30 students remaining
2
Angie
moaned and shuffled her small feet. The floor was hard - not nicely
carpeted like before. She looked down to see glazed wooden beams laid
in perfect patterns. The room he was in was covered with complete
darkness. It was much, much smaller than the banquet hall she had
been in only 5 minutes ago.
'Wait,'
she thought. 'Was it 5 minutes, a half an hour or maybe a whole
hour?' Looking round the room, she observed no clocks. She observed
some other things though. She was sitting in a classroom that was
littered with various wooden desks. Other students were slumped in
these desks, some were sitting against the gray wall and others were
lying on the cold floor. The distinction between Angie and the rest
of them was that they were all sleeping soundly. A large black board
covered a wall near the small doorway (there was only a single door
in and out) and looking up Angie saw dingy lights hanging from the
black ceiling. They were turned off, of course, but he still knew
what they were.
Someone groaned, and
Angie looked around to see the rest of her fellow students slowly
waking up. Some yawned and others stretched. Something in that
banquet hall had happened; they hadn't magically appeared here out
of the thin air.
A feeling of
claustrophobia fell over Angie as she felt clamminess around her
neck. Reaching up, her hands clasped some sort of cold necklace or
collar. It was made of thin metal, and as she felt around it there
seemed to be no way to take it off. The metal was cold, and chilled
her neck to a point of annoyance.
"Where
are we?" asked Chris (Boy No. 9). Others also asked their own
questions as they awoke.
"What's
going on?"
"Why is it so
dark?"
"Can you see me in
here?"
"Where's my new
handbag?"
Angie was the only one
who heard the noise through the chatter, but it was a small
fluttering of wings - almost like propellers. The propellers were
moving rapidly, and Angie couldn't exactly place her finger on what
the sound was. A light appeared, dimmed by the curtains at the
windows. The other students then noticed the noise and looked over to
see what it was.
Aly (Girl No. 14)
made the foolish move of pulling open the cotton curtains. Bright
light streamed into the room and everyone momentarily lost their
vision. The noise was ever louder, and as vision was regained people
squinted through the brightness to see a helicopter touching down
outside. Several men ran up to the helicopter door and opened it. Out
walked a very familiar face, although Angie couldn't tell who
through the billowing dust cloud brought on by the helicopter's
blades.
Clomp, clomp, clomp.
The feet made noises as if they were
wearing steel boots.
A steady
marching was coming from outside the dark room. Everybody turned to
face the small doorway across from them. The marching suddenly
stopped and Angie heard a faint, "You first."
The
door slammed open and Ms. Prok, followed by several armed soldiers,
walked into the room. They turned on the lights, and everyone had
their first view of their surroundings. The students were indeed in a
classroom - it wasn't a modern day room, either. Everything had an
antique look to it and seemed generally old fashioned. There were no
computers or massive file cabinets that you would see in a general
classroom today. The only sign of modern day life was a 22"
television, connected to a VCR and sitting on a stand in the corner
of the room (which Angie could immediately tell had been placed there
from the beginning).
Ms. Prok stopped
behind the large oak desk at the front of the room. Two soldiers,
armed with automatic machine guns, stood at her side. Other soldiers
filed into the classroom and spread out, surrounding the students
until there were about 20 of them spanning the walls in
total.
"Hello," said Ms. Prok.
"I'm sure you're wondering what's going on and I'll be able
to explain it in a few minutes. First off, let me just show you
something." At this point she turned around to face the black
board. She picked up some white chalk and began to write on the
board, dust particles flying in her wake. Angie turned to look behind
her. Laura was sitting on the flat portion of the desk, looking
straight at Ms. Prok while tapping her foot. She looked very casual
compared to her fellow students. Dono was in front of him, holding
Sara's hand and shivering. Other studentss were shivering like
Dono, and Angie realized it was quite cold - she even had goose
bumps.
"Do you know this?"
Angie refocused her thoughts on Ms.
Prok and ignored the cold.
On the
board was the word 'genocide'. Nobody said anything, and she
repeated the question:
"Do you
know this?"
"Um," muttered
Ferris (Boy No. 11), "Isn't genocide like a disease or an STD or
something? I'm sorry, I thought we didn't have to learn
on this retreat."
"Exactly,"
replied Ms. Prok. "Although you could have said it more formally,
that is exactly what it is." Then Ms. Prok slammed the chalk on the
word genocide, causing everyone to jump. A look of anger filled her
eyes.
"You're exactly wrong!"
he shouted. Ferris was shocked at the sudden outburst. "This is
what the government means. Genocide is the mass execution of a group
of peoples. But you, 13 to 14 olds, can not even understand such a
simple thing? That is why the government has ordered the eradication
of all un-orderly youths. All you do is sit in front of the computer
all day, chatting away mindlessly! You text in class. Your advanced
class is a ridiculous excuse for intelligence. You should be worrying
about your educations! But the beautiful U.S. of A. government has
decided something needs to be done!" She said the final line so
spitefully that some students jumped. A vein throbbed in her temple
and her eyes were narrowed.
"E-Eradication?"
stuttered Connor M.
"Eradication
is precisely what I said," said Ms. Prok. "It's not my fault
that this is going to happen. It's all your faults for being so
simply foolish and wasting away in front of the computer, getting
fatter and fatter and stupider and stupider. Ever hear of doing
homework? I know a lot of you do it in the mornings. You obviously
DON'T care about education as much as you should. That's why the
lovely government is placing you in this test game."
"But
what is going to happen?" said Dono. He, along with Sara, all the
smarter students and just about everyone in the room (not including
Laura ) looked scared.
"Oh, yes, of
course, I better explain what's going on," Ms. Prok. "It would
be cruel and unfair for me to simply leave you wondering what is
going to happen, especially when you're in the situation you're
in."
She left this last line
hanging - clearly to be ironic. No one found it funny.
Gabby
interrupted, "Ms. Prok, cut to the chase… what the hell is going
on?!"
Ms. Prok frowned and stared
at her for a few seconds. Gabby stared back, but there was something
about Ms. Prok's cold demeanor that forced her to look away.
"Since
you really have to know 'what the hell is going on', I'll tell
you."
She paused.
"Today's
lesson- you will all kill each other till one is remaining."