It was early evening and night time when we arrived at our next destination. Shave-head girl's face lit up and she audibly gasped and pressed her face closer to the window to get a better look. I eased forward, being mindful of not getting too close to her (because I didn't want to feel like or be seen as a creep or anything like that), and looked outside the window too.

Although I didn't gasp it was hard not to feel an almost nostalgic sense of wonder. We were crossing an old stone bridge on our way towards a picturesque little village. From a distance there was plenty of green grass and shaggy trees, but also wispy fog which lingered mysteriously over cobblestone roads and tiny houses and cottages. A sign came and went, telling us exactly where we were. Lintern Village.

I'd never heard of the place before, but then again I hadn't heard of most places. I had a better time remembering places from movies and video games than I did the real world (the former being far more interesting to my always daydreaming brain).

Before we could enter the village proper the coach stopped before a barbed wire fence that went on as far as I could see in the dark in both directions, wrapping around the village. There were dozens of Pied Piper officers, some in front of the fence, more behind.

For some reason things felt different here. The initial excitement of seeing Lintern village gave way to a sense of there being something wrong. I couldn't tell what it was. Maybe I had expected a warm welcome, something like people in the village waving us in as if we were at the end of some marathon. But there weren't any normal people, at least not since we neared the village, nor at the entrance.

The coach doors opened and a Pied Piper officer trudged up the steps to speak with the driver. I kept watch from my seat, thankful at least I had an aisle seat this time.

After a brief exchange the Pied Piper officer that just boarded stepped off again. The African Pied Piper officer stood up and blew his whistle.

"Everyone," he said, "Stick with the person you are sitting with. The first row will leave and then the rows behind will follow. Listen very carefully. Do not leave the sight of the officers under any circumstances. Your life will be in danger if you do. The Pied Piper officers here are sanctioned to use lethal force if necessary. If you try to leave without permission then you are putting your life, and the lives of everyone here, at risk. We are here to make sure you are safe and protected, so please listen to us and do as you're told. Cooperate with us and everything will be okay."

Everyone in the coach was deathly silent at hearing this. This was the first time we had heard about actual serious repercussions if we were to try and leave of our own accord. Just hearing the African Pied Piper officer say what I feared might be true made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

I could almost hear my friend saying 'told you so' in my mind.

I looked out the window again for another look at the Pied Piper officers. They had guns, some were holding them, others had them slung. Others just had handguns holstered at their hips. These Pied Piper officers weren't middle-aged ladies or old men. Most that I could see (they were well lit by floodlights) were at least thirty years old, none older than fifty. They all had that grizzled look that military or police officers have. The types no one in their right mind would want to mess with.

It was at this moment I realized I messed up. Big time. But I still told myself to remain calm. Somewhat in denial I decided there was little I could do except go with the flow. It wasn't like they were intending to…what? Kill us? I tried to shake the idea away but it stuck in my head.

It started to make sense. What if the whole evacuation was just a means to herd all the teenagers together and kill us off out of sight of the media and our friends and families? What if the government realized the safest thing to do was to group us together and kill us off? What if my friend was right the entire time?

I needed to scream for help. No, I needed to get up and run out of the coach and get away from the village. It didn't matter how. I needed to escape and get as far away from this deathtrap as possible. How had I been so stupid. What an idiot! I was as good as dead!

A large hand gripped my wrist firmly.

It was shaved-head girl.

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"Hey," she said. She looked at me and I looked back. She didn't tell me it was all going to be fine. I could tell she was thinking the same thing as me. She was just doing a much better job of keeping herself together. Her grounded confidence infected me just a little bit and I calmed down. I nodded and she let go of my hand.

Two by two we filed off the coach. Maybe the only ounce of good luck I had so far was getting grouped with shaved-head girl. I still didn't know her name, I was awful at finding out people's names and remembering them, and it had been long enough that it would seem rude and weird of me to ask her what it was.

