Hope Recoiling.
Titus

The same repetitive rhythms that I’ve done for years, I've done them so many times like their burned into my skin as a mark of what I've spent my life doing. The same tan walls I've seen my entire life and as far as I know, are the world. The quotes I've memorized word for word still line the walls from all thoughts years ago, but nobody has come to fix the ones that are barely still hanging or not hanging at all. My gray uniform symbolizes what I do, they are what I'm told are numbers, and nobody has ever taught me how to count or recognize numbers. The numbers are #7832 as I'm told. There’s a hand full of people, the same age as I am but I don't remember how old that is, but definitely not adults, the few adults I've seen are massive. These kids are skinny and malnourished, they look like they're on the verge of death.

I know the number of one, #6893, she’s the one who told me mine, but she seems to be losing it. She has white hair and folds under her eyes, which seem pitch black under even the best lighting. She calls herself, “Eliza.” She's been here as long as I remember, I tried asking her how old she was and all I got was a blank stare before she went back to work. We’re the pin iron branch, we work with red hot iron pinners we make pins. and place them on things that are needed. The room is boiling and we barely get water, it drives kids insane, there's a door on the left side of the room. The tan walls turn red near the door, and kids who can’t stand this life anymore try to run for it. They never got close enough to the door, the automatic sensors take them out before they make it a single toe outside.

The kids try to run and try to be faster than the last, but it’s never worked. We have a chip in our necks that are connected to our spinal cords and are the sole reason we stay alive, we aren't fed, and we aren't given water. The neck chip does all that for us, but it has a protocol where if you try to leave the room it explodes. It’s happened so many times that everyone's become numb to the sound and sight of their colleagues, or what's left of them. Then the trap door opens beneath the frame of the door and it drops the body in, I try to listen to how long it takes for the kids to hit the floor. It's a futile attempt because I don't know how to count, but I know how long it normally takes, 12 seconds. 

From our desks which are multiple rows of people both behind and in front of me, Eliza works to my right side, the left is empty, that person tried to run away and they have yet to find their replacement. I’ve noticed out of the corner of my eye Eliza keeps eyeing the door, she told us once during social time never to get near the door or try to leave. “That is what the broken do, I do not blame them,” she said “But I’m sure whatever they have to deal with now is a fate worse than death.” That's all she spoke about before those dark soulless eyes started to stare into a far-distant world. Our social time is when we’re able to take a short break and talk together before we get back to work, it's meant to be a time of fun and talking but it's more melancholy knowing that soon someone, anyone, will lose it and try to run. You have to try hard not to build any emotional connections with the people around you.

People await the loud bang that tells us to get back to our lives, then we get back to burning our arms and hands with the machines we use hoping we don't pass out and fall face-first into the molten iron that we work with. There isn’t any groaning or moaning when we hear the bang, for most people, it's a relief due to the fact they feel an emotion again. Even if that emotion is fear. For others, it's a relief because the freedom to talk and move around is far too much for their minds to bare. But for me, it's one of torture. I want to leave, I don't want to be here anymore, I want to see what's outside that door. I want to see what's outside the hallway, I want to know what's outside those same hellish- 

But in that exact moment, someone got that reality before me, #6893, Eliza. I saw her run for it, I couldn't register what I was watching, the person who told me never to try and leave is now full sprinting towards the door. And for a moment that felt like decades time felt like it froze, I was paralyzed, I couldn't think, and nothing was registering, my sense of smell; touch; balance; and hope; were all gone for that second felt like decades. Then when it all came back, I saw Eliza trip and fall, her body trying to automatically land on her arms and walk her back, but her head was already out the door. 

I held my breath trying to prepare myself to get back to work instantly, but her neck chip didn't go off. I think Eliza just expected it to happen because she didn't move, but when she did, she tried to scramble back inside in an attempt to reverse the mistake she had just made. I made eye contact with her and I could see the realization in her eyes of what a mistake she made. But her body was already stuck in motion and even with all her mental willpower, her neck passed the door again.

Her eyes haunted me,

The people I watched before were people I didn’t know, I didn’t know Eliza very well but I knew her better than anyone else in this world. This fragile, shattered, far-gone world. I looked around me in a panic not knowing what to do, I never did know what to do when anyone tried to run, but this was the first time I experienced grief. Nobody cared enough to even look up from their work. Soon enough, like everyone else's body, hers was gone. But nobody cared, nobody ever did.

I picked up my iron, red hot and dripping with molten iron, and placed it down onto the pin mold, it make a shape that was far too detailed but it mimicked a flat ball with lines drawn onto slightly more elevated parts of the pin. It had a number on it that when I placed it changed, I didn't know the number at first but the word “seconds” opened my eyes. 11 seconds, the time it took for a body to hit the floor of the trap. I felt a snap.

I was helpless, I dropped my prin for the last time and walked up to the door frame, I ran my fingers up and down the frame, it was still wet and the blood stained my fingers, and I took one step forward. First, my sight went, then my hearing, and lastly the pain. Then just like that, I lost it, I had freedom to choose what I wanted to do for the first time. And the first thing I did, was throw it away without a second thought. All because I didn’t have freedom before, when I did feel it, I got rid of it and myself.

10 seconds is how long I took to hit the ground.