Abort

I feel moisture build-up on my brow bone as each heavy step takes me closer to the medical unit. My heart beats heavy and everything inside of me screams to turn around or run. Guard’s eyes lining the walls land on me. My chest clenches and I find it harder to breathe. I begin motions I have taken countless times. I stand in line until it's finally my turn. I reach my arm out until I hear the beep indicating the barcode was scanned. I am handed a key card by a woman behind the counter. I walk through the door and wait until the guard returns from around the corner where the last girl was escorted. He tightly grips my arm and my knees begin to feel shaky and weak. I change quickly into a thin cloth nightgown and sit on the bed waiting. I clench my eyes shut and hold back tears. Click. Click. Click. A pair of heels come closer to my room and all I can do is beg them to pass me and keep going down the hall. They don't. My teeth plant into the inside of my cheek and I don't stop until I taste blood. The woman comes in. Today she is wearing a long black skirt and heels. A blue button-down and her dark brown hair is pulled back in a tight bun. Her eyes scan over me and she pulls her attention to the clipboard. Following her into the room are two guards and four nurses. She pulls gloves over her hands and grabs my arm. She scans the barcode with her device and spends a few seconds staring at the screen. She looks up at my face. Her lips are pulled into a straight line. Her skin is pale and pasty and her nose is long and thin with a bump that’s visible when looking at her from the side. Her eyes are dark and lifeless. She glances at the nurses, “Let's begin.” A nurse walks forward and roughly plunges a needle into my arm. They inject a light blue substance and it feels like ice under my skin. My head feels woozy. The woman looks at the guards and nods. I open my mouth to protest but they are already on either side of me. I am dragged to the other room connected to this one. My legs go weak and fall behind me. They open the door to the long glass cylinder tube, reaching the ceiling. I am pushed inside and the door is sealed. The doctor passes gas masks around, standing behind computers. All eyes on me. I hear over the intercom “Place the mask on.” In a cold, sharp voice. I gulp and tears sting my face and with shaky hands unhook a gas mask from the wall and place it over my face. “No, please.” The words spill out of my mouth quietly as I see her hand read up and motion with two fingers. I hear air rush in before I feel it. Instantly my skin turns to a pit of hell. A scream explodes from deep inside of my chest. My legs give out and I hit the floor, dark yellow gas consumes me. I feel my stomach turn and I begin throwing up. I look at my arms as my curdling screams are drowned by vomit that has filled my mask. They are each growing with blisters. Some the size of my palm. The remaining skin is filled with a red, sinful rash. Stabbing agony devours me and the corners of my eyes go fuzzy before everything goes black.

My eyes feel dry and are heavy to pull open. I’m on the medical bed in my gown. Only two nurses remain, standing over me. “Blisters are gone. The rash, healed.” One mundanely comments. Without looking at my face to notice I'm awake, one picks up my leg and turns it, examining it. The other lifts a recorder to his mouth. “Radiation gas administered. Injectable success in healing. Failed to prevent effects.”

I’m released from the lab and I enter the dining hall. I swallow hard trying to work up an appetite despite the acidic burn at the back of my throat. I feel a warm little hand slip into mine. “Come on! let’s eat!” Alice skips ahead of me pulling me along. Her dark curls, bouncing with her. We take a seat with other girls when the first bell goes off. We all stand and focus our eyes on the screen along the wall. The same video that plays everyday. It opens to a scene of silence and footage of bombs dropping on a map, panning to a scene of fallen cities. It shows corpses, lying in rubble. The female doctor from earlier comes to the screen. “All of you have one thing in common. After the war that nearly ended humanity, overpopulation was still heavy on our country. Your mothers did their duty and received abortions to help our country rebuild.” The screen switches to fetuses in incubators. “But we knew you still had a purpose. We saved you. With the best research teams left in the world, we found a way to allow you to survive without your mothers at all. You repay your debt to us every day with your contributions. With your help, we have already made the greatest scientific advances the world has ever seen. And we will continue to make history. You are vital. You are important. We all play a small part in the bigger picture. Today’s future.” The second bell rings and we all rise for mealtime.

