Time stood idly by as the gum was being chewed. The zeppelin glided over our heads emitting a flurry of purple waves that looked like circles. We all knew that we were lab rats in the city of Suborg, but what we didn’t know was how expendable we were as lab rats. We were broken. Most of us didn’t even dare remember what life was before, but I dared. I remember the green pastors, the city square bustling with life, scientists and their families living their lives to the fullest. However, nothing good lasts forever. Something happened that we were forced to forget, and from that moment on, we became an experiment. In one moment, the power plant had vanished, and in its place, a large scientific center was created, but the inhabitants liked to call it: Murder Center. A lot of our friends and neighbors disappeared during the time we forgot, and many others were lost to the murder center. We never knew what happened to them until one day. The megaphones which governed our daily lives commanded us to go stand in the city square, so we did. We stood facing the murder center. A fleeting memory plagued my brain as I stood near a tree. I remember it being so much smaller. How did it grow so fast? I didn’t know how much we were forced to forget, but I know we didn’t age that much, a couple of months maybe, so how did this tree age so much? Armed guards herded us like sheep inside the murder center, so I took one last breath of freedom, and said goodbye to the night air.
The inside of the murder castle looked a lot like a hospital, but we couldn’t see inside the rooms that were on either side of the wide hallway, for each door was closed, and each window was blocked with a thick curtain, but I did hear some moans of pain and agony echoing through the hallway. These were the last moments I would be breathing. I knew it. We were herded again into a large conference room, and were given gum of all things. I thought it was odd, but no one would ever dare complain. This was the city that housed us and fed us throughout the years, and protests were always silenced, so I put the gum in my mouth, and waited. It tasted weird, almost metallic, and when I chewed it, it felt like animal skin. The clocked continued its relentless ticking, and one by one, we began to feel it. Blurry vision, headaches, and dizziness. Groups of ten were formed, and we were led towards smaller rooms with ten chairs, then presented with math and technical problems and were commanded to solve them after we sat down. The room I was in was clean. It smelled nice, and the man wearing a lab coat that stood in the middle of the room seemed nice. We were solving the equations in silence, when one woman started crying. The man in the lab coat approached her, so she looked up at him and said: I can’t see! It was then that I realized that my vision had deteriorated. So, this was the experiment. A gum that would take away our eyesight. But why math? Maybe they wanted to see if our mental abilities remained the same after whatever drug they administered into a seemingly innocent piece of gum? I guess that’s the most suitable answer, but I still had one glaring question. Why did they take all of us? Before, they used to take smaller groups of people, so why take all of the remaining inhabitants now? The answer came to me in the form of the loudest noise I had ever heard. I’ve never heard anything like it before. It was technical almost, like waves being pushed inside my brain. I could no longer think. My hands on my ears didn’t work. Nothing seemed to work. I wanted to see what was happening, but the window to the outside world had a curtain on it, so I walked with a struggle, and opened the curtain.
A huge zeppelin was gliding, emitting purple waves in the shape of circles to another object I could not fathom. It looked like a plane, but was not like any other plane I had seen. I walked towards the door. The man in the lab coat tried to get in my way, so I punched him and walked out. Even though I had spit out the gum, my vision was getting worse, so I stumbled through the hallway, and outside. The deafening sound was still blaring, and no one could stand in my way. A million thoughts invaded my brain. Could this be an alien invasion? No other country knew of our existence as far as I knew, so it can’t be another country, can it? Then, the plane hit the zeppelin with a concentrated wave, and the zeppelin fell. The plane landed vertically with ease, and out came soldiers and a man that seemed to be a general or something. At this point, many people had walked out of the murder center, and were staring at what was happening. The men who got out of the plane had earmuffs on, so they were not affected by the continuous soundwave. The general pointed with his finger, and the wave got reduced a small amount, then a booming sound was heard over everything else.
“Your own country has failed you. You were all affected by radioactivity when the power plant exploded, and you were supposed to get treatment, but your country decided to keep you here and test drugs on your already fragile bodies. We’re here to save you.”
When the booming sound stopped, my eyes had failed me completely, and all I heard were gunshots and screams.
