Project 6

Chapter 5: THERESA

CHAPTER 5
Theresa

''Joseph Crampston.''

   After some time when his name is called I turn my head slowly towards the boy sitting next to me as he looks back. It is like he looks into my eyes for help but all they say is that I have no way to do so. He breathes nervously before he lifts himself off the chair and steps forward to the stage.

   ''Joseph,'' Angela begins. ''Do you admit to doing bad stuff in your Section?''

   ''No,'' Joey says. ''And it's Joey.''

   ''Joseph,'' Angela says, telling him she did not like the way she was commanded how to say his name. ''Are you ready for your blood results?''

   ''Yes.''

   ''Alright.'' Angela turns to the monitor as some results come up. There is a lot of information, like for example that he is a vegetarian and that he is allergic to Dahlia plants. Lucky he hasn't been living in Section L. It must have been hard for him to live then between those farms.

   I read the bottom part which is probably the most important of all the information on it. For him I am hoping there would be Released instead of Exiled but my heart beats faster as the screen proves me wrong.

Name: Joseph Gerald Crampston
Age: 17
Section: E
Blood result: 67%
Project status: Exiled

   I watch in horror as the red haired boy who just sat next to me is being escorted to the back of the stage. Men in armour and guns hold their weapons to Joey's head as Joey gives me one final look before he is out of sight. Breathing heavily, I clutch on to my chair.

It lasted about twenty minutes still until my name was called, which pulled me out of my trance of the fact that I might possibly die. Angela glanced around in the audience for someone to stand up. When I fully come to the realisation, I let out a shaky breath and push myself up out of my chair. I am so terrified but I come to mind that if I show it every single person in this room will grow suspicious.

   Angela greets me with this glance I can not simply make out. It is also the reason why my legs are shaking once I step on the stage's stairs. When I am fully up there I turn to look at the crowd who stare at me as if I am some sort of ticking time bomb. I close my eyes, breathe in and out, and open them again to look at that ugly witch next to me.

   ''Theresa,'' Angela starts the same way she did with Joey and everyone else. ''Do you admit to doing bad stuff in your Section?''

   ''No.'' I immediately say as I stare to the front of the stage while trying to get myself together.

   ''Theresa,'' she says in her robotic way. ''Are you ready for your blood results?''

   I quickly find my mother's eyes in the very back of the crowd and she just gives me a terrified nod before I answer her in the robotic way like she does.

   ''Yes.''

   I hear the screen behind me generate and I turn around slowly to see what had appeared while I swallow the lump in my throat away. But even a bigger lump appeared when I see the results.

Name: Theresa Louise Gardener
Age: 17
Section: F
Blood result: 100%
Project status: Exiled

   Angela, of course, suddenly breaks the silence in the crowd as she whispers in the microphone. ''That is...not possible.''

   I look at her. ''What i-''

   I could not finish my sentence as the men in armour and guns come running on the stage and lift me up, causing me to gasp and scream. The man who is lifting me holds on to me tighter which hurts. I look up, trying to find my mother's eyes again for one last time, but they are gone just like her. I shake my head at the thought that my mother had left me to die and then leave my head to hang when I let myself get lifted towards where the hell I might be going next.

A clicking sound. It comes from right above me. A light goes on right above my head and I am met by a white ceiling and doctor's faces. I want to move, panic. But I can't. They have sedated me.

   I did not remember passing out on my way towards where I am right now.

   ''This one got a hundred percent,'' a doctor speaks out from his mouth mask. ''Are you sure we shouldn't just leave her to die forever in a cell so she won't hurt anybody else?''

   ''No,'' another voice from behind glass tells him. ''This is the first time in history someone has a hundred percent. I want to test her for a bit.''

   ''Alright ma'am.''

   I blink and flinch once a light gets shone into both my eyes. When I feel sharp objects being pushed into my skin everywhere in my body I want to scream. It feels like anesthesia awareness, a thing I had once read about in a book that I have probably thrown away.

   Screw that book. Screw the world. Everything just gets so...dizzy, when you...overthink. No, it is the pain in my skin that is causing this. They didn't even bother to actually put me asleep. They wanted me to feel the pain that they could cause. I would not have been surprised with the Dominion. Since what they have done to many kids. To Joey. To Jimmy.

   Jimm-

   The last thing I remember is water.