Motionless Ch.1 Chapter 1 I sat with my hands between my knees. I was perfectly warm but for some reason this room felt cold. The entire room was white with a sickening smell of blood and sterile. The door to the small room opened and a girl of about eighteen enters. She offers me a faint smile, “You ready?” she asks. I let out a deep breath and nod, “As ready as I’ll ever be” I returned. The girl walked to a counter in front of the table I sat on and she pulled a syringe from a cabinet below the marble counter top. I watch her as she removes the syringe from a plastic bag and sticks the needle into a vile of light green liquid. I raise a brow and swallow as she flicks the syringe so the liquid ripples below her finger. “My name’s Madison” she said, not looking away from the syringe as she wrote down a few things on a notepad sitting on the counter. “I’m Lilly” I replied. Madison turned towards me: she had auburn hair and freckles danced around her eyes like starlight. “I hope you’re not afraid of needles” she jokes as she grabs my arm and wipes off a small area where my arm bends. “Not really” I lied, eyeing the silver needle as Madison finished up cleaning my arm. She then grabs my palm with her left hand and easily, as if she’s done it a million times, sticks the syringe into my arm with the right hand. I don’t even have a chance to look away so I snap down on my lip, probably busting it. The process is quick though and she removes the syringe as quickly as it went in. “See it didn’t hurt that bad did it?” she asked with a small giggle. She was a warm character and she reminded me of a mother. I guessed that after her job her she would become a mother. Madison looks up at me as I nod and then sits down on the counter in front of me. The room is so tiny that our knees almost touch. “I’ll have to wait a minute then I’ll take your blood” Madison informs me as she leans back onto the wall as if she’s perfectly relaxed. “You’re going to have to do that again?” I questioned, rubbing my arm where blood begins dripping into the outside. “Yeah just once more. I have to put the Delta in your blood because it’ll check your health, heart rate, identity, and even your DNA pattern. Once that’s done all I need is your blood so I can check to make sure you’re,” she seems to struggle with a word, “Eligible” “Oh” I say quietly as I rub my arm, imaging the green liquid flowing through my body searching for its secrets. I wondered how Jake was doing. He was in the room right beside mine; at least that’s where they directed him before they called my name. Madison stands up again and grabs another syringe and turns back towards me with a grin, “Let’s finish this up quickly” This time I look away to spare myself a piece of my lip. This goes just a few seconds longer than the last one, yet when it’s over I feel like I was just being a weak being. Madison presses her thumb to the counter top and suddenly it lights up on a small square section of it. She drops the blood into a tube as the counter top loads and becomes a screen. I can read Madison Lorry on it and a picture of Madison is on it with her number beside it. She presses a few commands onto the screen and it begins to load again. The screen goes to black and then dances with transparency again. I’m surprised to see my name on it along with my number. Madison’s fingers work quickly on the screen as she gives it a few other commands and the screen switches to a series of codes I didn’t quite understand. Madison makes an astonished noise. “Wow, look at that heartbeat! You must have good lungs” she exclaimed. I just raised a brow because I didn’t know how she caught it out of the maze of numbers appearing on the screen. She kept typing in orders as I watched the screen shift to different numbers and words. Suddenly the screen stops changing and Madison’s fingers stop moving, her entire body is straight as she’s trying to study the screen. “And you’re a very strong individual…very healthy” she murmurs just barely loud enough for me to catch her words. I cock my head to one side out of curiosity as I try to read the screen. Nothing’s changed. I sit back up as Madison turns the screen off, she doesn’t move for what seems like hours, her palms lean down on her desk. Then, slowly, she moves her hand towards her pad and pen and writes down a few things. After what seems like ages she turns around with the pad tucked under her arm. She fakes a smile, she’s hiding something, and then she looks towards the door, “You can go now. I’ll just inform Colonel Nicholas about your tests” she explains. I swallow and smile at her as I pass, “Thanks” Madison pats my back as I walk passed her and outside into the slightly less white passage which opens up to a larger, lounge like room where other fifteen year olds waited. I spotted Jake right away; his dark hair fell onto his forehead and flipped to one side. He grins when he spots me in the doorway, scooting over to reveal an open seat for me. I beam and gladly take the seat. “You were in there a while” Jake said. I shrugged, “It took her a minute to run my Delta test” I replied. Jake looked down at his hands, “I’d like to think I’m going to make it but…there’s still that worry” I hit his shoulder playfully, “They’d be stupid not to take you” I reassured him. His silver eyes gleam just the slightest then and he looks down at me, “Thanks” he mutters. It was Jake’s single-most appreciating tone, not extravagant, and good enough for me. “Anytime” I look around the room and count the other fifteen year olds, about twenty in the room right now. There were still some getting tested. There were probably thirty or so in all. In reality there should be more of us but some fifteen year olds didn’t even make it here today and others died during childhood. Then I feel a person sit down beside me. I look over and see a small, frail girl with long light blonde hair and wide, blue eyes. She looks over at me and frowns, “Was this seat taken?” she asks. I smile, “Nah, what’s your name?” The girl perks up, obviously