The ride was long. After thirty minutes I had my eyes cast down to my lap. Mr. Carter sat next to me and said a couple of times it would be okay. Only I didn't respond to that. Nothing would be fine without my brother.
All of a sudden the car stopped. I looked up and saw a big, grey gate being opened. The car moved again and I saw a huge building appearing through the car windows. It had many floors and it looked very dull with big walls made of concrete. Not to mention the big fence made out of stone around the institution. I saw multiple guards outside but no signs of teenagers. It felt more like a prison than an organization that helped children. It also didn't help that the weather was rather gloomy.
The car stopped, only I stayed seated. The car was my no-man's-land. It could take me home or it could leave me here. Leaving this car meant that the situation I was in right now, was indeed real, not just some nightmare. Eventually, Mr. Carter opened my door and waited for me to step out. With much resistance, I exited the car by myself.
Mr. Carter closed the door and turned to me. He had put his hand on my shoulder, "You know, I can only imagine what you're feeling right now, but try to look it this way. If your parents would willingly give you up, they aren't good enough to be your parents and maybe you are better of with another family." His friendly face tried to convince me to believe him, but I didn't. I knew for sure I could make my parents proud. I need just needed more time.
Mr. Carter made a gesture to follow him and I did. "Mr. Carter, what will happen to me now?" I asked while entering the big and dull building. He turned around and put a smile on his face. "Please call me Jim and to answer your question I will take you to our newcomer's area." I nodded my head and followed him further into the building.
The interior was a bit better. The walls were white with some artwork here and there hanging against it. The plants in the foyer made the place a bit homier. The people who walked around looked also a bit friendlier than the guards outside.
We stopped in front of an opened door. The room behind it looked like a classroom. Inside I saw a couple of more children, some were younger than me some around my age. "This is where I will leave you. But do not worry as I said earlier I'm your legal guardian now, which means I'm responsible for you until you're adopted. So I will visit you multiple times to check up on you, oke?" I nodded my head and entered the classroom.
I sat somewhere away from everybody. I didn't want to interact with others right now, as I needed to process everything that is happening to me right now.
After me, two other had entered the room, one of them being a boy and the other a girl. Then a man walked in and closed the door behind him. He looked like he was in his fifties with his greying hair and visible wrinkles on his face. He had a white doctor's coat on with a badge attached to it. Probably for opening doors around here.
Opening doors.
I urge to flee this building, to run away, grew stronger and stronger. The security, however, would make it impossible for me. I had seen how many were only in the front yard of this building. I didn't even know how many they had stationed around the fence and in this building self. With this, I tried to push the thought of running away back in my mind.
The man cleared his voice to catch the attention of the teenagers in the room. "If I could have all your attention please, boys and girls." Heads went up and eyes looked forward. "Thank you. First I would like to introduce myself. My name is Chris and I'm one of the doctors working for the Rehabilitation of Children Programme. I understand that many of you are confused, sad, or even afraid. I will start my talk by assuring all of you that we mean no harm. We only want the best for you and therefore we ask you to try and trust us. Let your worries go and we will take care of you."
He paused and looked around in the classroom to be met by anxious faces. "What I am about to tell you, might be shocking but I need you to be patient and wait until the end for questions, oke?" He asked us with a friendly smile, the very same Mr. Carter had given me today.
"We told you, we will place you in a new family as your last one wasn't sustainable for you to live in. But you will not be placed into new families as teenagers." When he had said that voices were heard and questions were asked. Chris put both his hand up, to try to calm us down. "Calm down everyone, calm down. Please be patient and let me finish my talk." Everybody went quiet and the doctor continued.
"As I said you will not enter your new families as teenagers. Here, in this institution, we are able with the help of technology to turn you into toddlers or even infants. Not only physically but also mentally. Of course the first days in your 'new' body you will be aware of what happened and have the mindset of your current age. But we know through research that your mindset will change in a couple of days to the age your body is set in." Nobody moved, nobody talked, everybody was hanging at the doctor's lips for information. For what is about to happen to us.
"Before we can do this procedure, we need to know some things from you and your bodies must be prepared for what is about to come. So in the next two weeks, a couple of tests will be performed on you. After those two weeks, one by one will undergo the procedure. When everything went successful you still need to be here for a couple of days and then you will be sent off to your families which we have chosen. There you will grow up again and, hopefully, you will have there a better life than in your old families."
First, there was only silence and then the poor man was bombarded with questions. I didn't pay any attention to them. He was crystal clear with his talk. We would be babies again to grow up in better families. At least that was the plan.
