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 some questions. "What are those tests the doctor talked about?"
Mr. Carter's face lit up and he responded, "Ah yes, the tests. We need to know everything about your body before conducting the procedure. So we need to make a couple of scans, do some blood and allergies tests, and going through your medical history. Also, a personality test will be taken, that way we can match you to the best suitable family for you."
I just nodded my head and again remained silent. When the doors opened we walked into a kind of waiting area with a desk. Behind it was a woman. "Good afternoon Miranda, how are you doing?" Mr. Carter asked the woman behind the desk.
She looked up, surprised, and answered, "Jim! Long time no see, I've been well, and you?"
"Good, good just doing my job, which leads me to my next question. Where do you have room for this lovely lady?" He asked while turning towards me.
"Let me see, what is your name sweetheart?" I looked up at the lady's face, it was warm and welcoming. "Alice Brown," I said lowly. She ticked onto her keyboard and looked at the screen in front of her. "Yes, I have a room for you, room number 203." She then took something and put it onto the counter, "Here is her wristband, and the rest of the things she needs are already prepared and waiting on her bed." Miranda said to Mr. Carter.
"Thank you, Miranda," and he took the wristband. He asked me to held up my wrist and so I did. It looked like the ones you get when you're in the hospital. It had my name, age, and a unique number on it.
I followed Mr. Carter through the long hallway. Almost at the end was my room. He stood in waiting by the door, to let me through first. I stepped into the room and looked around. It had four beds, two on each side. By the feet of the beds were bags, they all look the same. Next to each pillow was a little stuffed animal, all were different. Still looking around, I was startled by the voice of Mr. Carter. "If you look at the bags, you will find one with your number on it. The bag contains clothes, towels, and all the other necessities."
I walked up to the bags and found my number. My bed was on the left side next to the window. My view was quite depressing. It showed me an open yard where teenagers were hanging out. But it didn't look nice. It was all paved and another fence was around it, with a lot of security present. I wondered why.
You could see they have uniforms here. The boys wore light grey uniforms and girls light green. The uniforms were kind of prison uniforms, but they also reminded me of something you would wear in a hospital.
"I'll leave you, so you can get changed. When I come back I expect you to be changed and have your old clothes folded."
"Why do we need to wear this?" I asked while pointing at the uniform.
"We want you to completely disconnect with your old life so the clothes you wore there need to go," he explained. I didn't want to leave my hoodie as it was one of Alexander's but I guess I don't have a choice. He went away and I changed. Shortly after he came back and took the clothes from me.
"Try to settle in a bit, more will come this way soon. I'll see you again. Have a nice day." I just nodded my head and watched how he left the room. I sat down on the bed, took my stuffed animal in my hands, and sighed.
How will I survive this?
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
"But I thought I had to wait longer." I looked at him with a puzzled face. "Yes, but because of your attempt to escape they want you to go first."I didn't really know how to react. I knew I was prepared for the procedure, but it was hard to imagine myself as a baby again. Also, I wondered how much I would feel about it. Would I feel pain? Would I still understand my surroundings as I did now? There were so many questions I had put forward every day, but now it was too late.My worry was visible to Jim and he tried to calm me down. "Hey, no need to worry or to get scared. I'll be there until you fall asleep and I promise you won't feel any pain.""Promise?" I asked."I promise," with that he held a hand out for me to take. I took his hand and he led the way out of my room. Outside I was greeted with not two but three guards. Feeling intimidated by them I walked closer to Jim and clung to his arm. As we walked through the building we entered corridors I wa