relived this conversation wasn’t going to get awkward, which was the exact same reason I felt better. She tucks a piece of hair behind her hair, “I’m Julie August. You?” “Lilly Salo” I return, giving her a warm smile but then Jake pushes me aside playfully. He sticks his hand out until Julie takes it, “I’m Jake Gray” Julie giggles at our play and then greets us both, “Hey Lilly and Jake” I push Jake off of me with a smile as he leans back into his own seat with my eyes locked on him, waiting for him to do something else stupid. I’d known Jake since I was six, when I went to the market to get some fruit for my companions and myself. He had worked in a fruit stall where I had bartered him and his older brother for some free strawberries. Of course I’d come out victorious with some strawberries and Jake. Ever since that day I’m pretty sure we’d spent time together at least every other day. It had been nine years. We weren’t best friends until the time I was ten after Jake’s brother was drafted into the army and my companions were all taken. At that time we depended on each other more than anything. We lived in a world where weakness wasn’t tolerated. Any signs of it: physical or mental, was destroyed. A world where the highest #life expectancy was twenty-two. It was cruel but it took real strength to live through it. We lived in a city closed off with a forty yard stone wall with barb wire stretching across its peak. The city was a large place and most of it remained abandoned, old charred buildings and broken structures still sat where they had at least a century ago when the old union stood in its place, before the first war that destroyed the planet. Back when this place was the United States and the world broke out in nuclear war. I can’t really say much after that other than our city is the only place safe to live anymore. There was one gate at the north end of the wall; it never opened though, guards stood at it all day with their guns sitting by their side. Right in front of the gate were two of the largest buildings in the city. The one on the left is actually where I sat. This was Facility A. Only soldiers and recruits were allowed to walk this building’s halls. The light building held a series of offices for testing (the thing I’d just been in), a court room, and even a small prison-like attic. The building on the right side of the street was the building that topped the city off. It was Facility B, completing A on creating the entire Facility. The tower held so many things, including secrets, and I’d only seen maps of it to this day. This is where all the soldiers and recruits stayed. There were training arenas, labs, simulation rooms, a huge cafeteria, a series of little stalls where one could get supplies, a machinery and weaponry storage room, a hospital wing, and even other wings I’d never heard of due to their importance to and mystery. The rest of the city was usually a dump, gray buildings that used to be large towers like the Facility now sit crumpled. The ones that were livable is where the citizens lived. Since the city was practically abandoned in some places plants grew through the pavement and grass, making some parts of the city seem like forests of over-whelming weeds. There was one place where the grass was welcomed though. The square. The square was about an acre of land put together. It was a grass square with two sidewalks running through it, creating a ‘+’ sign. The lower sections of grass where actually used for childish games of tag or even various sports from the old days. Then there was the upper sections of the ‘+’ which were used for more devilish things then child play. This area was mostly concrete with a series of haunting objects sitting in its yard. A hanging pole, other various wooden posts where people were tied up to be shot, and then there were the other punishments that weren’t death. A whipping post and a metal pole where you were handcuffed and beaten. These things were the disgusting part of our society, the parts that made me squirm helplessly in my seat when they were brought up in conversation, or when I was younger and playing tag in the grass and I saw the tip of that hanging stand in the distance…it haunted me. I snap back to attention as Jake shakes my arm, I suggest trying to make me pay attention again; I re-focus as Jake motions towards the front of the room where a man has just entered. I say man when the oldest age he can be is twenty-two. I’m guessing he’s at least nineteen. He isn’t very tall, nor is he short. He has brown hair and sunken eyes; his skin is ghostly pale and ill looking. His eyes were brown but compared to his skin that appeared to be a dark red, almost black. I saw Madison and another boy I didn’t recognize appear behind him in the doorway after he’s entered the lounge. Everyone ceases to speak a word. After he makes it to the middle of the room he stands up tall and clears his throat, “Good afternoon recruits. I want to inform you that everyone in this room has made it to the next level of scout training. My name is Colonel Nicholas Killian. You will call me with Colonel,” pauses as his eyes move around the room then lock with mine, “You might think you’re tough, getting to the second level of this training but I want you to know that this was the easiest. I will push you and break you. Every one of you. Some of you will die within the next two weeks and some of you will prove your worth and power and find your place in my armed forces” The boy who had walked in with Madison takes his place beside Colonel Killian and nods to him. This boy is younger. He has brown hair, much lighter than Killian’s, and it’s cut short but a few strands still stick up off of his forehead. His skin is tan and his eyes are a warmer brown than Killian, “My name is Commander Mason. You can just call me Mason but I demand respect. And I’ll be leading most of your training sessions, so if you would follow me to your new quarters in an organized fashion I’ll get you some lunch before we start our tour”