I woke up once more to a hand gently shaking my shoulder.

“Mmmmmrgh, Pixie leave me be! No more physical training…please-…” I grumbled and attempted to once more fall back into the paradise of sleep.

“Pixie? What kinda shit you dreaming about?” A male voice roused me from my sleep and I rolled out of bed crashing onto the floor.

“Yo, man what the…” Lifting myself up from the ground, I see Kualin standing on the other side of my bed accompanied by Akito and Milik a little further behind him.

No one else was in the barrack.

“Please…don’t get in my ear like that again.” I clambered over my bed and reached for my strike vest. Strapping the vest on, I looked up at the three burning to know the answer to just one question. “Who told you guys where I live?”

“We just asked around, bro. A lot of people actually know of you for some reason.” Milik spoke up from behind Kualin.

‘Weird,’ I silently thought.

Shrugging, I reached around for a shirt in my pack and began putting on a dark blue shirt. “Where’s everyone at?” I asked them.

Akito ended up being the one to answer me. “Everyone’s gathering at the base of the tower. We were looking for you at the tower, but didn’t find you. So we asked around and came here. Alex, we enter the tower in half an hour.”

Hearing the words half an hour, I sped up and pulled some socks on followed quickly by my combat boots. I looked at them again while tying my boots on. ‘What? How could Sgt. Kesler let something like that happen?’ Thinking back towards last night, Bryce did seem to have some sort of smirk on his face whenever he talked to me. ‘The bastard…he got me good, but how did I not wake up at all?’ Leaving the question unanswered, I noticed that the three other guys in the room all had packs similar in size to mine. Throwing on my leather jacket, I bent down and reached into the side of my pack pulling out my toothbrush, toothpaste, and deodorant.

“One sec” I told them heading out the barracks to the washrooms.

………………..

Ten minutes later we were all walking down a dirt road heading towards the tower. A shiver ran down my spine just by looking at it. We were about five minutes away from it when I realized I hadn’t called my parents the whole week that I’d been here. They probably thought I’d already made it into the tower. Pulling out my phone, I called my mom’s phone. After four or five rings it went to voicemail. Frowning, I called my dad’s phone and he picked up on the third ring.

“Alex?” My dad’s voice came through the phone.

“Hey, dad. Sorry I haven’t called at all.” I replied to him.

“Are you out of the tower now? What happened?” He frantically asked me.

“Oh. No, dad. I’m just now about to go in. When I got here, the military had everything in order and kept us all in this sort of camp thing until now. Something about keeping a tally…”

“Oh…” My dad sounded downtrodden.

“What’s wrong, dad?” I quickly asked him.

“I was just hoping it would already be over. It’s just…nerve-wracking.” He responded to me.

I sighed. “Yeah, dad. Me too. Whatever this is…I just don’t think it’ll be all that simple, dad.”

A pause…and then, “Just…take care of yourself, son. I’d give your mom the phone, but she’s out grocery shopping with your brothers.”

“Well…just let everyone know I love them. And dad, don’t forget…I’m coming back. I gotta go dad, I’ll try and talk to you later.”

“Alright, Alex. We love you too. Be safe.” Hanging up the phone, I looked around at Akito, Kualin, and Milik. They each had sad looks in their eyes. Sighing, I offered my phone in their direction.

“You guys can use it too if you want.” Kualin snatched the phone out of my hand as the words left my mouth and he began dialing what I assumed was the number for his closest relative.

………………..

Reaching the tower, I saw a huge crowd of people milling about a rectangular opening in the tower. The opening was twice as tall as I was and wide enough for at least four people to go through at once. It was strange because the opening was pure black and it was impossible to see the inside of the tower through that darkness.

Looking at the people closest to the opening, I saw some soldiers taking off cuffs and throwing the cuffs onto the ground. Making it to the outer edges of the crowd, I was about to move in to get a closer look at the front most group of people, but before I could someone called out my name.

“Alex!” Pixie came running over at high speed and nearly tackled me into the ground with a hug.

Giving myself some space, I gave her a stern look and said, “You left me back there in the barrack!”

She started laughing sweetly and my stern look faltered. “But Alex! It was all Bryce’s idea. He said that you’d asked him to let you sleep in for a long time today since there was no physical training this morning.” She gave me a big smile.

Turning away from her, my eyes started scanning the crowd. “Oh, did he? Well, where is he…” Before I could finish, I was yanked backwards and turned around to see Kualin looking at me with a wild look in his eyes.

