Slipping Supremacy

Chapter 4

"What do I have to know?" I ask Ezequiel, turning my head towards him. "I'll explain only a little of it. I'll explain the rest when we get there." I nod. Why not now? We have loads of time. "When we arrive, your bags get taken. You'll get them back later. You'll see a small building a few feet away from where we parked, we're going in there. You'll enter a little lab where we run a few blood tests on you. After that I'll lead you in a room a few feet away from the lab, and there will be somebody standing there with a camera. He'll take a few pictures of you. These will be used for an ID. Without that ID, you're not allowed to work. The ID usually takes 1 to 2 days to make, so you'll be settling in in the meantime. You can take some time to get used to your tent and your surroundings. If you're lucky your ID is ready by tomorrow morning. I'll lead you to your tent after. Then I'll show you around and then you can do your own thing." Ezequiel tells me, rarely breaking eye contact. Which is kind of creepy. "Understood." I respond. I look outside the car window. We're driving in an area I've never seen before. We're surrounded by hills and a low hanging mist over the lake at the bottom of the lake. We're driving on a bridge which seems to be unsteady because it's old. When did we get here? I've been all around Lousiana. We've only been driving for a few minutes, there's no way we're this far from home already. Right? I shrug. Maybe I can get some entertainment out of my phone. "Is it okay if I'm on my phone for a little? I'm kind of bored." I ask Ezequiel. I just want to scroll through some memes or watch some videos. Ezequiel frowns a little and fidgets his fingers ever so slightly. "Depends on what you want to be doing. You're.. not allowed to text anybody." He tells me, his voice getting a little harsher at the end. I frown. That's a little weird. "I want to listen to some music or watch some videos." He nods. "Go ahead then. But if you dare to do anything else there will be consequences. Please don't." He says, almost sounding a little whiny at the last two words. I slowly nod. I open spotify and shuffle my playlist.

After about two hours of driving we arrive at camp. The camp is hidden, surrounded by houses in the middle of the woods. It looks like somewhere you'd go camping, just more military styled. The moment we're parked, I jump out of the car. I look around for a little to see the environment. Except for the tall trees, we're out in the open. There's a little lake about a 100 feet away from the parking lot, where I see a few people swimming. I'm so down for a swim right now. "Follow me, Blaze." Ezequiel says, slowly walking towards the small building he told me about earlier. The walls are concrete, and the roof is flat. It looks like a little prison. I follow Ezequiel inside as he opens the door. It looks really heavy. I think it's made from lead. I walk in and immediately notice the inside looks like a hospital. The floor is a light gray tint with a blue line in the middle. The blue line takes a left and stops at a door a few feet in. "Blaze?" I hear Ezequiel call me and I turn around. He's standing in front of a door right next to the front door. There's a window, but I can't see through it. The blinds are closed on the other side. "Yeah?" I respond. "In here. We need to run your tests." I shrug and walk in the door. The walls are gray tiles - Which are damn ugly. - and the ground is white. There's a dentist like chair in the middle of the room with some things attached to it. I have no clue what they are. They look like small tubes. There are a few other people in the room with black lab coats. "Sit down Blaze." Ezequiel points at the chair. I nod and sit down. I hate it here. The vibes are off. "We're going to take few blood samples. Using your blood, we'll run a few tests." I frown. "What are you going to test?" I look around and see one of the doctors' her eyes widen. "Just to see what your blood type is, and if you have any disease or something." That's.. Weird. They have followed me for years and know that I'm one of the bravest teens but they don't know my bloodtype and shit? A tall male with dark brown eyes and black hair walks over to me. "This might sting a little." He says to me. His voice is very soft and distracting. He grabs a needle and sticks in gently in my left arm. I see the blood rise up in the tube. When the tube is filled with my blood, he replaces it with a new one. I see Ezequiel and the doctor who got shocked talk about something. I try to listen in on their conversation but they've lowered their voices too much. As I look back down my arm the man replaces the 4th tube. Why is he taking so much blood? "We're done now." He says. He grabs a piece of gauze and lays it on my arm. "Take this over for me and put some pressure on it, okay?" He says while looking at me. I nod and put my index and middle finger on the gauze. I apply a little bit of pressure as he's writing things down. "Okay, we're all done here. Follow Ezequiel." He says, taking the gauze off my arm. He grabs a plaster from a drawer of the white desk to the left of me and tapes it on my arm where the gauze just was. He nods to me as confirmation that I can leave the room. I stand up and Ezequiel leads me out of the room. We follow the blue line on the ground which lead to a black door. "Go inside, I can't follow you in here. I'll wait outside for you." Ezequiel says to me. I walk inside and immediately notice the walls and floor are all black. At the back of the room stands a camera with a man behind it. In the middle of the room stands a black stool. The man waves at me. "Hey, Blaze! Please take a seat." He says to me, pointing at the stool. He's pretty short, has red hair and green eyes. He has a big smile, but it doesn't exactly reach it eyes. I sit down on the black stool. "Smile, or don't. It doesn't matter." He grins. I clench my jaw lightly and look in the camera. He takes a picture and looks at it. "This is fine already. You're a natural, Blaze. You're done. Have fun!" I shrug. He's too excited about this. I thank the man and walk out the door. Ezequiel turns to me. "Okay, so we're done here. I'll show you around camp a little bit, I'll explain the things we pass as we go along and I'll show you your tent. Sounds good?" I nod. "Sure." I respond. I follow him outside and we make our way to the stone pathway which leads to the camp. "So, if you didn't already realise, I'm your boss. I'll be helping you out and tell you where you have to work. Later on I might give you work to do." That doesn't surprise me. He's the one leading me through this shit. "These are the tents." He points at dark green tents, which lay a few meters ahead. "You'll be staying in one of these. You can work up to a better stay, but I'll show you that later." Working up? What does that mean? Ezequiel sighs. We walk past the tents, which took about 10 to 15 minutes. "There are a lot of teens brought here. These are not enough tents for all of these people. How does this work?" I ask curiously. Ezequiel chuckles. "Good eye, Blaze. You'll do great here. There are multiple camps. And like I told you, people work up. They move from the tents. And some people fail... You'll find out. It doesn't matter." I frown.