RISING

2

Six Years Ago?

Fear. It was the only emotion I felt. Trapped between two soldiers, I was lead towards a fate I didn't know. Unlike watching those gray, plated vehicles drive down the streets of New Detroit, knowing that I would be taken away from my family, I didn't know what was happening here. Month by month, I'd watch as one of the kids was taken out the room, never to come back again. I was the last one left, having only my thoughts to comfort me.

The soldier leading me stopped in front of an elevator. After waving at a camera in the top corner of the hall, the door smoothly slid open, letting us into the small space. After forcing me in, they followed suit. The elevator door softly met the frame, and the box began its descent.

As we slowly climbed down, I couldn't help but panic further. Where'd the other kids disappear to? Where they dead? Would I follow their path? No, they couldn't be dead. You don't collect a generation just do dispose of it. Do you?

The elevator stopped moving, and the door parted with the frame.

The first thing that struck me was the screaming.

The horrible cries and sobs that pierced the walls from every direction, echoing into my heart. I refused to enter this hallway. The soldier behind me pushed me forward, her hand soft against my back. She led me down the hall until we stopped at a door near the very end. The door had a flickering screen in the center, a few words labeling the door: Marshall Risinger - 1012.

The door slid upwards and I walked into the room, leaving that horrible hallway and the soldier behind me. The room was spacious, larger than I expected, but only held a man sitting at a desk that stretched the length of the room. A glass cabinet sat in the back, full of marked vials and containers of various sized. In the middle was a metal chair...with a set of restraints. I turned around but the door had already slid closed. Like a rat in a cage, I was trapped.

The middle aged man who sat at the desk turned and regarded me, "Marshall, please, take a seat."

I made my way to the chair that was in the middle of the room and made myself as comfortable as possible. The man, in his rolling chair, wheeled himself over to where I was sitting and rested his arm on my armrest. His hair was disheveled and he had bags under his eyes.

"Look, Marshall, I'm not going through this presentation again. Bear with me if you will." Eyeing his white lab coat, I could see that the name tag read Dr. Sohel.

He spun around in his chair once, twice, before continuing, "You're going to be administered with three concoctions." I tensed as Dr. Sohel casually waved a syringe around in the air. "I've already seen about one hundred and thirty kids over the last few years, and them fighting back gets tiring. Do you understand?" He raised an eyebrow.

I nodded, partially in sheer terror. For someone about to stick me with a needle, he seemed so nonchalant. Before I could stop myself, the words slipped through my lips, "What for?"

Dr. Sohel smiled, "To ensure that you live." I started to say something, but before I could get the words out he pricked me with the needle. In a matter of seconds everything went numb, from my head to my feet. The world around me started to spin. My tongue felt like lead in my mouth. Sohel strapped the restraints around me: legs, arms and torso, and rolled back over to his desk.

"I'm guessing this is where things get painful?" I turned my head, but couldn't see the doctor.

Dr. Sohel rolled back over with the second syringe, "No, child, not quite." Below the first spot he stuck me with a needle, he inserted the second one. After emptying its contents into my body, he rolled back over, out of my eyesight once again.