Facility

• Diego Garcia, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2013

“Hello”

I feel like I’ve been here before…
Looking around at the stainless steel roof, walls and floor, thinking that this could not possibly be true, I shiver.

“Hello”

What is that?

“You are well enough to return to the facility”

Looking behind, me I see a door – shaped opening that was not there before…
Or was it? Before I even consider walking towards it, the voice comes again.

“Do not walk there”

I get an inexplicable feeling of anger, like a bull seeing red, and I want to scream and rip my hair out in defiance of this command, this voice that I do not know.
It passes.
I understand that door is bad, why would I want to go there? It was a silly notion from the start, and I feel like a sheepish child.

“Good”

Yes, I am good, I will do what you say, I am the dog, you, the master.
I close my eyes.
*
Large machines that I cannot comprehend work with silent hisses around me, as small figures in large coats stride purposefully across the wide spaces. The roof is out of sight, and nothing notices me, the speck.
I take a step, and the sound resonates loudly across the infinite room. Everything stops, and a grey - haired man finally walks towards me, and says quietly: “You are here”

The man takes me too a room filled with identical people. They all shuffle towards me, but do not speak. Their eyes are wide black voids, and the whites are non-existent.
Suddenly, they all scream, And I feel anguish like never before in my life, an unsatisfiable suffering that I can taste at the back of my mouth, feel at the tips of my fingers, see at the back of my eyes.
*
I am back in the room. The door is there. I am running. Running like a predator after it’s prey, intent on the destination. I am the wind, the blizzard, the storm. I am free.

“Stop”

No. I. Will. Run.
*
“Hello”

I feel like I’ve been here before…