Young Writers Society

The iron gates slid open as soon as they stood in front of them. Ksenia noticed the cameras, which were hidden in the barbed wire on top of the fences, focusing on her. A shiver went down her spine when the driver lay his big hand on her shoulder and led her inside. His fingers digged lightly into her skin to keep her in place.

Ksenia tried to ignore the annoying light pain that shot through her arm and looked at the building in front of her. It was made out of grey stones and there were eight large grey pillars in front of it. The big windows behind them made Ksenia guess that the office was placed there. They would probably keep the teens behind more bars and secured doors.

She walked next to the driver between the huge trees that were planted at the sides of the path. Little stones poked through her soles again. It didn’t seem so bad at first if you’d let out all the fences and cameras actually, but Ksenia feared for the worst once she would be passed this nice and deceiving cover.

Just like the marble floors in the transfer camp, this beauty wouldn’t last for long either.

They stepped into the shadow of the building and stood still in front of the big wooden door. The driver had to hold his wrist in front of a scanner this time for it to slide open.

More marble floors…

A deep sigh left Ksenia’s mouth as she realized that she hated these deceiving floors with a burning passion. The driver dragged her across them and in a second she was facing an older guy that was standing behind the reception. The driver smacked her right arm on the counter and the receptionist quickly scanned it. Ksenia let out a loud groan and tried to punch the driver in his stomach. She missed it but did slam into his ribs pretty hard. The driver was now the one to groan and stumbled a bit back. A small victorious smile appeared on her lips and she decided that the pain in her knuckles and maybe even the punishment afterwards would be worth it.

The driver shot her a deathly glare and slapped her in the face just as an older woman entered the room.

“Tuysen! We do not treat children like that! Especially not pretty girls like her. You can immediately leave.”

The driver quickly pulled his hand to his side and looked at the woman with a guilty look crossing his eyes.

“But Mrs. Rui, she was showing violent misbehaviour.”

Mrs. Rui stopped in front of them and placed her elegantly manicured hand on the reception counter. The view of a woman in this man-dominated system was a spark of hope for Ksenia. Maybe things wouldn’t turn out to be so bad after all.

“Tuysen, you know very well that this is not the right way to react on that. And I’m sure it was just a one time thing. She was probably just scared to death and didn’t mean to behave that way.”

You tell him, woman!

“Did you forget where we are? If this was just a one time thing, then why did they send her to one of the special camps?”

Wait, what?!

Mrs. Rui told the driver to get lost in a nice and formal way and stepped behind the reception to see Ksenia’s background information on the laptop screen. The driver put her handcuffs back on and closed them extra tight. Ksenia let out a small squeal and tried to pull her hands loose. Without any result of course.

The driver threw the handcuff-keys on the counter and left with a victorious smile on his face.

Very mature of you…

Ksenia stared at the woman and older guy behind the reception. She could run away if she wanted to, there was no one else in the entrance hall right now. Her heart started to beat faster and she felt adrenaline rush through her body. This could be her chance.

Just as she was about to sprint for the door, she heard a loud click from the closing gates outside. Through the windows she could see the driver step into his car and drive away.

She wouldn’t have had a chance anyway. Not only was everything secured here, they were also in the middle of nowhere. It would probably take two days of walking ‘til she’d reach a village. That would be a torture for sure.

Ksenia faced the woman and cleared her throat loud enough for both of the adults to look up.

“I’m sorry but what was that whole “special camp” thing about? I-I thought that all the camps would be similar to each other. Am I in a special camp right now?”

Ksenia bit on her lip and let the confusion and fear leak through on her face. She had absolutely no idea where she and felt more vulnerable than ever.

They can do whatever they want with me and no one will ever notice or even hear about it.

She wrapped her arms around herself and tried to stop trembling. It reminded her of that one time when she went running in the woods with her dad and she had suddenly lost him. She had been all alone in an unknown place just like right now, except back then her father came back looking for her. At this moment he would probably be in some labor camp already.

No one would come to save her now. She was on her own.

“Uhh,” the woman started off a bit awkward, “This camp is…a bit stricter than others. That’s the only difference really.”

She gave Ksenia a reassuring smile while the receptionist looked up and raised his eyebrows at her explanation. He let out an awkward cough when Mrs. Rui turned around and seemed to be giving him a warning look.

How relieving...

Ksenia dug her nails into her skin to control her fear a bit. It was a bad habit that her parents had pointed out to her a million times but like everyone says: Old habits die hard.

The two adults, both looking pretty uncomfortable, returned their focus on the screen and quickly finished reading everything.

“Okay Ksenia, before we bring you to your new room, is there anything we need to know that isn’t in your record yet? Like medical conditions or allergies that we need to keep an eye on?”

Even though she was scared and her nerves were on the point of exploding, she gave the woman a sarcastic look.

“I’m pretty sure that you don’t need to worry about any ‘secrets’, madam. I can’t even break my little toe nail without the TWC knowing about it.”

The woman looked a little unsure about how to react, so she didn’t react at all. The laptop was suddenly very interesting to her.

“Seems like they’ve send her to the right camp.” The receptionist muttered annoyed while walking around the counter and grabbing one of Ksenia’s upper arms. Another small squeal left her mouth as she quickly stood on her toes to reduce the pain a little. Mrs. Rui bit on her lip but didn’t say anything about it. Maybe this wasn’t going to be better after all.

