Darkness covered the small town like a reverse blanket, chilling the bones of the citizens, sitting on-edge, waiting for 'The Taking', a cruel punishment towards those who did not belong or fit in with the others. But nobody quite understood how exactly people didn't fit in; A pale, petite man with bright blue eyes and a dazzling smile, a decrepit woman with light gray hair and dark brown eyes, even a barely ten year old brunette girl with honey brown eyes and a shy personality had been uprooted from her rich family's western home. On some days, 4 people were expected to be plucked like weeds from wherever their home lay, and nobody had a say besides one man, one man-and although nobody exactly knew who he was- he was one man who everybody feared. The most anybody knew they'd seen of him was his hunched silhouette on the large TV screen in the middle of town. While nearly 1 million people had been subjected to this torment on the fateful day, back in 2000, just a mere 20,000 of the original "test subjects" remained in fear. The rest had been either been Taken, as it was called, or simply passed away. And although the population expanded to nearly 1.5 million, nobody knew who the unlucky beings would be. Now you must be wondering why nobody outside of the Taking Range ever came to the rescue, a heroic stance. The main reason was that few people were aware of the agonizing nights spent, and those who did were quite cowardly, fearing entrapment or even their own lives.
Until now.
I'm Ollie Wischer.
Shut up and ignore the fact that my name's not manly. Or strong. Or really all that great. I'll bet you it smacks your name right in the face! But I'm not here to talk about my name. I'm here to bash this evil dude called Grim. I call him Grim, that's not his real name, but I always think of the Grim Reaper when I think of this sickening creep, and I can't stand just uttering his name, let alone inscribing it into letters! He controlled the human-form of Hell. I lived there, in that place, called just the "Taking Range". Every night, I shivered as we all heard the steady drum beat pound loud enough to hear from everyplace inside the Taking Range, and no matter how far I got away from that place, the deafening pounding thundered in my ears, even after I'd left.
It was blood-curtling and to this day it sticks within my mind every night as I lay my head down to rest. I still keep my ears pricked for the unmistakable crash of the door falling in, or the neighbor's scream. That's the worst part of the Taking. You can always hear the scream, the shouting, the crying, as the soldiers parade past your home with their blaring trumpet, as if it's some celebratory event. And when they take the next, you hear more screaming and shouting and wailing and begging. The soldiers take no mind. Once I recognized somebody who'd been Taken many years before, marching in line with the other soldiers. It never bothered me much, and I never once told a soul, in fear that I wasn't supposed to recognize her. Until now, I suppose. Well she was brutal, hissing at the child slung over her shoulder whenever the child would squeal for help. It never struck me how pained her eyes looked, but remembering that day, I remember when she looked up towards my window, there were the unmistakable blue eyes of my baby-sitter, checking on me once again. Pain covered her face and our eyes locked, but a nudge from another soldier forced her back into a stone-cold glare. She wasn't a soldier the next day, or any day after that, or at least I didn't see her peek up at me through my window. Seeing her scared me. We'd been close.
"Ollie, go to sleep," whispered the voice of Ariana, my kind-hearted baby-sitter. She tucked my hair behind my ear- it was blond at the time, and hadn't darkened to the honey brown it is now. I had stomped my foot hard on the ground.
"No!" I had shouted, pouting as she took my hand in hers. I followed her glumly to my bed. "Can I at least watch the soldiers march?" I begged, pointing towards the window pleadingly.
"Go to sleep, baby," she coaxed softly. She said "baby" not like an insult, but rather as a sweet word of farewell, time to sleep. "It'll only give you nightmares."
"But I'm brave! I want to see. Please let me see? I'll give you all the money in my piggy bank!" I wasn't tired. The faint sound of the drum began to sound, and Ariana glanced behind her as if somebody was watching her. She was agitated.
"I'll watch for you, Ollie, I don't want you to see until you're much much older," she responded, covering my body in the soft pink covers.
"What if they take mom?" I had asked with fear, and Ariana looked sympathetically back at me.
