I looked at the picture of me and my best friend Hailey I kept in my locker. It was from freshman year and the two girls in the picture were smiling brightly at the camera, clearly eager for what they only knew to be the "best years of their lives". Their was a familiar screech from the halfway down the hall, and I turned just in time to see Hailey sprinting down the hallway at me.
I grabbed her by the shoulder before she crashed headfirst in to the lockers, "Jesus Hailey is the building on fire?" I asked raising my eyebrows at her.
"You have to come with me right now, it's a matter of life and death!" Hailey exclaimed looking terrified.
Hailey was usually a bit dramatic, but something about the look on her face told me I should follow her instead of teasing and continuing to question her.
She partially dragged me to the cafeteria where there was a multitude of men and women in uniform. I would've assumed it was just a recruiters fair if they weren't pushing around students and their hands weren't unconsciously hovering close to their service pistols.
"Hailey I really think we should get out of here," I said nervously grabbing her arm. Before I could get her to turn around and follow me to the parking lot there was a scream from across the cafeteria as a teenage boy was struck over the back of the head with the butt of a gun.
"STOP!" Hailey yelled and I then realized it was her brother who they had apprehended.
I snatched Hailey's arm and dragged her down the hall and out the nearest door before one of the soldiers noticed who had cried out.
"We can't just leave my brother," she said starting to cry.
"We aren't going to leave him, but what help are we going to be if we're in the same position he's in, we're going to my car and we are going to follow them wherever they are taking everyone to break your brother out," I explained, wiping the tears from her face, nodding at her comfortingly.
"Ok ok fine let's go," she said walking to my car with determination.
For once I was glad my Dad hadn't bought me the flashy Camaro that I had begged him for, my '99 Mitsubishi would be much less noticeable following the hoard of cars the soldiers had driven to the school.
It seemed anyone left in the school had been rounded up and put into the back of the soldier's cars. When they started to file out one by one I told Hailey to keep her eye on the car that her brother was in while I followed the pack of cars without being detected.
We drove for about an hour until we were at Fort Lee. I couldn't just drive my car in without being questioned, so I parked at a nearby grocery store and jogged with Hailey to the base. It wasn't difficult to sneak on base, and it was even easier to blend in with our civilian clothes with all the teenagers around. There seemed to be increased security, so Hailey and I followed a little behind all of the teens to make it seem like we were with them and just walking slow. When the soldiers led them into a large steel door, we ducked behind a building to figure out our next move.
We hadn't known what to expect on the drive over, so we were kind of just making this up as we went along.
When it seemed no one was watching we snuck into the building where all of our classmates had been taken. They were all in there looking terrified and staring at some screen that was rolling a slide show of some sort.
"What do you two think you're doing?" A voice barked from behind us. I turned to see a brick wall of a man unconsciously flexing his biceps and clenching his jaw.
"We, um, I, uhh-" I started to try and think of an excuse as to why we would be here.
"Get in there now!" He yelled opening the door and pushing us in.
"Found some stragglers Thomas," The guy who pushed us said to a soldier in the back of a room full of terrified people.
The images on the screen were violent battle scenes come to life and I began to get nauseous. It only took a few minutes to figure out what was happening. The United States was entering another World War and we were the forced participants. .
No comments:
Post a Comment