The Smiles Family

Chapter 2

The boy wakes up the next day in a new bed, new surroundings. He looks around at the small, drab room. There aren't any windows, just two doors. One of them must lead outside. He gets up and goes to touch his face, only for his fingers to come into contact with cold plastic. He remembers what happened yesterday. They had went back to the room. The Smiley guy said he'd start his new life tomorrow. This is tomorrow.

He gets up and approaches the dark, wooden door, turning the golden knob. It opens up to reveal a dark bathroom equipped with a combined bathtub and shower, toilet, and sink. The sink has one big, shallow and empty drawer. There's no mirror here either. He looks around. The curtains have been removed from the shower, with two small towels hung on hooks directly beside it. I should probably shower. The boy realizes.

The water was cold but refreshing all the same. Once he's done, he peers into the closet opposite of the door. It's filled with practically nothing except a white, oversized shirt paired with white shorts. Deciding it's better than the hospital gown, he slips them on. He keeps rummaging through the bottom drawer, but turns up empty-handed. That's strange, no socks or footwear?  He gives up and opens the second door. He stumbles out of the room and almost get plowed over. "Watch it!" The guy shouts, stopping dead in his tracks once he sees the boy.

"You're new here, aren't you?" He says, closing in on the boy, who apologizes quickly, but the kid shakes his head. "I'm 37. You better watch yourself around here, kid. Not everyone's as forgiving as me." He pushes the boy over, and runs down the hall, laughing gleefully. 

The boy takes a moment to collect himself before starting down the hall in the opposite direction. He stops when the hallway opens up into a room. It's a thinly carpeted room with sad, gray walls. There's not a lot of furnishing, just an old couch with a dresser across from it. Not much to see. 

He sits down on the couch in the dim lighting. Someone sits down beside him. It's the same girl who watched the boy struggle against those people during his first escape attempt. She's also wearing the same outfit: white shirt, white shorts, no footwear, yellow a mask.

"Hi." She says, holding out a hand. The boy pauses before taking her hand. "Hi, I'm... uh..."

"You don't remember, do you?" The boy's caught off guard by her bluntness. "No... I uh..."  "...Woke up after being shot with a dart, and ended up here like the rest of us, huh?" She finishes his statement. "Yeah, but how did you know?" He says, slightly taken aback. "You're not the only one with that story. There have been hundreds of other kids with stories like that." The girl lowers her voice to a whisper. "I'm Ill. You look like an AJ. Can I call you that?" She asks. 

 The boy is elated to have a nickname, or a name at this point. "Yeah!" He whispers back. Suddenly, Smiley enters the room, grabbing the boy's arm and steering him to the hall. "So, kid, I see you've met 94." He says. "Don't you mean Ill?"

"No," Smiley answers sharply, "I mean 94. She just calls herself 'Ill'. Anyways, since you've adjusted well, you need to be addressed properly. Your number is 239. That is what you will be addressed as, and there should be no reason your number changes. You will answer only to 239. Got it?" AJ nods. "Sir... Smiley... What does the number mean?" Smiley holds his hand up, stopping the boy's flow of questions. "239. Remember that." Then, he walks away.

Disgruntled, AJ decides to return to his room. As soon as he opens the door, a chilling feeling washes over him. He looks down, realizing that he's now soaked in icy water. The kid from earlier, 37,  laughs hysterically and from the end of the hall. AJ glares at him as he enters his room. He opens the door to find Ill, the girl he saw earlier on the couch, sitting on the end of his bed. "Did you get your number?" She asks.

"...Yeah. 239. What does it stand for, anyways?" Ill shrugs, and pulls AJ into his room, closing the door swiftly. "You probably realized this already, but his goal is to strip you of what makes you human. Your identity, uniqueness, everything. People don't just go missing by coincidence here. He kills them sometimes with cruel experiments. Thankfully, you won't run into that anytime soon. Just be careful. Be careful, lay low. Not many things go unnoticed here." Ill looks up at the camera peeking out from the dark corner and lowers her voice. "I'll be back."

AJ stands in shock as Ill exits the room. He stumbles to his bed, chest heavy, mind racing. I could die here. The thought echoes through his skull, dulling everything else. He can't remember if he'd had a family or not, or if anyone's ever cared about him. Maybe they're out there, looking for him. The thought is oddly reassuring and calms his racing mind. He sits on his bed, still trying to remember anything.

---

"Hey, dinner." Ill says, peeking into the room, waiting for AJ to get up. She takes his hand and leads him to a small room with a bright screen above a small window. The screen shows the word "Dinner" in bright, yellow words. There's a line of at least 50 people waiting at the window. Every person gets a small, metal box, presumably containing food. The boy and the girl tag onto the back of the line, eventually getting their small boxes, and return to the boy's room.

"Gross, this is like, mystery meat." The boy pulls the hot slab of meat from the box. "Yeah, well, they only have to feed us. Not feed us good food."

"Fair." The boy shrugs, biting into the slab. It's weird-tasting and chewy, but the boy doesn't spit it out due to it being food by some standards. Once the kids have finished their boxes of food, they sit on AJ's bed, chatting about things kids should be chatting about at their age. Christmas, games, etcetera. It's until the girl dozes off that the boy is silent, his thoughts a void, until he, too, falls asleep.