Black Bands: Chapter 1 - Why are we here?

I wake up in a on a cold concrete floor. My head is pounding, my vision is blurry. There are people in other cells beside me, they too are waking up. As I look down the hall, there are two doors. Both have to men in black suits standing at them. There are guns on their hip. I don’t remember anything. I don’t remember how I got here, Why I am here, I only have glimpses from when I was five years old to twelve years old. One door says lab above it. The other says storage. A buzz sound comes from the door that says lab, and the men dressed in suits step aside. An older man in a lab coat enters. He walks along the cells watching us. He stops at mine and Looks at me. Pointing at me, He says, “Her.” One man that was guarding the storage doors, comes to my cell door. He points a gun at me and says in a deep voice, “Get up.” Gulping, I obey and walk out. They handcuff me and bring me into the lab, leaving all of the other people behind. They put me in a chair and strap my arms to it. The guard leaves, leaving me alone with the man in the lab coat. “Why am I here?” I choke out.

The man turns around, a wild look on his face. It kind of looked like the mad scientist on a T.V. show I watched when I was eight. He smiles in an evil way, “Well, if I told you. That would ruin the secret wouldn’t it?” He says in a raspy voice and cackles before turning back to what he was doing. Then a man wearing another black suit, walks in. He roughly puts a black wrist band on my wrist. I look at it, it’s pure black, and it has no words on it. ‘Why do I need this?’ I think to myself. Then when the man leaves, the mad scientist, as I had nicknamed him, spins around with a three inch needle in his hand. Inside the syringe, is a bright red liquid. I gulp. Just then, a timer dings. “Ah, my pie!” He sputters and rushes to the oven. I then see a syringe filled with a blue liquid. I reach and my fingertips brush it. “Argh.” looking at the mad scientist, he was busy caring to his pie. I reach once more, this time I move it a little closer to me. The old man was still busy, I tried again, and grasped it. Flipping it over, it read: “Sedative.” I push it up my sleeve to hide it.

Finally he finishes tending to his pie and comes back. He picks up the syringe and looks at me with evil eyes. “Any last words?” He says in a harsh tone. I think a moment. “Can I see the sky one more time?” He tilts his head at my response. “Well.” He says. “I suppose I can’t deprive you of your last wish...” He gets the keys and looks at me. Placing the needle at my arm, he speaks, “No stupid moves. If you do, this goes in your arm, and you’re dead in twenty-five seconds. I gulp. He unlocks the metal bars holding my wrists. He yanks on my arm and I stand up. He leads me to the roof. On the roof, I look up. The stars are bright. And a big moon shines down. “You have five minutes. Then we’re going back.” He says rather tiredly. I gulp silently, and slant my eyes down. ‘If I could just get him to fall down...’ I think to myself.

I turn my foot and hit his leg as hard as I can, apparently its effective, because he falls down on his hands and knees. He tries to get up, but I pull out the sedative, and inject it in the back of his neck. He rolls over on the ground. He sputters, “You won’t get away They’ll find you where ever—“His sentence is cut short because the sedative kicks in. “Who! Who is looking for me!” I nearly scream. But it’s too late, the sedative is in full effect. My heart is pounding in my ears. I remember the other people in the cells. I have to get them out. I can’t let them die. I rush back down to the lab, remembering the way I came.

After fumbling down the stairs, I arrive back at the lab, and look around for anything useful. I find a couple of cans, they read: “Gas Bomb.” Apparently you take off the little clip like a grenade, and throw it in the place to you want. “Easy enough.” I murmur, grabbing a couple. Walking to a door, I open it just a tiny crack. Looking up, I see the guards, fortunately they are looking strait ahead. I on the other hand, am on the floor. I look up, and see a boy with black hair looking at me. I bring my finger up to my lips as to say, ‘Shh.’ He nods in response. I pull the tip of my shirt over my nose, trying to tell him to do the same. He does, and the others around him copy his actions. The guards look around from them. By the time they figure out what is happening, I have taken the clips off of the cans and tossed them in the room. The guards scramble to get out, but it’s too late, they fall unconscious. I pull the tip of my shirt over my nose, and go in. Pulling the keys off of one of the guard’s belts, I unlock the cells one by one, people flee to the lab. Apparently they weren't to smart, each lock is the same, and only requires on key. After the last is unlocked, I go back in the lab. I lean over with my hands on my knees, coughing.

