The Tower

Panting

Seven children no older than twelve run through the halls of what was called "The Tower". The wallpaper was stained brown and decayed and hung loosely off the walls. The thudding and stomping of the children's shoes fill the halls then -

One of the children awakens. The cold, pelting rain hitting his pale, freckled skin. He laid in a mud puddle and interlocked in his fingers was a heart-shaped locket. The boy sat up. His chest burned and his head ached. On his wrist was a blistered red brand burned into his skin that read “000512”

"What happened?" Where were the others?"

He stood up. His soaked clothing clung to his skin. He searched the area, he was alone. The buildings around him were burnt, torn up, and decayed. And the road, at least what was supposed to be a road was covered with debris.

Before he could look further the sound of dogs barking emerged from the distance. The boy ran into one of the nearby homes. The roof was caved in exposing the setting sky above. His head began to throb and he felt as if he were going to vomit. The boy squeezed into the corner with his head rested on his knees and closed his eyes.

“Elijah” a girl’s voice echoed

“Elijah” the voice called again. Sounding more clear.

“Elijah”

The boy bolted up in his bed. He rubbed his tired eyes.

“Mom said to the ready. The soldiers are going to be here soon”. His sister Elle, only a year younger than him, said and left as quickly as she had entered

Elijah, still groggy from his sudden awakening stepped into the living room. His bother was tugging at his youngest sister, Emma’s charcoal black hair and his father was helping Elle tie her new shoes, specially bought for this day”.

“Elijah, hurry up and get ready they’ll be here soon” his mother pointing towards the neat stack of clothes on the chair.

Elijah looked at himself in the mirror of their narrow bathroom. Something about the way he looked felt unnatural. His hair which was also charcoal black had been cut the day before. His clothing, a red and white tee shirt with jeans and red shoes, all bought new seemed too fancy for being sent away to “The Tower”.

Elijah had heard about “The Tower” all too much, The teachers at school talked about a safe haven for the children to be raised and trained to be proper. The people on the streets asking when their friends’ children would be leaving. His own parents boosting to neighbors and coworkers about their children being selected to go.

A part of Elijah felt excited to go, but the other was nervous. He has signed up to go yeah, but now that he had been selected he was uncertain.

The sound of whispering woke Elijah. The sun shone brightly through the caved hole in the roof.

“Does he know?” one voice said

“I don’t think so,” said another.

They sounded like two children maybe they were children he had escaped The Tower with. Elijah ran out to meet them but saw nothing. He ran towards the center of the town where he and his sisters had once thrown coins in the fountain. The fountain itself had been destroyed. Debris from the fountain laid scattered along the ground.

“I can’t believe I just left them behind,” Elijah thought to himself “They must be terrified,” he thought of Emma and her fear of the dark and how she’d come into his room and climb on the bed with him as he slept. He’d always wake up freezing from her pulling the sheets off him.

Elijah stared down at his wrist.

“They did this to Emma and Elle” he knew they must’ve cried. Maybe they’d even wet themselves like the boy in front of him had.

“Elijah, Elijah” Elle’s voice echoes excitedly “We’re here we’re here”

All of the children pressed against the glass of the bus and looked at a large poster that read

“The Children Are Our Future” in large colorful letters

The bus stopped at the entrance of The Tower. The Tower itself lived true to its name. It was a tall two hundred to three hundred-foot skyscraper, easily the tallest in the town though it looked as rough and worn down as the rest of the buildings. The bus doors opened and the children rushed and pushed each other to get out. Elijah kept himself and his sisters behind to avoid being trampled, unlike the poor girl that had fallen to the ground right at the start. Her shoes laid flat on the ground and she struggles to get up and the other children continued to push and shove past, ignoring her cries to be let up.

Elijah and his sisters and the poor girl who had fallen exited the bus last and were quickly pushed by men in suits towards the doors with the rest of the children in a single file line.

A tall man the wore a black suit stood in front of them. He had an eerie smile on his face. The man began to speak making Elijah jump, nobody noticed this, not even Emma or Elle who stood silently behind him, mesmerized by this man.

“You have been selected for the Child Project. You will undergo tests on your physical and mental capabilities along with a series of others tests. When you enter you will be separated to your proper age categories and you will be given a number that you will go by during your time here.”

The children entered The Tower one by one.

“Age?” another tall man asked Elijah

“I’m twelve”

Without warning the man grabs Elijah by the arm and shoves him hard into a line of other children his age. He searched for his sisters but they were nowhere to be seen.

“This way. To the branding room,” a man said. He wore a red hat on his balding head and a sinister grin on his face.

The children in front of him chattered nervously about this so called branding room. They walked through a narrow hallway, the floor was covered in peeled paint and the walls were brown and streaky.

Before he knew it he was in a room and was met with the crying and shrieks of children. Some threw up, some passed out, some were even knocked out by the surrounding tall men with batons. The men themselves wore the same sinister smiles on their faces as they watched the children suffer.

A man sat at a table with an iron so hot that it began to glow red. Elijah felt weak. It was almost his turn. The boy in front of him shrieked as the iron touched his skin and just as quickly his beige khakis turned wet and a puddle formed on the cement floor. The boy was pushed away by one of the men.

Elijah was next.

“Your wrist.” the man at the table smiled revealing his yellowing teeth, or at least what was left of them. The teeth he had left were broken and cracked and overlapped each other. He looked like a terrifying creature.

Elijah hesitated to hold out his wrist and as he did the man yanked him hard and held it down on the table and just as quickly he pressed the iron against Elijah’s skin. Elijah felt himself scream but heard nothing and then darkness.

Elijah’s thoughts were quickly interrupted when he saw the silhouette of someone walk to the corner of a nearby building.

Elijah ran around the corner and saw nobody. What he did find was a stop sign made into a post-it board of missing children between the ages eight and fourteen. Closer towards the bottom he found himself.

“Twelve years of age. Pale. Thin. Very likely to attack, stay alert. Number 000512. Missing Found: Deceased”

“Deceased? What do they mean deceased? “ He thought to himself. I escaped with the others and we got separated. Did they confuse me for one of them? They must have. He looked for the others on the post-it board.

“000510 Missing Found: Deceased"

“000500 Missing Found: Deceased"

The others were still claimed as missing. Maybe they made it to the Paradise district or maybe even Heaven’s Gate district.

Elijah’s head began to throb against his skull and he felt as if he were going to vomit. He sat on a block of debris that looked like it came from one of the nearby buildings and rested his head in his hands.

“Hey wait” he had shouted

He ran towards a hooded figure. It looked as if it was going to rain.

BANG!

He dropped to the ground. His chest burned as he gasped for air.

The hooded figure began to pace around looking for someone then she began to ran. Her hood flew off her head revealing her copper curls.

Elijah looked up at the clouds barely clinging to his life and felt something hit his hand.

“Mom?” he thought as he looked towards his pale, malnourished hand. It wasn’t his mother. It was...the locket?

His heart finally gave out. He was dead.

Elijah sat up again.

“I’m dead. I’ve been dead this entire time.”

He pulled the locket out of his pocket and opened it. The picture inside showed a young girl no older than him and her mother and father. Engraved on the side was “We love you - Mom and Dad”. Elijah threw the locket, losing it in the debris as two silhouettes emerged from the side of a building. It was 000510 and 000510. They stopped ahead of him he didn’t see them, watching as he fell to the ground in despair.

“He knows”

(The Woman's story found in Anthrophobia" submitted by my older sister.)

Elijah art by my friend sky.draw101 on Instagram (drawing was made for the contest by request)