At some point I simply stopped paying attention to anything around me. I had fought through every level of exhaustion I could manage.

Sometime later the first light of day stabbed at my eyes. I hadn't been asleep, but I hadn't been fully awake either. I had been stuck in a trance-like state in an endless jogging nightmare. The further I made it, the longer the track ahead of me became. I opened my eyes and saw the sun was rising over Lintern Village.

Chook, chook, chook, chook.

I looked down. My bare feet were still jogging at the bare minimum pace. I checked the treadmill timer, it read: 11 Hours and 55 minutes.

I wanted to laugh at the number. There was no way it was real. I looked to my left. The tall shaved-headed guy with the nicked eyebrow was gone. In his place was a small asian boy that was sweating profusely. I took a look at his timer. He had been jogging for over an hour.

I glanced to my right, noticing Tiffany still jogging at her treadmill. She had her head bowed forward and her eyes closed. As far as I could tell she was jogging in her sleep. She looked awful, her skin bright red all over.

I looked at my own skin. It too was bright red, as if sunburned. The redness of my skin looked all the more stark against the white overalls. Even my feet, which were a blur moving up and down beneath me, looked sunburnt.

A figure to my right entered my periphery. A Pied Piper officer was standing beside me now. He reached forward with a gloved hand and pressed the stop button on the machine. The jogging speed of the mat eased to a walking pace. The relief this gave my beyond exhausted legs was immense; my legs felt like two giant turkey legs, swollen and chaffing, though to look at them they didn't seem much different, other than looking red beneath the white overall fabric.

At last the treadmill came to a stop. I had finally stopped jogging. I looked at my Meter device. It was showing a joyous, beautiful, amazing, steady green. I must have been dreaming because the Pied Piper officer who had turned off the treadmill held up a bottle of water for me to take. I trembled where I stood, my whole body in a state of shock. I took the bottle from the officer, uncapped it, and drank.

Never in my entire life had I appreciated a drink of water more. The cool, wet, smooth, utterly quenching taste of the water tasted better than anything I had ever tasted before. I tried to pace myself, to sip and not drink too fast, but I simply couldn't. Within ten seconds I drank the entire contents of the bottle until it was empty.

I wanted to thank the Pied Piper officer but my mouth felt swollen. I tipped over the plastic bottle and let the last drop fall onto my sunburnt-looking hand. I couldn't feel the water droplet when it landed on my hand. This was worrying but my mind had put a stopper on panic for the time being.

"Wait here," said the Pied Piper officer.

He woke Tiffany, and slowed down her treadmill too. Like he had done for me he rewarded her with a bottle of water. Tiffany, eyes wide like a cat that got the catnip, pawed at the bottle of water and guzzled it down. When she was finished she had the sense of self to look around, noticing the time of day and, to her relief, and mine, her Meter device was showing green too.

She looked at me and I to her, but neither of us could bring ourselves to talk.

"Come with me," said the Pied Piper officer.

At this point we were well-trained in doing what the Pied Piper officers told us to do. We kept pace with him, the pair of us hobbling almost comically given how badly our legs were riddled with cramps.

I walked with one eye closed, the exhaustion making me feel like some lumbering zombie.

Before we left the way we came I stole a glance back to the other teenagers; the room was still full of them; some having just begun, others well aware of the torment they were experiencing and were going to continue to experience. But, I wondered…how many of them could do what Tiffany and I had done?

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The Pied Piper officer led us to another set of changing rooms. This time the foyer was empty. It looked similar to the one we had used before, but wasn't the same.

"Shower and get changed," said the Pied Piper officer, "You'll be able to eat, drink, and rest once you're done."

As good as the idea of rest, eating, and drinking sounded, none of that truly registered as something I wanted. It wasn't that I didn't care, I just didn't have the emotion inside of me to feel anything about it. Internally I acknowledged that I should want those things, soon, but first I had to shower.

The Pied Piper officer had given us each new packets of overalls and plimsolls to wear, though the new ones were blue instead of white. The towels however were still white. I hobbled into the shower and washed myself. I couldn't tell if it felt good, or particularly hot or cold, because my whole body simply felt numb to it all. After the shower I toweled off, noticing I could hardly feel the softness of the towel on my numb skin.

Dried and dressed, I rejoined Tiffany and the Pied Piper officer led us out of Lintern's Gym. I was thankful to be away from the ugly, ultra-modern building. We exited out a side entrance, coming out to a very narrow alley. Two new Pied Piper officer's took us under their charge and the one that had brought us down to the alley went back into Lintern's Gym.

It must have been raining because the alleyway was beautifully wet, and the air was fresh and cool. Overhead the sliver of sky I could see was mostly blue with just hints of clouds. I felt much better now that my thirst had been quenched (I had taken advantage of taking a shower by showering and guzzling water at the same time). What remained however was a ravenous hunger. My stomach had a nasty acidic kind of burn eating away inside of it and the mere thought of eating something made my whole body ache with want.

The Pied Piper officers led the way down the alleyway; the ugly silver monstrosity that was Lintern's gym to our left, and a quaint little brick-built building to our right. Once out onto the street proper we could see there were yet more groups of teenagers being marched up and down roads. The Pied Piper's operation was still in full swing. How many had been lucky enough to have green lights and had avoided the treadmill torment so far? How many were on their way there right now?

The Pied Piper officers led Tiffany and I to a parked car. One opened the door for us and told us to get in. We did, Tiffany first, then me. Although it had been nice breathing in the cool morning air the overalls did very little to protect from the cold. Mentally fighting the cold on top of everything else I felt was just too exhausting. So slipping into the inside of a nice warm car was very welcome.

The driver, another officer, didn't wait for us to put on our seat-belts. He set off, leaving us to fumble in the back putting them on. Tiffany looked a bit cramped in the backseat, but she hardly seemed to care about that. She had given an audible sigh of relief at sitting down. I hadn't, but I had felt a similar relief. I wanted to talk to her about what we had just been through but I just couldn't work up the effort to start a conversation just yet.

More shops and little homes passed by the window. The Pied Piper officer drove several streets away from Lintern's Gym. The car eased to a stop outside a white building. We were ushered out and, once out, I could see the white building was three floors high.

"This is where you'll be staying," said the Pied Piper officer, "Consider yourselves lucky," he said, "You're getting the VIP treatment."

Tiffany and I shared a look and then entered the white building.

Inside it was much more obvious where we were; it was a bed and breakfast. It was as old-fashioned and as quaint as a little old lady obsessed with doilies.

Standing in the foyer area, I spotted two teenagers sitting at a dining table framed by a nearby doorway. They were also wearing blue overalls and looked to be helping themselves to a continental breakfast. The glimpse of these teenagers was only momentary, because we were ushered up a very narrow, and very steep set of stairs.

"This is your room," said the Pied Piper officer to Tiffany, gesturing to the white door at the end of the narrow hallway.

"And this is yours," said the officer, gesturing to the one next to it.

The officer gestured for us to go to our rooms. I had no intention of kicking up a fuss so I headed into mine. Tiffany entered hers. I anticipated her giving a backwards glance back to me but she didn't.

Inside my room, with the door closed, what I saw made me want to burst into tears. There was a king-sized bed, and a little side-table with a kettle and complimentary tea bags, a little fridge, and also on the table there was a small bag filled with snacks (crisps, chocolate bars, and a muffin, and a packet of noodles).

I didn't waste any more time. I stripped from my clothes and then got into bed, feeling the smooth, pillowy sheets enveloping me. Sleep quickly took me.