“Thank you.” The boy with the black hair chokes out. The others nod. All of them look to be about my age. Give or take a year. Except one. She look young, like a twelve or eleven year old. ‘Why would they have a kid that young here?’ I think to myself. I stand up, and ask, “Does anyone know how we got here? Or why we’re here?” My voice comes out raspy, probably because of the gas. Everyone shakes their head. I look at everyone’s wrist, we all have black wrist bands on. I raise my wrist with the black band on it, “Anyone know why we have these?” Everyone shakes their head again. I sigh in an exasperated manner and lean against the wall.

The boy with the dark hair walks up to me. This time, he doesn’t have such a nice emotion on his face. He stops in front of me and speaks to where the others can’t hear, “Why did you let us go. You don’t even know why we were here, so maybe they would have told us. You should have trusted them maybe?” I blink and scoff, “Yea.” I say picking up the syringe with red liquid in it. I squirt some of it out on the floor. I look at a girl with red hair, green eyes, and freckles. I walk up to her, pushing past the boy in my way, and ask, “You know what’s in this?” I hold up the syringe, the red liquid glimmering. She looks at it and mumbles to herself about different chemicals, and finally speaks, “It’s a mixture of multiple chemicals that would probably make your heart stop in twenty-five seconds.” I turn back to the boy who had questioned me, “That’s what they were about to inject me with. Still think they’re so nice?”

Turning around, I look at the people around me, the boy with the Black hair, the freckle face girl, a boy that has brown with glasses, another boy with Blonde hair, and the young girl with red hair and green eyes. “What are your names?” I ask. The boy with the black hair, who had confronted me, speaks up first, “I’m Jake.” he says. Next, Freckle Face speaks, “I’m Olivia.” The boy with glasses says, “I’m Jack.” The one with blonde hair says, “I’m Kyle.” And finally the little what looks like a twelve year old speaks, “I’m Haylee.” I nod and say, I’m Oakley,” I hear footsteps coming down the stairwell above us. “and we have to leave now.”

The others look at each other before starting to move. I grab a knife next to the pie on the table, and walk back to the place where the cells are, everyone just follows me. I hear the guards growing closer, I burst out of the place with cells into the storage area. “Ok there has to be an exit somewhere.” Everyone looks around until Freckle face, or Olivia, Yells out, “There!” She is pointing at a neon green sign that reads exit. By that time the guards burst in. I swing around throwing a knife at one, It hits squarely in the chest and he goes down. The others have picked up the ruble or a board or something up and are fighting the rest of the guards, Except for Haylee. She is hiding behind a stack of wood, but she doesn’t see that guard coming up behind her, I grab a board and swing around hitting him in the face. He falls on the ground, Knocked out. “He’ll feel that in the morning.” I mumble. The girl has bolted by then, heading to the exit. I turn to the rest, while I halfway run, halfway stumble backwards, I manage to yell, “Come on!” Before I can get to the door, one of the guards hits my side with some kind of board. “Ah!” I stumble forward grasping my side. I look up and the guard has a metal beam raised above his head. It’s about to come down and kill me. Then he gives a tiny jolt forward, and falls on the ground, behind him Jake has a knife he yanked out of the guard. “Well, Move it!” he shouts.

We burst outside, we run ahead, everything is dark, it’s like a ghost town. Finally after a while of running, we lose them in the twists and turns around buildings. The others run past me, but I stop and lean against a building, I slide down and sit on the ground. Jake stops by me, “You ok?” He asks. “Yeah, never better.” I mumble. He raises an eyebrow, and says to the others, “Hey, wait up!” They slow to a walk, not stopping. He offers a hand, but I push it away and stand up. He shakes his head and walks ahead of me. Finally we reach the others, I stay at the back. My side is killing me. After hours of walking, and me lagging behind, we arrive at a sign that looks to say the location of where we are, but it's in another language. "Anyone know how to read this?" I ask while looking at it. Jack comes to the front and adjusts his glasses, "It's Russian. It says: Moscow, Russia."