he got to me. The man turned my wrist upwards and pushed the needle into my arm. It did hurt a bit, but not too much. I started to wonder what the hell it was that he put in our arms. Tracking devices? Maybe. Once everyone had been through it, we started to take off. I could feel the plane lift up off of the ground. This was the last I might have seen of Arrondale. But if it was, my last memories of it, were good ones.