Bye!” Summer said, waving. Lexus and I waved back. Summer pulled her sister by the elbow, and they left.
I turned to Lexus “Immunizer drug?” I exclaimed. She just shrugged and changed the subject.
“Who are these twins?” she asked.
I shook my head. “They must have attended some classes with Isaac, because they knew him and that’s how they knew me.” Silence filled the air in the train. I suddenly heard a groan from the back. I wanted to look back, but they were already here.
A guard came over, pulling over a cart with clear rectangular devices containing a purple liquid inside. A physician in a white lab coat and blue medical gloves marched right behind him. A surgical mask covered half his face,
“Make sure the Ethos Immunizer serum is occupying the container,” the physician said in a muffled voice as the guard handed him a small, rectangular container. Before I could even react, the guard quickly held up my arm and grasped it. I struggled, but the guard gave me a threatening look,
“One more move and it’ll be the last one you’ll ever make!” he snapped. The physician pulled out a rectangular container that had my name on it and placed the small sized rectangular device on my upper arm. Suddenly, a searing pain shot into my arm like needles sinking into my skin. I watched with my mouth gaped open struggling to scream as the clear rectangular device was emptied from the purple liquid that filled it and replaced with crimson red blood that filled half of the box-like device. The pain eased, but the device was still on my arm. The physician waited for three seconds and placed the blood filled rectangular container back into its slot inside the long cart as the guard let go of me. The physician took out another one of those purple filled rectangular devices from its slot and moved on to Lexus. I breathed out, finally getting the struggled breath out of my system.
Lexus had a look of horror on her face, but before she could do anything about it, the device bore its tiny needles and sunk inside Lexus’s upper arm. Lexus yelped and held onto the seat with her other hand, her eyes squeezed tight. As soon as the blood stopped filling up the container, her face relaxed and the physician waited another three seconds and went on to the next Undecided.
Lexus started to pant from the sudden shock of pain and then looked at me with scared eyes, “That’s probably the serum they told us about. You know, the one that clears our mentality and protects it from being harmed. Landon told me that that’s what the leaders use to analyze how we think,” she told me. I looked at my upper arm, expecting to see a million punctured holes forming a rectangle on my skin, blood seeping down from them. But there was nothing, not even one hole. Strange.
“Why would they want to take our blood samples?” I asked, as I looked down the aisle to see the physician moving on to the next Undecided even faster than I thought.
Lexus rubbed her arm, “I think I remember what those are for. Mom told me that they usually check for any traces of steroids or drugs in your blood just in case anyone decided to cheat, in other words, clear out anything harmful or what might affect our mentality” she said, looking down at her arm where there should have been a wound.
The train suddenly sped up. The sudden force made my head fall back into the seat. The speed of the train was making me feel like I was about to fly backwards through my seat. My head suddenly felt light, like I was on the verge of blacking-out, as if I was at the brink of consciousness. The train slowed just as suddenly as it had increased speed. I hit the seat in front of me causing a jolt of pain in my neck.
I rubbed my neck as I readjusted myself in the seat. Lexus sniggered and pointed at the belt wrapped around her waist. I ignored her and I grudgingly put the seat belt on. I looked out of the window and my jaw dropped automatically.
There was a huge field under us, about the size of ten football fields stuck together. I turned to see my brother to find that he was as awestricken as I was. There were tall, huge walls in straight zigzag lines. I immediately knew where we were. My heart skipped a beat. We were here. This was it.
The Unknown Courtyard.
Chapter 4
The train descended through the Plaza’s subway station. I struggled with my seat belt but managed to unbuckle it eventually and Lexus did the same. It is hard to unbuckle your seat belt when your hands are shaking terribly. As I glanced at my red palms, I realized how hard I had been holding onto the edge of my seat.
The train doors opened, and a guard stepped inside, “Alright, everyone please step out of the train quietly,” he said. We submissively obeyed his order and silently stepped out of the train.
Lexus and I saw a bench nearby and we sat on it. I stared at the ground for a long time thinking. I had never imagined I would come this far and live this moment. I have known about the Unknown’s maze system ever since I was eight (they only taught us about how the leaders analyze human brains to see if they are worthy to become one of the Guardians of Purlieu, but they never revealed the ratio of obstacles to the Undecided, ever). I remember when I used to daydream about how it would feel to enter the Unknown, to be in the Undecided’s shoes. Now I knew how every seventeen-year-old feels when they are about to face their possible death. It definitely did not feel good at all.
Like me, Lexus stared at the ground, but suddenly she raised her head like she just remembered something. She turned towards me with a smile,
“Iris, do you remember what day it is today? Or do I need to remind you?”
“Today? Remind me of what?” I asked.
Lexus whacked the back of my head, “It’s you and your brother’s birthday, idiot!” she said accompanying the head whack with an arm punch. I frowned as I rubbed my arm,
“Too bad we’re not going to enjoy it the way we thought we would...” I said frowning. Lexus put her arm around my neck as her way of trying to comfort me, not really her style. I remembered when I first met her in first grade. I had tried to hug her but she pushed me away.
I looked at the crowd of teens near the train and saw Isaac talking to Mason. Isaac’s eyes met mine, and he gave me a faint smile; I gave him a huge one in return. It was good to see at least some part of my brother back. Mason looked at me and then at Isaac. Isaac who was looking around pulled something out of his pocket – he must have been hiding it from the guards – and walked towards me with Mason. Lexus turned to me, surprised that Issac even came up to talk to me. Isaac was feeling grim for about two days. The last thing I thought he would do was talk to me or open a subject with me.
“Got ya somethin’…” He took out the small box that he was holding and gave it to me. I opened it and found a beautiful silver necklace inside with a crescent at the end of the necklace. It was the one I saw at the school’s thrift shop sometime last week.
“Mason and I teamed up and got you that necklace you’ve always wanted…”
“Thanks Isaac, you guys really shouldn’t have, it’s beautiful” I thanked them. Mason smiled at me while Isaac smiled only faintly in return,
“Don’t say I didn’t get you anything…” he said in a low yet amusing tone. I raised my eyebrow then nodded slowly,
“I’ll try to remember that…” I replied jokingly in the same tone as his.
Isaac walked away with Mason right on his side.
As soon as Isaac and Mason left, I heard a guard shouting at Winter Odette. He was holding up her cell phone. The guard threw it maliciously on the ground and crushed it under his stomping boot. Winter scowled at him while Summer tried to pull her back by the arm.
Lexus didn’t seem to notice the commotion. She kept staring at the necklace for a couple of seconds and said, “Your brother surprisingly has good taste…”
I nodded in agreement.
++++++++++
Fifteen minutes later, the guard came over and shouted at us to be quiet. Lexus giggled at the guard a little. I nudged her with my elbow.