“Dude!” He fervently whispered into my ear. “Who’s that girl? She’s so fine.”

Before responding I pulled away and scowled. “What did I say about getting in my ear like that?” I hissed back at him. Taking a moment to compose myself, I gestured from Pixie to the three guys.

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“Pixie, this is Kualin, Milik, and Akito.” Making sure to point out each one as I said their name. “Guys, this is Pixie.” I finished gesturing to her. Her cheeks went red as she looked down. Looking at the three guys helplessly I said, “Don’t worry. She’ll get used to you quick. You saw how she came running at me.” Pixie got even redder and was about to say something but a loud voice interrupted her.

“Attention everyone. All eight hundred of the marked have been accounted for. We will allow you all to enter the tower momentarily. First, however, we must send forth those from barracks one and two as they all must be forced to enter due to…” The voice continued speaking. Tuning him out, I craned my neck over all the people in front of me to get a good look at the people from barracks one and two. They were all facing forward and lined up evenly in six rows of four people each. I was impressed at their order, but then remembered what the loud voice had just said.

‘Forced to enter…?’ Then I remembered back to what the burly soldier who gave me directions to the barracks the first day I’d arrived here had told me.

‘We’ve had to drag in a few of you in the past couple hours already and they’re staying in the barracks under strict watch.’ His words rang through my mind and I shook my head.

Thinking back a week ago also made me remember what the country soldier had told me at the gate.

His country voice came running through my head once more. ‘Only reason these ones’ve been found so quickly is ‘cuz they was scattered across the nation in various juvenile detention centers or even hardcore jails.’

‘Oh, boy we’re in for it now.’ I thought to myself.

Once again dragging my eyes through the crowd looking for Bryce and the rest of my barrack, I quickly decided that there was no way to catch sight of any of them. I looked back up towards the front of the crowd and saw that barracks one and two had started being led to the black rectangular opening. Before they’d even taken five steps, one of the guys in the group with black spiky hair threw a punch at a guard and everything went to shit.

“Fuck you bastards! I’ll never go in there! This whole goddamn world can burn and I’ll happily watch it happen!” He stood there proudly for a moment before a good majority of the group of people up there began punching, kicking, and biting at the guards around them.

“Take them out!” A stern voice rang throughout the crowd. Multiple gunshots were heard and all those that had attempted to rebel were sent crashing down into the ground in pain. The lucky few that hadn’t partaken in the fight were off to the side on their knees with their hands up; showing that they had no part in what had just took place.

“Cuff those that attacked and throw them into the tower!” That stern voice angrily spat out and the soldiers at the front of the group began to cuff all the people on the ground.

‘There’s no blood on the ground, so I can only assume they used rubber bullets. Heard those sting like a bitch though.’ I shuddered at the thought of the pain they all must be experiencing. All of them were whimpering on the ground in defeat…well, all but one.

“I’ll kill you all! I’ll remember all your faces! Your husbands, wives, children…I’ll slaughter every single one of you!” The same black haired guy was crazily screaming out to the whole crowd. Many of the people on the ground with him slowly began roaring in agreement until it built up to the point where it was all we in the crowd could hear.

“We have to go in there with those crazy ass people.” Milik whispered to Akito and Kualin. I looked over at them and then at Pixie. Pixie was watching the whole thing in wide-eyed surprise and fright.

Putting my hand on Pixie’s head, I said, “It’s alright. I’ll protect you.”

‘I won’t fail you like I failed Sarah.’ I determinedly thought to myself.

The soldiers began dragging the handcuffed people to the black rectangular opening in the tower. They tossed the first person into the black rectangular opening and the body completely disappeared. One after another, the soldiers tossed those that had rebelled into the darkness and I kept count of them. Once they reached the last person, I had counted all the way up to twenty people.

‘Hmmmm twenty crazies. There were twenty-four of them up there in the first place so that means at least four of them are sensible.’ I kept in mind that sensible did not mean harmless.

Right after the guards finished throwing them in, the other four people, three men and one woman from barracks one and two, slowly entered into the darkness of their own accord. Unsure of what to do after that frightening display, we all just stood there. After the longest ten seconds of my life, the people up front finally started taking small steps and then larger, normal ones. The people in front of me were stepping into the tower and after a minute or two I finally found myself at the front. Akito, Kualin, Milik, Pixie, and I were among the last to make it to the door. Walking in front of the other four, I spared a glance back and saw the resolve in all their eyes. Smiling, I stepped through the rectangular opening into the darkness.