I lead the way down the coach aisle, again careful not to slip on the wet floor, and felt just a tiny bit better knowing I had shaved-head girl behind me, looming over me, as a protector. Not that I had any real reason to think she would protect me if something bad were to happen. In my fearful state of mind racing a hundred miles a minute just knowing there was someone who might care if some Pied Piper officers decided to unload their guns on me made the whole scenario go from nightmarish, to nightmarish-lite.

I stepped off the coach and followed the teenagers in front of me to the barricade ahead. A Pied Piper officer asked me for my IDs so I handed them over. This time however the Pied Piper officer didn't give them back. I lingered for a moment as if the officer was mistaken.

"Keep moving," he said, in a way that left no room for debate.

Like a frightened little mouse I continued on. It was spitting rain again, and the night air was wet and brisk. It felt good to be on my feet again. I approached the next part of the entry process.

A Pied Piper officer was standing on the corner of the road. Ahead the road became steep, many of the houses and cottages and shops were above my eye-line due to the steepness. The Pied Piper officer put a gloved hand into a transparent box and took out what looked to me to be a simple wristwatch, like something a child might wear.

"Hold out your wrist," he said.

I did as I was asked and he placed the watch-thing on my wrist. I continued on, and saw that there were three simple LED lights on the device. Green. Orange. Red. And a much smaller purple light that was currently blinking whilst the rest weren't.

The teenagers ahead of me had been ordered to line up in a straight line along the road. The line had become ten teenagers long, with them standing side by side, so I was ushered by another officer to be the first of a new row.

The other teenagers looked at the devices on their wrists, which were also blinking. After a few moments shaved-head girl joined my side. She looked at me as if I might have an answer for what we were wearing but I didn't have a clue.

Over the next few minutes we stood in the ever increasing cold night whilst the remaining teenagers added to the lines. From behind me I heard a sudden beep. Then another. Then another. One after the other everyone's wrist-device beeped once. Mine beeped, making me flinch. I was so on edge.

The orange LED light was the only one lit on my device. I looked to shaved-head girl's device and hers was also orange. I looked over my shoulder to the teenagers behind me. Green. Green. Green. Orange. Green.

My stomach clenched. Looking around I could see mostly little green LED lights, with the remaining few being orange.

Another Pied Piper officer blew their whistle and spoke into a megaphone.

"If your meter has an orange light, form a line quickly over here."

I hurried to it, having a genuine sense of urgency for the first time since starting the evacuation. Shaved-head girl led the way over. I looked around, trying to see if that person was also part of the orange-light group. I spotted Alex Landly. His meter was orange too. His face, which was normally quite pale, looked even paler. He was terrified.

There were about fifty of us teenagers that had boarded the coach. I had counted before but wasn't exactly sure of the final number, minus the three that had run away. There were twelve of us in the orange-light group. If red meant 'bad' then orange most likely meant, 'halfway bad'. Did that mean our group was far more likely to blow up than the green-light ones?

A Pied Piper officer checked our devices and, after making sure that our lights were in fact orange, blew his whistle.

"Follow me," he said, and he led the way up the steep main road of Lintern. I thought I was ready for the march but within a few strides of going up the steep hill road my legs started to ache. My back too. I just wanted to be at home with all the comforts that came with it. I craved a cup of tea and a bar of chocolate and a nice hot warm bath, then bed.

Shaved-head girl managed the steep road climb better than me. Alex Landly, of course, seemed to hardly be trying. This made sense because he was, at school at least, one of the most promising long-distance marathon runners in the entire country, as well as one of the best cyclists. His build was thin, but wiry and packed with muscle perfect for an athlete. Despite how inadequate I felt about being a couch potato, I at least didn't have the look of stark fear that Alex had on his face. I felt a twinge of sympathy for him. Sure, I didn't like him, but that didn't mean I wanted him to go through something like this. Nobody deserved this kind of crap.

"You okay?" I said. "Go away," he said. Not spitefully, but in a simple matter of fact way that said he simply had no time for someone like me. I felt the onset of tears stab at my eyes and turned back round, concentrating on going up the road. Fine, I thought, deal with this crap on your own then.