"They won't, they need her. Your mommy helps them with taking care of sick people, remember? There aren't enough doctors left. She'll be home real soon, ok? She's taking care of lots of people today," Ariana reassured me. I nodded my head, and the pounding got louder. Ariana crept over to my bedroom window and peeked out. Now, the pounding was rapidly growing. A loud shriek erupted east of our house, and I cringed. Ariana's body trembled with fear, as most teenagers did when they heard the horrifying wail. Half the Taking was over. That night, just two people were to be taken away. The soldiers began to near our house, and the drum had taken over my ears, and sleeping became impossible. Ariana's shoulders stiffened once the soldiers were in view. "They're almost past us, Ollie. The-" Ariana never finished her sentence. The soldiers had stopped. Ariana was frozen. Her fear flooded me and took over my body.
"Ariana, what are the soldiers doing? Who do they have?" She wasn't talking. All of a sudden, she leapt into action.
"Ollie, go under the covers, now!" she hissed. I could hear the fear inside her was trying to be masked, but Ariana wasn't all too great at hiding things. I obeyed, sensing the frantic nature of her voice. She sat pulled covers over herself, and held me close to her, like she was consoling both me and herself.
The door fell in and Ariana caught her breath.
"Taking: ALD!" barked the commanding soldier. Ariana was shaking with fear, and tears began flowing down her cheeks. I wrapped my arms around her like a chain, to hold her with me. I was just 8, but I understood. It wasn't the 1st time a loved one had been Taken away from me, although I scarcely remembered the 1st time. I cried too, because ALD were Ariana Lynn Delanie's initials, not mine. I wanted to go, instead of her.
"I want to go instead!" I whispered to her. She just shook her head, unable to speak through her tears. She put her finger to my lips, to hush me. But the soldiers always knew where their victim would be. Footsteps marched up the stairs, and we heard a few comments between 2 of the 4 approaching soldiers... this would be my 1st lead, although at the time, I didn't know. I didn't have much time to think about it, for moments later, ice cold air broke into our safe haven and 4 burly men glared down at us. One looked back and forth between us, and I thought a small smile played at the corners of his lip as Ariana, trembling, looked up at him. The one beside him's expression was blank, as if he wasn't even seeing the scene unfold. One behind them looked scared. The other looked sad. I almost thought he mouthed I'm sorry to me, but it was just a slight parting of his lips, and I could scarcely make out what he was saying. The musky soldier's scent filled the atmosphere, and all I was watching were the solemn sorry man's eyes. As soon as the front man's hand grabbed Ariana's wrist, a scream I've never forgotten echoed in my arms as her hand was yanked away. I reached for her hand, fear steadily increasing as the second man reached to restrain me. I may have been 8, but I was very strong willed. When his hand grasped me to hold me back, I bent down and bit down hard, screaming through my teeth. The man yelped, but 2 other men had Ariana now. She was wriggling to escape, screaming, crying, kicking, scratching, biting, but not either man let go. The 4th man watched with surprise, stunned silent.
"Rubin!" barked the leader. 'Rubin' jerked into action and helped to calm Ariana, but Ariana wasn't.
"Let her go!" I screamed at the top of my lungs. Hands grabbed me around my stomach, and I screamed some more. I could smell the rancid odor of the man's breath, and I felt his rough hands tighten each time I struggled to escape, like a snake preparing for the kill. The 3 men were just about dragging Ariana down the stairs, and her screams were probably audible across the ocean. "No! I want to go instead! Stop!" I cried out in agony. The expressionless man was the one who had me. Once the trumpet sounded, the both of us knew Ariana was lost to me, and expressionless man dropped me carelessly onto the bed. "No!" I wailed, chasing after him as he left the room without a word. I held onto his ankles, but I was easily shaken off. At that point, I didn't even know what I was doing. I was an audience member, watching a heart-wrenching scene explode before my eyes. The lead character, Ollie, ran outside, but a soldier was guarding the door and the helpless boy was denied consolation. His only comfort was the dark blue van pulling into the driveway. A woman stepped out of the car and ran like mad towards Ollie and the soldier. With a nod, the soldier left her to restrain him. She sat for nearly 3 hours rocking and singing the frightened little boy to sleep.
What if Ariana hadn't been watching me that night? Would she have still been the victim? Would they have been able to find her? Probably. But guilt holds its place in the pit of my stomach whenever I hear her scream. I suppose you're wondering how in the world I'm such a hero. No. I guess you're not, because I haven't told you I am! Well... I'm a hero! Surprise! Not to be conceited. But I did rescue the Taken, as well as anybody on this really long complicated list, explaining who and why everybody was to be Taken. The system had been decided decades earlier, and must've taken years to calculate, and years to revise and edit, until it was perfected. Well I rescued all in danger, all out of danger, and even those who'd already gone through danger. Then, just to add emphasis, I ripped up the darned paper! I found Ariana, and I found my dad too, he was Taken when I was merely a baby. Left my mom and I in a slump, that's for sure. So I suppose it's odd that me, a 15 year old boy, was the first to discover the list, as well as where the Taken were... and exactly who Grim was. It was all because of that one conversation a couple soldiers had on the way up my staircase.
