Old Dreams

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Chapter Six

Of Human Minds

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Chloe put her hair up into a ponytail as she began to walk down the hall and into the examination rooms. Shade wanted her and Ved to look at something. She wasn't sure what it was but she hoped that it wouldn't take up to much time. Mouse was in the Pre-Teen's Hour today and she just hoped to catch her part.

She turned around to glare at Ved when he tugged on her ponytail. "Don't do that, will you?" He just shrugged and grinned at her and the pair walked to the room that Shade had indicated earlier silently.

"You wanted to see us, Shade?" Chloe asked as she walked in. Ved was silent.

"Yes, yes…I was studying the ferret you brought in the other day." The lights switched on automatically and a gleaming silver table was in front of them. Machines were holding the ferret down, with smaller ones doing things like holding parts of the body open and the eyes and mouth open too. Blood was seeping slowly from the body but Shade didn't seem to care.

Chloe flinched when she saw it but did nothing else. It wasn't to long ago that she learned about the meat factory and all of that. She sometimes wished that Rachel hadn't told her about the barracks, and your sixteenth birthday. How you were taken to what's called 'The Meat Factory' and get chopped up and made into batteries for these…things. One of the sickest parts, in Chloe's eyes, was the fact that about fifteen girls were chosen each your on their sixteenth birthday to become mothers. After all, they can't run out of people to chop up.

She shook her head from these thoughts, not needing things like these to slow her down.

"There's something on here I'd like you to read…would you mind?" Chloe shook her head no and began to walk forward to where Shade lit up a blue light.

"I can't read it correctly, and none of my systems are picking it up…" Chloe nodded as he told her what was going on.

"I'll do my best, right here, right?"

"Yes, yes, that's it." Chloe leaned forward and began to read.

"Fear washes me, Fear no me, friends no more, group of five, no friend." Chloe looked up at Shade, confused. "Is that poetry?"

Shade nodded.

"Some type of it I suppose. It probably retained some of it's human memory before it completely disappears." Chloe looked closer at the marks, feeling un easy slightly.

"I know I asked you this before, Shade, but are you positive that, when you cut them up…there's nothing still…human about them?"

"Of course, Chloe, how could I not be?" Chloe shrugged.

"Well…when I see things like this…" Shade shook his head.

"Chloe, I already told you that."

"But…but these marks are new." Shade shook his head at her again, making her feel as though she were a little girl.

"Chloe, I'm sure you're eyes are just making you see things. You can both go now. Thank you for your assistance Chloe, sorry that you came for no reason Ved." Ved nodded as he backed up, to make room so Chloe could go out of the room first.

The two were walking alone again when Chloe looked over at him.

"Think Shade was telling the truth? Those marks looked so new." Ved was silent before nodding.

"Yeah, I noticed that too when you pointed it out." Chloe went silent for a moment, gathering her thoughts.

"Do you think that Shade should be allowed to do that?" Ved looked at her out of the corner of his eye, he couldn't help but glance at her lips before looking at her eyes to answer her.

"What? Test on them if they still have human memory?" Chloe nodded. Ved shrugged.

"How should I know?" Chloe tried to say something else but Ved stopped her before she could. "It wouldn't make a difference to Shade anyway Chloe. You know how he treats things like this." Chloe nodded at him and he continued. "To him, they are just the enemy." She nodded silently again before changing the subject.

"What did Mouse say was the time she'd be going up?"

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A boy, around fourteen years of age, ran as fast as he could, whistles were close behind him, something was chasing him. The weak ones, he was sure of it - but the ones who could tell the Myrmidons where you were. Trackers.

A mental picture flashed before his eyes - tall, huge, completely red nose, a long oval black mask, hiding the rest of the face, wheels moving it. The speed of the whistle showed that it had something, that it was following something that shouldn't be out - him.

He looked around him for a way out but couldn't see any. He wondered briefly if there would be anything in the sewers. He knew about the ferrets, but he wondered if he could risk it. He'd been on the run for days now - a miracle. He didn't know where he was running though.

It was one of the older boys who told him something was out there - something to run too. It was that same older boy who got him out. The older boy, Cale, was going to go with him, but he got caught…taken back to the Dorms…if he was lucky. Either that or to the Meat Factory.

The boy looked sick at that thought, seeing Cale being ripped up and- He shook the image out of his head, wishing Cale didn't tell him so clearly what they did to people who came from the Training Grounds, like they did, in the Meat Factory.

"They chop you up. They don't always use your brains though, not here - those are for the smart people that they leave in the dorms. But for us, the people who get to swim, lift weights, and work out to our hearts desire - we get to be the bodies. We make them up. When they take you to the Meat Factory on your sixteenth birthday, they'll take out every last single muscle in your body and put it into a Myrmidon. Oh, oh, oh, can you feel the power? We make it, we are it, and as for me, I don't want that to happen to me." Cale said. Another boy in the Training Grounds stood up and glared at him.

"How are you so sure? Why should we think you're telling the truth?" Cale smiled at him.

"Shade told me."

Now he was looking for this Shade. He didn't know what to do or how… all he knew was that he had to get there. He didn't want to have to worry about these things any longer - and Shade was the one to do it.

But first, he had to live to get to him.

fin chapter-