X-Marks: Stealing Shadows

The Center

Faint light came through like the break of day, as the doors of the truck unhinged. The man in white and Nurse Sarah waited on the other side. One by one we were unbuckled and release.

Outside in the damp air, white columns towered above and filled the sky. Trimmed bushes framed a garden before the entrance of a white building and crisp green grass was in every direction.

In the center of the garden, a fountain gushed water from crystal spouts. We followed the people in white through the garden and into the white building.

Inside, soaring windows casted thin rays of light onto the glossy floors. At the end, two different men black uniforms guarded a door.

The man in white walked to the door and showed a card around his neck. Without a word, one of the men in uniform pushed a button on his wrist, and the door opened.

On the other side, the chaos of many bodies forced my head forward. They all wore the same white uniforms and held the glass boards at their chests.

All around doors swung, voices murmured, and shoes echoed. We moved through the winding white halls and huddled close, like frightened sheep.

In another spacious room, hundreds of children lined the walls. Some were crying and slumped to the ground but most, like me, wandered without a place to be or anyone with them.

It was then I noticed, the people in white were no longer with me. I could no longer see the freckled face boy or the somber girl. I was really lost now.

A nurse grabbed me by the hand and led me to a table at the end of the room. An old woman with hair as white as her uniform sat behind the table. She lifted the glasses around her neck to read from the board in her hand.

"Step up to the table," the old woman said and pointed to me.

I walked towards her, but another nurse stopped me on my way.

"I've got another one," the nurse said to the old woman and moaned.

The nurse was holding the arm of a girl even smaller than me. The girl had deeply tanned skin, and dark curls that covered her eyes. The girl continued to thrash her arms and legs as the nurse struggled to keep her grip.

"Let her come at the front," the old woman said to the nurse.

The nurse dragged the girl to the table and held her down on a chair as the old woman locked a steel bracelet around the girl's wrist. Once on, the nurse dragged the girl away by her arm. The girl's dark eyes peek through her thick tresses as she faded into the crowd.

"You, step up again," the old woman said to me.

I crept up to the table and looked back into the crowd for the girl one more time.

"Do you have a name?" the woman said, looking at her glass board.

The woman wrote on her glass board. My silence had told her everything.

"Your name is H38. Do you understand?" the woman said and narrowed her wrinkled eyes at me.

I didn't understand, but I nodded my head out of fear.

The woman locked a steel bracelet around my wrist and pointed to a wall lined up with other children behind a nurse. I walked towards the wall and stood at the end of the line.

I looked at my wrist. The bracelet flashed a red dot on its black screen. I looked back up where other lines of children had formed against the wall. Each line was led by a nurse absorbed in a board in their hands.

At the front of the line, a man in white with a closely shaven head wrote on his board. With each group of nurses and children, the man passed the children's bracelets over his glass board and let them through the door. We waited as fewer and fewer people crowded the room.

When it was my turn, I held out my bracelet to the man and went through the door with the other children. We walked behind the nurse into a dark hall lined with latched doors and low hanging lights.

At each door, the nurse grabbed a child by the wrist and tapped their bracelet against a black box on the door. Each time the door clicked, and the latch released the door. In time, only three children were left, including me.t

The nurse halted at a door and looked at her glass board before she looked at me. She lifted my bracelet and placed it against the black box outside the door, and it clicked. The nurse placed her sharp hand on my back and pushed me through the door.

I stood in a dim room as it locked behind me.