"I'm glad to be up here. I could barely breathe down there, thank gosh for oxygen!"
"Couldn't we have set the place up on land or something? I mean, a little bit easier to find, but at least we wouldn't be suffocating while we pick our targets!"
"Speaking of, I saw you in there, Dukey, they must've never crossed it out!"
"Call me Duke, I was Dukey when I was like 10!"
"Changed it when you were brought down? Well you were 18 then, not 10. Dukey was better."
"No, I changed it after you got Taken. I was 12."
"Why?"
"You made it up and it reminded me of you. Everytime somebody called my name I wanted to shoot myself, it hurt real bad to miss you like that."
Then another soldier shushed them, hitting them over the head, probably the mean one. The Dukey guy was the expression less guy, which I now understood, and the fearful one was Dukey's brother or friend or something. You're probably thinking what I did, that their home base was under water. But it wasn't, trust me, I checked. Me and Lola. Lola's my best friend in the world, and the only person I dared to tell about my expedition. I told her everything, absolutely everything! I cried many a times in front of her. We made a deal. If either of us ever got taken, we had to keep looking, we had to complete the mission by ourselves. We started looking- very secretively - when we were 10. Lola's dad worked in Marine Biology, so getting us underwater wasn't a problem, but nothing iffy was spotted. We did this, exploring different places, for a full year! Real nice. But we never found any leads. However, determined as we were, we continued looking. I don't think we would have ever stopped if we hadn't found one lucky lead.
"Lola, we've got nothing!" I hissed as we sat on the shoreline, watching waves roll in and out. "We're wasting our time." That day, we were just watching the waves, seeing if any wallets or bottled waters could be found, and we could discover that something was out there. That was unsuccessful. We'd been watching for half the day, scanning every suspicious wave, and I had never been the patient one. All we'd found were shards of sea glass. Lola ignored me, and pointed to the left.
"Sea glass. Bury it with the rest," she muttered, intent on searching the water for anything.
"No, you! Last time I cut my finger open when I put my hand too far!" I growled, picking up the sea glass angrily.
"So? Bury it some place else," she resolved, pointing to her left. I trudged over away from the water, and began shoveling out sand to form a hole. As I placed the glass in, Lola looked back angrily.
"Bury it deeper! We can't afford to lose those things. And then, maybe, we can form some sort of word or something when we have them all! Plus, it'll be less likely to cut yourself. We can't have 50 different holes, there's only like 3 rocks to mark the spot," she pointed out, approaching me and digging like crazy. I sat back on my haunches and watched her hands intently.
"Ow!" she suddenly yelped, shaking out her hand. "I scratched my hand on something!"
"A seashell I bet. Whatever," I dropped the sea glass in and stood to go. Lola, clutching her finger, froze.
"Hey! Pick it up. I think... drop it in again..." she had her thinking face on, the one that meant no objections, she had it under control. I sat back down and lifted the sea glass out, just to drop it back in. Sure enough, it wasn't the familiar sound of glass on sand or glass on glass. It was glass on hollow ground. Lola and I shared a look, a look of excitement and confusion. As if a gunshot went off, we began digging up the whole area until a concrete ground- about the size of a small box was all we'd dug- was revealed. Lola put her ear into the hole, shutting her eyes tight to avoid falling sand. Her ear pressed against the concrete, and she knocked gingerly. I didn't hear anything but the knocking, but she jerked up fearfully.
"Cover it, we're getting out of here!" I just knew it was something I had to obey, so bury the sea glass we did, then bolted off to her house, just a mile away from the beach. The moment we slammed the door, drums began to play, unusually early. Like, 3 hours early. Panic flooded our eyes. Had we set off an alarm, were we caught on video.
"When I knocked, somebody yelled, 'Hey! Who's there? Somebody's got us! We're gonna get them!'," she told me, her face pale.
