Get Me Out Of Here!

• Molly Burke, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2015

I didn’t choose to be here. None of us did. It was like from the moment we were born all of our fates, it seemed, were intertwined together so we would end up here. The room was always dark and the only light came in slithers between the grey blinds which blanketed the room with shadowy prison bars. This chair that I’ve been assigned to sit in was stiff as a board and had no tolerance for slouching. But no one would dare slouch here for fear of being told off, or worse. The bare wooden tables were in strict rows, all an even amount away from each other, making you feel even more isolated then the already 'no speaking' rules did.
The only decoration in the room was on the tables; scratched in notes, names, tags, dates and anything else your mind could think up while you were trying to plan an escape. I added my name and a quote into the collection a while ago, but it seems quite pointless now: Rose Cincotta - Today will eventually end. I thought it was relevant at the time, until someone else added on: But then tomorrow comes.
Besides us the dust is the only other living thing in the room. With more freedom to move as it pleases than us. Every surface in the room is coated with dust that swells up like tiny galaxies of stars when you exhale near it. The adult at the front of the room is speaking gibberish to all of us, oblivious to the fact that none of us can understand him. Soon he’ll asses how much we know, but it’s hard to tune into another language when your’e being held captive against your will, with no way to contact the outside. 
I’ve seen prisoners attempt to sneak in communication devices, but it’s not long before they are discovered. They are taken to ‘detention’. I’ve never been in ‘detention’ before. And I hope I never do. No one who is sent there is allowed to speak of it. So the rest of us are forced to draw our own conclusions. Some talk of beatings and others talk of brainwashing. All I have to do to stay out of there is to do as I’m told, and try and make sense of the nonsense this incomprehensible adult is talking about. 
The clock looks as out of place on the barren wall as vitality would in this cage. We all glare at it as if our combined stares would make it move faster. Anticipation flooding the room as our freedom draws closer. The ongoing and seemingly never-ending blabbering coming from the adult is proof of just how unaware he is that we have abandoned all hope of understanding what he is saying and are solely focused on that clock ticking away our time here.
Then the siren goes, loudly and gloriously, releasing us from this horrible lesson we are forced to undertake every week. German class.