The guy led her through a long hallway and they stopped in front of a wooden door. It was the first door that got personally opened by a human being since she had set foot in these camps and she gave the woman behind it an odd stare.

The guy quickly pushed her inside and closed the door. The woman didn’t waste a single second and pulled her towards a huge closet that was filled with navy blue uniforms.

“Okay, I’m going to need all your sizes.”

She hastily explained as she wrapped a measuring-line around Ksenia’s waist and hips. In the meanwhile she asked Ksenia for her shoe size. After having measured everything, the woman went through all the uniforms and pulled out a small one. She also gave her underwear and a white tank top for underneath it. Ksenia got pushed into a dressing-room and slowly changed from clothes. She stared into the mirror and had to admit that she didn’t look too bad. The uniform was kind of tight and accentuated her small waist.

When she stepped out of the dressing room and spotted a pair of all-stars waiting on her, she couldn’t help but smile. At least she would be decently dressed when falling into this slur of scary times.

The woman was content with the result and just bluntly pushed her out of the room where the guy was still waiting for her. He immediately grabbed her arm and she didn’t even had the opportunity to ask what would happen with her clothes because he was already pulling her through the hallway.

He opened the iron door at the end of it. It was immediately followed by another iron door and there were censors all over the place.

“See those censors? As soon as one of you get between these two doors without us, the entire building will shut down. I suggest you don’t try it; it’s rather oppressive in here.”

He had a weird small smile on his face as the iron door opened, the other was already closed, and he pushed her inside. Ksenia quickly turned around.

“Just keep walking, you’ll end up in the mainhall and I’m sure you can find someone who will show you your room. It’s number 68. Welcome to YouthCamp 201, enjoy your stay.”

The guy seemed to be amused with himself and smiled as the iron door closed between them. Great.

She was now really on her own.

* * * * * *

“Ugh! You know, sometimes I really wish I could step up to those guys and make them swallow their own head. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

Vladimir Ethans chuckled at Lily’s heated comments as she stared mischievously at the group of “populair” guys that were hanging around in the middle of the hall. They were the kind with the jerky attitude who thought that they were superior to the others who actually happened to have their own identity. They were pretty much just a copy of each other and you wouldn’t ever see them standing by themselves because they were too weak for that. It was rather sad.

“Not worth your time and energy.”

His answer was short and to the point as always. He didn’t like wasting words on senseless chit-chat. More than often it had driven people away from him but he didn’t really mind because his friends loved him for it; the no-nonsense guy that you could always depend on.

Lily rolled her eyes at his calm and cold reply and kept shooting murderous daggers at the guys. They were being way too noisy for Vladimir’s taste but he had learned to live with it. Lily, on the other hand, wasn’t really used to it and probably never would be. If she did learn to accept it, then she wouldn’t be herself anymore.

“You know, you could take them all out with ease.”

Not that again…

Vladimir sighed deeply while a soft chuckle escaped his lips. With her 14 years and her innocent face, you wouldn’t expect such an energetic and strong personality behind it. She truly was something special.

“No reason for that.”

Lily jumped off the table and stood right in front of him with flaming eyes. He held back an amused smile when he noticed how healthy she looked when being mad.

“Ugh, you’re so annoying! Everyone hates them. Imagine how much you’d be helping us all if you smashed those guys to the ground and destroyed their cocky attitude with one single hit!”

There had formed blushes on her face from the excitement and a few curls had jumped out of her braid. Vladimir shook his head and didn’t hold back the amused smile any longer. He pulled on her braid and grinned at the irritated expression that quickly followed.

“Look evil genius, things are a lot more complicated than that. And besides, they don’t bother us so we won’t bother them either. End of story.”

Lily let out a frustrated groan and kicked him in his shin. Vladimir raised his eyebrow and couldn’t help but smile. Of course he wouldn’t get mad at her, he had a soft spot for this young adorable maniac and he knew that she didn’t mean to be rude. Lily stared at his shin for a second and a guilty look crossed her eyes. She quickly sat down next to him on the table and patted his knee with a sweet manipulating smile.

“According to you, everything is always a lot more complicated than it actually is. I mean seriously, what’s so complicated about this?”

Vladimir sighed softly and his smile faded as he stared at the group of guys. Everything was complicated about this but Lily wouldn’t understand it.

It barely made any sense to himself. He just didn’t want anything to do with them, nor humiliate or annoy them. They respected and looked up to him and that was all he needed. It was enough to keep the people he cared about away from their taunting and their sly little games that they played with people. He wasn’t the kind of person though who would watch someone being picked on but he couldn’t take care of the entire world. Life over here just didn’t work that way.

And that’s when the girl caught his eyes. She was standing nearby one of the entrances and looked around with a cautious and nervous look in her eyes. He immediately recognized her as a newbie.

Her blonde hair with blue lowlights made her stand out and gave her something unique. He grabbed this opportunity to save himself out of answering Lily’s annoying question and poked her softly in her ribs with his elbow.

“Look, a newbie. Go annoy her instead.”

Lily’s eyes searched the room frantically and jumped up when she spotted the girl. She poked him back with her pointy elbow but was too excited to reply with a clever comeback.

Vladimir grinned softly as he watched how Lily darted off towards the girl, afraid that anyone would get to the newbie before her.