"They can't find us..." I muttered. And I was right, they didn't. Spent a good day trying to figure out who knew too, but there were no hidden cameras on the beach.
That marked the day we searched under ground. And we did search for some way underground, walking through the streets and nonchalantly peering into sewers- for dry ground, pulling on suspicious handle-looking things, but we never found the entrance. Until we were at my house. It's a long story.
"So we know it's underground. But I'm guessing they've got that beach anti-hollowed by now, and I'm positive they've got some sort of security to see if the culprit comes back. The place was closed until just last week. We can't show our faces there," Lola muttered, recording our progress in her note pad.
"Maybe you shouldn't write this down. If they find it, we're dead," I pointed out.
"Violation of Property. Soldiers go by laws, you know. They can't touch my stuff unless I'm Taken, even if my parents are Taken they're not allowed. If I'm Taken, they'll find this and then they'll stop looking into it, and you can keep looking with more freedom. Which is why I don't mention you once. I found the hollow hole, I heard soldiers talking when they walked through the street. Easy," she spoke calmly, like she'd thought everything through very precisely.
"Don't even talk about you being Taken, Lola," I whispered. "It's sickening. I'd die before letting you be Taken. I'd die."
"If you did, I'd hate you. I want to be Taken if it means you can find where they're Taking everybody; if you do your job right, I'd be home again in just a few days," she joked. But with the joke came a responsibility, and it hit me like a punch in the stomach. She sensed the tension. "Uh, hey, Ollie, can I stay in your extra room? It'd be awesome if I could stay the night... ever since that stupid beach thing, Takings scare me to death."
"Sure, I get it, Takings have always scared me to death. You can go put your stuff in there- there's probably some nice hiding places. And call your parents so they're not worried," I add. "I'll try and figure out some place the soldiers could be hiding out."
"And their leader!" chimed Lola as she exited the room and headed down the hall. I sat on my blue bed and waited for Lola to return, giving my over used brain a small rest. Time passed, but finally, Lola returned, eyes wide and mouth gaping. It took no words, I just leapt out of bed and followed her, like a puppy dog following its bewildered owner. Right there, in my home's extra room, was an open mini door. In the wall. We both stooped down to it's level and crawled in, whispering softly to assure both ourselves and each other that we were still okay. There weren't any twists or turns, just the path. I suppose this couldn't be the only way there, or wherever we were going, because sure as heck soldiers had never marched into my extra room with teary-eyed Taken people without my notice. If they had, I really needed to get my vision and hearing checked.
It felt like years before Lola pointed, without speaking, at a light. A very faint light, but a light. I could see her pointing. That's what got me excited. Careful not to make noise, we crawled silently forward. No sound came from the light. And after another gagillion years, we reached the light. What a let down. It was a dump. A garbage dump, with street lights lighting the darkening street. I prepared to make the long jump to the ground, but Lola yanked me back and scrambled back into the tunnel and flatted herself against the wall; I did the same, as drum beats reached my ears. I wanted to scream or cry when I saw the soldiers, one by one, coming out of what seemed to be a knocked over garbage can. The pounding was defeaning, and I noticed Lola squeezing her eyes shut tight and plugging her ears. I did the same thing Ariana had done for me, the same thing that saved me from going ballistic. And her too, I think. I wrapped my arms around Lola and held her. She'd never been so close to soldiers. I had. She'd never seen their stiffened faces. I had. She'd never been scared that she was about to be Taken. I had.
It took a few minutes after they'd past for Lola to relax a bit, but she did. Her cheek was wet. I held her hand and without words, let her to the end of the tunnel. She wanted to go out first, and I let her. As soon as I did I regretted it; Being in the tunnel alone was horrifying. I scrambled down as fast as I could, twisting my ankle in the rush when I landed funny. Lola helped me up.
"Ollie... I have a feeling we've gotten ourselves into something I'm not sure I want to be into..." she whispered fearfully. I looked up at the tunnel, so high up, and rubbed my ankle.
"Looks like there's no turning back," I muttered. And then we did something I never pictured myself doing; We crawled into a garbage can, and we kept on going.
