Children of the Plague [NOW AVAILABLE ON KINDLE]

The next morning all the lights were turned on at once, and the doors flew open with a loud clang as metal collided. Large military men came in screaming. I jumped out of bed, panicking and confused, and others were in similar states of wakefulness. The men were screaming and yelling the entire time. It was so loud that most of the time I couldn’t even tell what was being said. I scrambled to get up and get my clothes on because I thought that was one of the instructions they yelled. It didn’t take me too long since I still had my pants on from the night prior.

The military men ushered us out of the room, into the hallway and lined us up along the wall. As soon as we were all together, we were led down the hall. We went in the opposite direction of where we had come from the day before. Although we did a lot of walking around the day before, I still had no idea where I was. Along the way, we passed numerous other doors, some made out of metal, but many of them made out of wood. I off-handedly wondered if those were rooms for other children in the camp.

As we left the hallway, we entered another large area. This area was longer than the gym, but its ceiling was not as high. I could also smell food in the area, so I knew that we must have been close to the dining facility. At one end of the hall, there was a makeshift stage behind a large number of chairs. Filling a large portion of the chairs that were in the room were other people.

A quick glance and I could tell that they were all around the same ages as my group. Just as Sergeant Michel mentioned, I could see a couple of different colors on the sleeves. Surprisingly, there was another group of green bands like ours. Sergeant Michel told us we were the first, so I wondered where they came from. Maybe I understood it wrong, or perhaps they had arrived sometime in the night. Up front, there was a small group of kids with some red bands. However, the largest group of kids all has silver bands around their arm and they filled up more than half of the seats that were set up in the makeshift auditorium.

The girls that were in our group the night before came in from another hallway almost at the same time as us, it didn’t even dawn on me that they weren’t with us. Sergeant Michel was leading them, and as soon as he spotted our group, he made a beeline directly towards us. All the children are grouped together based on the color of the bands. In total, I estimated that there were at least a hundred kids with the majority of them the Welders with silver bands.

Once we are all seated, one of the army men standing next to the stage yelled, “attention,” but it sounded more like “Ah-ten-shun.”

We all looked around, unsure of what to do, and then all the military men went berserk. Apparently, none of us learned the lesson from when we woke up in the morning because we were supposed to stand up at that. All the military men started yelling and got in our faces while doing so. They were yelling for us to “stand up” and “eyes forward.” I tried to do as they said as quickly as possible, but it was difficult. There were so many of them and they were all yelling different things. I had no idea who to listen to, and I hoped it wasn’t always like this. They were all big men and very intimidating, kind of the opposite of Sergeant Michel, who I no longer saw, he was there just a moment before. Once we seemed to all get the hang of standing still with our eyes forward, the military men calmed down.

From double doors that were behind and to the side of the stage, another military man walked out. He was visibly older than all the other men standing around just yelling at us, but he was by no means smaller or in worse shape. He had silver hair, neatly groomed atop his head, his uniform looked crisper and had fewer wrinkles than the other soldiers did. His skin had lines from age, which betrayed his tough leathery-looking skin.

On top of the stage, there was a little podium, he stood behind it and slowly looked us over. “At ease,” he said.

That meant we could sit down, but we didn’t learn that until after the other military men once again succumbed to madness and began yelling and barking orders at us once more. After a few more minutes of yelling at us to sit down, which thankfully went a lot quicker than trying to get us to stand up the right way, the older military man began to speak.

“Good morning children, I am Colonel Baxter. From now on, if you talk to me, you will address me as such. I’m sure, especially based on this morning’s performance, you will be educated further in this matter and try to learn quicker as well.” I thought he meant the debacle of us trying to go to attention and then sitting back down. “I wanted to take this time to introduce myself and inform you all of what you can expect during your time here. First and foremost, I am here to let you know that I am in charge. Here, I am God.” He paused at this revelation. “At least as far as any of you are concerned. As unfortunate as it may be, all of you have been deemed dangerous by society, but that very same society has created this haven for you. However, this is not a day spa where you will be pampered and you are not getting a free ride. You will have to work hard and prove yourself. However, I don’t want you to think of this as a prison. I am a military commander and I will run this place like a military unit. You will earn your keep by helping to ensure this place continues to run. In return, we will keep you safe from the quickly devolving society outside these walls, educate you to the best of our abilities and if you prove proficient and trustworthy, perhaps in time, more things can be introduced.”

“I will be upfront with you all. The world is changing, and I believe some of you have been told this by your cadre members already. I wholeheartedly believe there will be a plethora of uses, even a need, of your skills in the future and I want to sharpen this ability in each and every one of you. So, I hope we can work together towards a mutually beneficial outcome. Once again, this is not a day spa or vacation. Life in this camp will be hard and some won’t be able to cut it. Those people will be chosen for less strenuous duties, but the more you do and harder you work, the more you can earn.” He continued to talk about using our abilities to stay ahead of the enemy, but he wasn’t specific about who the enemy was. He wanted us to train to use our powers and to eventually partake in missions that could help the camp if we were chosen.

My attention started to waver. Not only had the last twenty-four hours been a lot to take in, but also I’ve never been good at paying attention. My parents always had to have meetings with my teachers and the school counselors about it. It wasn’t so bad though because sometimes I got to take tests in quiet rooms when others had to do it with all the other kids around and I also got more time. I began to look around. As I looked down the row where I was sitting. I caught eyes with a girl who seemed to be doing the same exact thing. I turned away quickly, but as I tried to peek again, she was looking away from me.

The girl had straight black hair that that hung about an inch above her shoulders. She had definitive Asian facial features, but I didn’t know enough to place where, her eyes were dark like mine, but my Pacific Islander eyes were bigger than hers. I felt as if I could stare at her all day. As the person next to her shifted in their seat, I could see that she had a red band around her arm. I decided then to pay more attention the next time someone was talking about the bands so I could find more about their meaning. I continued to glance in her direction so we could lock eyes again, but she didn’t look in my direction again. I started to think that she hadn’t really been looking at me.

At that point, I had no idea what Colonel Baxter was droning on about, so I retreated into my thoughts for a while. I thought about waking up in the infirmary, hearing my dad’s voice, if I really did hear it and at my nightmare. I had no idea how long I had been drifting in my thoughts, but it was long enough that Colonel Baker had run out of things to say. At the sound of one of the other military men shouting “attention,” I snapped out of my daze. The madness of the cadre yelling and barking of orders started all over.