When every question was answered we were picked up by our guardians. Mr. Carter was one of the first ones to pick me up. He smiled at me and asked me to follow him. I did what I was told. We had to walk quite the distance. Not once had I opened my mouth.We had to take a couple of turns and walked in several corridors. You could not see clearly what was behind all those doors you would see from time to time. Nowhere were any plates with directions on them. For a short moment, I wondered how people could work in such a place. This place felt like a maze. I would get lost within a few seconds.When we had entered an elevator Mr. Carter asked me, "Are you okay, Alice? I know you have to process a lot of information. I'm happy to answer any questions." I didn't really want to talk but now everything had settled a bit I had
I looked around the room, once again. The walls were painted in white and light green, the same as our uniforms. Our bedsheets were a pastel yellow with light pink pillows. It truly felt like a child's bedroom.The stuffed animal I was holding felt soft against my hands. It was a blue elephant. I wondered why we all got stuffed animals if we were, as for now, still teenagers. Wouldn't it be more suitable to give these once we were babies?As I watched the soft animal rotating in my hands a strong feeling of sadness overwhelmed me. I missed my home, I missed my bedroom, my books, my own clothes. I even missed the presence of my parents. Maybe they weren't the greatest in showing their love for me, they were still my parents and I held a deep respect for them.But the thing I misse
"I don't want to talk about it.""Oh come on, don't be such a wuss," she whined again, "We all know that everybody here had a stupid home or did stupid themselves. I was a wild child, as my parents like to put it. I drank, smoked, hang out with the wrong crowd, didn't listen, got a tattoo, you know that kind of stuff. They were so done with me, they sent me here. And that goody-goody lady over there was the oldest of twelve children and when the twins came there wasn't enough money to take care of her so they signed her up. And they had this bullshit story about 'having a better childhood, a new way to get all the love you missed out on'. You know, so what's your story?"I felt bad for them that their parents were also the ones who got them here, but I was too afraid to tell them my story. They had endured so much, while
I felt someone grabbing my arm softly, bringing me back to reality. "Come let's go to your room." I heard Mr. Carter say. He had put his arm around my shoulder and led me back. He opened the door for me and I felt his arms sliding off my shoulders. He petted my head once and said, "Try to relax and have a good night of sleep." He then turned to Nancy and Lexi. "Girls, sleep tight. Don't stay up too long." I heard some murmuring coming from them and then the door behind me was closed.I headed to my bed and laid down. I grabbed my elephant, I couldn't care less right now what the girls would think. It gave me comfort and that was all I wanted. Hearing that your parents don't want you is way worse than them saying they want for you a second chance for a good childhood."Alice are you alright?" Lexi asked.
Before any of them could react any further at what I said a nurse came into the room."Ladies, I need you to come with me," the nurse said with a big friendly smile on her face. It looked like this was their trademark, their friendly faces."Where do we need to go?" Lexi asked."For your test, of course, I assumed they explained it to you yesterday, didn't they?""Yes they did miss, we forgot that's all," Nancy responded politely. You could see she was the responsible one of all of us. It didn't surprise me, if you have eleven younger siblings to take care of, you will need that sense of responsibility.We followed the nurse through the hallway to the elevator. When we entered there
The nurses had told us that we had to stay seated when lunch was over. Everybody looked around to see why. Nancy and Lexi had asked me if my guardian had said anything to me, but Mr. Carter had only told me to eat my lunch, so I didn't know either. Soon the head of the programme, Mary, came walking into the dining hall."Thank you for your patience boys and girls! Now, the reason why we kept you here longer than we normally do is that you all need to take the personality test. It's very simple, all of you get a set with forms, and on each one are multiple-choice questions. These questions are about you, fill in the answer you think fits your personality the most, the answer that describes you the best. We do this so we can match you with your new family. Remember there are no wrong answers! Good luck!"With that, she left the room and t
After a while, I heard Nancy and Lexi entering our room. I could hear that Lexi was upset about something. "I tell you they don't have the right to take away my tattoo. I swear I'll get one, just the same as this one when I'm sixteen again." Lexi complained."Lexi, I understand it will hurt, but maybe it's for the better. You once told me you didn't like your tattoo and with this, it will be removed for free!" Nancy said in an attempt to cheer Lexi up.I looked over my shoulder and for a second I saw sadness in Lexi's eyes, but it was already gone when she started to speak."I don't care, it's just not their decision to make. It's my body!" Lexi exclaimed.I heard a sigh, which was followed by, "I get you okay, but you can't stop it,
The next three days were horrible. All of the teenagers had to get three kinds of scans, an MRI, a CT, and a PET scan. Because they are short on equipment, we all had to wait for a long time. Nancy and I tried to keep ourselves busy with the board games, but after one day we were already done with them.So I was left alone with my thoughts. I couldn't help but think about my parents and brother. My brother would be at home by now. An image of him showed up in my head and the longing for him grew with the second. I missed his soothing voice, his funny jokes, and his comforting words. I had already missed him so much because he was gone so many times before I left the home.I wanted so desperately proof them I was good enough to stay in their family. I just needed time. Why couldn't they love me like my brother? Why did they never talk about their feelings? Why were they always so cold towards me?I heard from many teenagers that either their parents had sat