Once we escaped this tunnel- Which was green, and smelled a little funky- An empty office greeted us. It was warm, and wasn't frightening. On the way here, Lola and I had occupied ourselves imagining our destination; A dragon's cave, a room of mirrors, or a room with nothing. The colors were warm browns and reds and oranges- the rug was soft, the desk was neatly organized with flowers and a high-tech computer on top. A brown couch tempted us to lay down, to sleep, but that wasn't an option, we'd be dead meat when the soldiers returned. A horrible screech reached us, faint, but it was there. 1 of 3 that night. Cautiously, Lola and I silently approached the desk. Right on the screen was a picture; A picture of what looked like me when I was about 6 years old. The desktop background was me. Lola looked at me.
"Don't tell me that's you..." she whispered, eyes widened.
"It is... I have that picture... my mom had it on display the day they took Ariana..." I replied, awestruck. Looking closer, it was a picture of a picture. And in the corner of the picture, where the picture hadn't taken up all the screen's view, was Ariana. Flailing, in a state of panic, trying to escape the tough man. The hand. The hand had been in my house, the hand holding the picture, and had given it to whoever this man was. Fear was displayed clearly on Lola as she backed away from me.
"Lola, do you think you're more freaked out then me?" I hissed. Lola shook her head vigorously, pointing. I rolled my eyes. "You can't think I knew about this!" she shook her head and pointed at me once more. Then I realized she wasn't pointing at me. I whirled around, panic-stricken, and hobbled away at my fastest speed with my ankle, then froze. Blue eyes stared at me painfully. The same eyes, the same hair, just a bit messed up.
"Ariana," I whispered. She said nothing. Lola knew Ariana'd been taken, she had never seen her though. Ariana spoke, her voice choked.
"Ollie, you need to go..." it looked painful for her to talk. I shook my head, refusing.
"I came here for a reason!"
"I know. But you being here already served your reason... He's letting everybody go," I could hear the torture in her voice. Treatment here was poor. And it was clear just by her face. But why? Because I was here. Before I knew what I was doing, I wrapped my arms around Ariana. Ariana was stiff for a moment, but then hugged me back.
"I missed you a lot..." she spoke. Lola watched, still shaken. Ariana looked like a monster, dirt on her face and hair puffed out. We parted.
"You too. But why did I need to come, what was the point? Why were they released? Why is that my picture on the screen?" I asked. All Ariana did was point and I knew. Written on a white card was a name. A name tag for the boss, the one who ran the show.
And the name was Alexander Wischer.
And want to know why I understood the surprise? Because that's me. Why, I had you fooled, didn't I? Didn't you suppose that I was Ollie Wischer? Aha, what fun. No. I'm his dad. Alexander. Boss, as I'm referred to by most. Surprise! I got you, didn't I? I was taken, as many will vouch to, but quite willfully. I was an excellent actor, though. As I am now! Notice how well I portrayed my son's experiences? He told me of them, while he was under the belief that I'd let my prisoners free. Ha! Imagine that. Lola, Ariana, even the two guards who gave him the lead. Just accessories to me, and of no friendship to him. They wanted to take him as much as I did. Because I'm getting older. I'm not going to last forever. And I want my society to begin soon. Are you confused? Let me explain. I have had people who worked for me since the day they were born; Duke Conway, Elliot Conway(the two soldiers who gave my son the lead), Lola(his best friend), Ariana(his babysitter), and of course, me. I pretended to be Taken shortly after I had my son. He was to follow my lead, to become the next boss. But his mother refused to hand him over, and Taking her would just be outrageous, soldiers rarely take 2 from the same home, and never 3. So I needed him to come to me. And that was the day he did. I explained my thinking.
Imagine: A place where you controlled everything. Had life at your fingertips. Could change your life with the press of a button. Because I owned the Taken. They did as I wanted. A technique... a machine, in their head, controlling every move they make. Their life is not their own. Their thoughts are not their own. Their life is manually created, by me or a man in close association called Jonathan Wright. Lola is his daughter, and his wife was not nearly as stubborn. The two are to own the place... control everybody everywhere. Some say the ideas demented, when we explain it to them after the Taking, but no more free speech after treatments, I suppose. Sure, Ollie's plan was to save the world. But really now... who would rather save the world than control it? Because someday, this will be our empire. Oliver's empire and Lola's empire. And leaving? Leaving will not ever be an option.
(Errr... Story went in a bad direction. I wasn't quite sure how to lead up to it being actually evil dude's POV, pretending to be Ollie's, so I just kinda screwed around. Arghhh... I'll probably rewrite something with a little bit of a change in plot line sometime.)