I wait in the poorly lit tiny rec room for Alice to return from her experiments. Other girls bounce around the room whispering to each other and some are on the floor reading the few falling apart books. I breathe in stale air while tapping both feet anxiously. Alice is a part of a different experimental group. I twist in my seat pushing back thoughts about her being moved from control to an independent group. When she first arrived I didn’t think much of her. She walked around for three days with big brown eyes, filled with tears and curls that were beginning to become matted to her scalp. One night she crawled in my bed but when I tried to push her away, she held onto me tighter. She will never know, I had just switched to the experimental group I am in now and that night I had never felt more broken.

After a few hours, Alice sits beside me while we work in the distribution center, sewing tags on clothes, claiming they were made in various countries. I have pieced together slowly that our lives and what goes on here, are a secret. I look over to Alice and wince as her little fingers grow dangerously close to the needle. I grab the next stack sent down the line and pick up a “made in China” box of tags. Alice sighs and slides a stack of finished shirts down the belt behind us. Girls all around us are working. Some are placing shirts in dyes. Some are working on drying racks. Others are ironing designs on shirts. Barely, over factory noises, I could hear murmurs growing. Guards lining the walls are forming tiny groups, running back and forth talking. All, except three, ran out of the factory unit in a rush. Girls with wide eyes stop working and stare, sharing glances.

After dinner, things get weirder. No guards escort us back to our beds. There is a lightness in the air and before everyone lies down for bed, girls are tottering from bed to bed whispering. “Maybe experiments are over!” I hear one girl shriek. “Maybe the world above is better!” I hear some girls sigh dreamingly and others giggle. Lights turn out and the bell rings. Everyone gets into bed dreaming for tomorrow to come and Alice waits for no one to notice before crawling into mine. “Do you think we are going to be able to leave?” I snap around, “No. We don’t get to leave. Anyone who thinks we do is ignorant.” She takes a sharp breath in and opens her mouth but decides not to say whatever she is thinking. I turn fully around and run my fingers through her curls, humming until her breathing slows and her chest falls heavier with each breath. I scoop her up, in routine and lay her down, on her cot, across the room. I tuck her in and on my way back to my cot, I almost miss it, the door is cracked open. I look around and see no other girls notice. I tiptoe to the doorway and light spills in, touching my face. I wince, expecting a guard to notice, to push me back in and slam the door. Only no one is there.

I creep down the hall. My heart is racing faster than I thought was possible. I have never been out of our bunker after the last bell. The halls are so empty, eerie even. A shiver goes down my spine and everything in me is screaming to turn around. I can’t imagine what they would do if they found me. All I know is too many girls never return for me to want to find out. Yet, my feet continue to carry me. I have never felt so free. No one is watching me. Before I know it I come to an unfamiliar hall. I make a turn and am stopped by a set of double doors. I swallow hard and fight instincts telling me to stop. If it’s locked I turn back. If it’s unlocked I push forward. I hold my breath and close my eyes, secretly hoping the cool door handle will resist my hand. It turns.

I walk through the dark holding onto a railing as I take stairs for what feels like an eternity. The unfamiliar freedom is what keeps me going. I walk for so long, I even think about turning around until the cement halls become glass. My eyes sting with tears as I stare in anguish. The sky is so black, it’s almost blue. It’s dotted with specs of light. I am illuminated by moonlight. Without even realizing it, I am on the floor. There is one patch of grass touching the glass walls with a bright white flower growing from it. My hands fall by my sides as my eyes are overwhelmed by the sights. My hand lands on something. It’s a golden heart on a chain. There’s a tiny engraving lining the shape, I feel a clasp in the grooves on the side. I click it open and a gasp escapes my mouth. It’s a picture of a guard and a woman with their arms around each other. They are kissing. On the opposite end of the picture is another. A baby. Shock hits me. There’s a world. Not just a short clip that plays before meals. Not just books. Not just labs, being poked and tormented. This locket proves it more than the scene that lies behind these glass walls. I am pulled from my trance by what I, at first, think is the bell. Only it doesn’t stop. It drops out and blares again louder. I hear shouting and footsteps towards the bottom of the stairs. “ABORT SEEN ON CAMERA APPROACHING STAIRS! '' I look around to run but where would I run? Alice lies down those stairs. I take a deep breath and slip the locket into my pocket. I wipe tears off my cheeks and something shifts inside of me. I stand and face the stairs, determined. Whatever happens to me will not change the facts. I will get out of here. Alice and the other girls will not only see what I have seen but they will experience it. We all will.