Prologue

He pushed his long, brown hair out of his eyes and turned to the older boy next to him. Wesley was a few years older than Matty, and was his closest friend. The older boy had short blond hair. Matty wondered if, maybe, he should cut his hair short too. Then, it wouldn't get in his eyes so much. Yeah, maybe that was a good idea.

"What was that sound?" He asked, turning big brown eyes to look up into Wesley's smaller hazel ones. Wesley shrugged. Matty wasn't surprised that he didn't talk, Wesley wasn't a big talker. Sometimes Matty thought that being quiet and being able to stand still for so long were skills that came with age. Wesley and Pippa were so good at it, but Matty couldn't seem to stand still for longer than a minute. 

"Can we go see what's going on?" Matty asked, when he heard a grunt of pain. Wesley shook his head and continued to stand at attention. Matty tried to mimic the stance, but couldn't do it. He shuffled his feet around and kept pushing his hair out of his eyes. He wondered where Pippa was. The older girl always liked to correct him when he moved around so much.  

Suddenly, the door slammed open and Matty jumped back when he saw the oldest person there. A big, scary old man with a shaved head and brown eyes. He was tall and buff and scary. He stormed in and paced around, as if he was waiting for someone. After a few minutes, he stormed out a different door. 

"What's going on?" Matty asked Wesley. Wesley was supposed to know everything, he was older than Matty after all. Wesley put a finger to his lips, telling Matty to be quiet. He stuck his tongue out at Wesley and turned around.

It sounded like someone was fighting, outside the door. It worried Matty. He wondered who it was. Pippa would never fight and he and Wesley were in here. 

The door slammed open again. This time a woman and a man held a struggling teenager. Matty had seen both of the adults before, but never talked to them. He had never seen the teenager before, in his life. But, for some reason, he thought he recognized the teenager from somewhere. 

It was the eyes! And the face! He looked almost just like the scary man! Only, younger and with longer hair and he was skinnier. He was lean, but not he didn't look like a body builder. The only difference was that this boy's brown eyes were flecked with gold. The scary man's eyes were the same color brown but scary and soulless and without the gold flecks.

The boy scared Matty. The man was evil and didn't care if he hurt Matty or Wesley or Pippa. And this boy looked just like him. Except he seemed like, maybe, he was nicer. 

It also scared Matty that the boy showed up. Nobody new had ever showed up here in the four years he had been there. Ever since he was four years old he had been stuck here and no one new had ever come. The only company Matty had was Wesley, Pippa, and the adults who performed weird tests on them and stuck them with needles all the time. 

The boy scared Matty. This place scared Matty. The tests scared Matty. But most of all, the big man scared Matty. 

Reviews

[Tunder]

I love the voice of Matty in this, especially in the first paragraph. You captured the essence of a young child very well and I cannot wait to read more!