Children of the Plague [NOW AVAILABLE ON KINDLE]
Chapter 3

Once we exited the white room, I was shocked at the drastic change of scenery. I thought we were in some type of hospital from how the white room looked, but when we stepped out, I had a bad feeling that we were in a prison. I expected a hallway similar to the white room, but it was contrasted in almost every way. The hallway was murky compared to the bright hospital-like room we were just in, and there was a damp feeling that clung to my skin, and it was coupled with the smell of wet dirt. My eyes took a moment to adjust to the lack of light. The darkness was broken up by canopies of sparse light that ran down the hallway. I glanced up to the ceiling and could see a single bulb lit each canopy. There wasn’t a cover for the bulb, and the wires connecting all the lights were exposed. The ceiling was made of cement, which explained why the lights and wires were exposed, but it left me with other questions; like where I was, or what was this place used for? Once my eyes adjusted, I could see the walls were made of giant stone blocks expertly fit together up to the ceiling. I wondered how they made the white room look so normal, or why they didn’t put any work into the hallway.

Sergeant Michel led us down numerous twisting and interconnected hallways and into a room with an unlabeled wooden door. Inside the room was a long counter running along its length. Behind the counter were racks of different military equipment going up at least twenty feet. It seems that it was just the hallways that didn’t look complete because if we hadn’t just come from it, I would have thought we were in a warehouse.

“Line up along the counter in single file. Don’t touch anything and no talking.” Sergeant Michel said.

No one wanted anything like what happened in the white room to happen again, so we all did as instructed. A female soldier started stacking uniforms similar to what Sergeant Michel was wearing in front of us. She had light skin, and light brown hair pulled into a tight bun, which I thought must have hurt her head it was so tight. She didn’t ask for our sizes and she barely even looked at us before slamming the clothes down. One of the boys started to grab at the clothes as she put them down, “Don’t touch anything until I tell you to.” She barked at him.

The boy snapped his arm down. After a few minutes of her going down the line and placing one item after another onto the pile, she but a giant green bag on top of all the uniforms and equipment that she laid in front of us.

She began to speak very loudly, scanning down the line at all of us. “Step forward and take the duffle bag. The duffle bag is the large green one that I placed on top, in case you don’t know. Do not touch anything else!” She was already yelling, so I didn’t think it was possible for her to get louder, but she did at the last part. “When I call out a piece of equipment, you will hold it up. Once I see everyone has one, then I will give you permission to put it in the bag. If you do not have something, just keep your filthy mouth shut and your hand down and I will notice. Do not get ahead of me and do not slow this process down.”

The duffle bag was a rough green canvas, and as she began to yell out items, I did as she instructed, holding it up and waiting for permission to put it in the bag. After a while, my fingers were starting to get raw from holding it the duffle bag, and I began to struggle to hold up the equipment she was calling out. The whole process of her yelling, us holding up the item and then waiting for her to give us permission to put it away took about an hour. I think that we might have been able to go a little quicker, but she always made us hold up the equipment longer than I thought necessary.

Once, when one of the other children didn’t move quickly enough, the fair-skinned girl who was sitting next to me in the White room, the soldier yelled, “Hurry up disease bag; I don’t want you all in here any longer than I have to.”

I didn’t understand then why she would yell that. If she wanted us out quicker, then she shouldn’t yell, that just made the process longer. The girl moved quickly after that, but I could see tears welling up in her eyes. I was almost bursting to shed tears too, some of the adrenaline and confusion wearing off, but I managed to shove it aside with thoughts of being strapped down to the bed and the sound of my dad’s voice.

I wasn’t entirely sure about how long the whole process took because there was not a clock on the wall or windows to look out of, an hour was more of a guess. It dawned on me then that we might have been underground, which would not only explain the lack of windows, but also the murky atmosphere in the rooms and hallways.

At the end of the process, everyone still had a uniform out, and since we were all in light cotton hospital scrubs of some type, Sergeant Michel told us to put the uniforms and boots on over them. Our uniforms didn’t have any patches or names like Sgt. Michel or the soldier who supplied us the clothes. Another difference is they gave us armbands that we were instructed to put on once we changed. They gave us green armbands the color of dull pine needles and when we inquired why we had to wear them and why they were that color.

Sergeant Michel said. “Just put them on for now, everything has a purpose. We’ll tell you that and any other questions you might have in a little while. First, I’ll give you all a quick tour of the camp.” His monotone voice and flat demeanor ensured we didn’t ask any more questions.