Chapter Two

This is how I’m born again. Into light and in pain.
            After so long in the dark, the light rips through my entire body. It pierces holes in my eyelids, frying me from the inside out. I can feel my insides shrivelling, my skin melting, my yes drying out and turning to ash in my skull. I can feel everything. Every nerve and every cell, every vein and every muscle, burning inside and I want to scream but I’m afraid my words will crumble into dust.
            Instead, I close my eyes and hold onto what I’m sure is my last breath. But, with a final creak and a shudder, the box comes to a stop. I guess I’m above ground now, free from that ghastly tunnel, because the light behind my eyelids is blinding.
            I wait for the box to open so I can climb out and breathe again, but nothing happens. Silence, as dazzling as the sun, crushes me and somehow, this is worse. To come so close to freedom but denied at the last second. And I think, if I’m to suffocate in this glass box, I want to see something. I want to see anything at all. So I dare to open my eyes and peering through fingers, I see the best thing of all. Something I thought was lost forever.
            The sky. Bright blue, and vast, and beautiful.
            I hold my hand up to the glass, not to block out the sun but to touch the sky. It’s right here in front of me and all I have to do is reach out and take it.
            But I do not have the strength or the energy to break through the glass. There’s barely enough to keep my heart pumping and it’s only the constant thump in my chest that reminds me I’m alive at all. With each passing second, though, it gets a little weaker, a little heavier. Even taking breathes to stay is hard in the end, and I tell myself that I will be strong, that  I will at least go down fighting, but I can feel myself dying.
            I lower my hand.
            In that same moment, the box moves again. The corners near my head are pushed up off the floor, tilting me upwards into a standing position. I almost fall face first through the glass in front, but I manage to catch myself at the last second. The glass burns as I press my back against it, but I like it better this way. There seems to be more room, as if the box has grown larger, and I bend my arms and legs to ease the cramps. My neck aches too, so I roll my head from side to side until there is a sickening crack and a flood of relief.
            This is it, I think. This time for sure.
            That’s when I notice the others.
            I count sixteen boxes, including mine, rising up from the ground in a neat circle that reminds me of a clock face. They are all occupied. Eight boys, eight girls. They all look as confused and as scared as I feel, their faces streaked with dirt and even some with tear tracks. From across the circle, two boys are shouting to each other through the glass. I can see their mouths moving, but the words all merge together, an endless terrified babble.  A boy directly opposite me is covered in blood, and his box is cracked in several places. He carries on hurling his fists against the walls, a steady drum beat that matches my own beating heart. His box does not break.
            The girl directly to my left looks like the youngest and I can hear her screaming. She’s shouting for her mother, and then she’s crying, her chest convulsing with each sob. I don’t know how she has the energy to do anything but stay alive. A boy on my other side, the only one who looks even remotely calm, wipes some dirt from the glass lid with his sleeve and stares through cupped hands. I can see his lips moving, silent words that belong only to him. He’s counting. He nods at each person as his eyes glide by, and finally they settle on me. He looks remarkably unscathed, considering what’s happened, and I mouth to him: “What’s going on?” but he just shrugs and turns away.
            The girl has stopped crying now. I glance at her and she has her palm pressed against the glass, as if reaching out to me, as if I can possibly help, and I try to smile but my lips do not move. I am made of stone, dried out by the sun, only turning to look at the next person trying to break free of their cage, or to wail in despair because why is this happening to us? Why are any of us here?
            The sun climbs higher into the sky and the air in my box gets hotter. Soon I’m sweating through my clothes and my body feels like someone’s set it alight. I keep my mouth shut though, because the others have been quiet for a while and I don’t want to be the first to break the silence. I don’t want to feel their eyes on me because that reminds me that all this is real, that this is happening, and it can’t be made to unhappen.
            A girl a few boxes down starts singing, softly at first, but then loud enough for us all to hear. I don’t recognise the song, and I can’t make out the words at all. Just mumbles and vibrations. But soon others start joining in, humming along, until it’s everywhere. In my head, swimming behind my eyes, shooting through my veins like tiny bolts of electricity.
            I don’t know how long we’ve been standing here in the circle, stewing in our own filth, when the voice arrives. It fills up my glass box, so loud that the walls rattle and shake. The girl next to me, who had fallen asleep, jumps up now, wiping sleep and tears from her eyes. The singing stops. Everyone is silent.
            “Welcome.”
            It’s a woman’s voice, both authoritative and soothing at the same time.
            “Welcome, all. Please hold still.”
            From the back of the box, a section of glass slides open and two metal rings curl into life and clamp around my wrists, holding them to the sides. I try to shake free, to pry my wrists away, but each time the rings get tighter. The more I struggle, the more they clamp down. The girl next to me starts screaming again, shouting “No! No!” at the top of her voice. Nobody pays attention, though, and the boy on my other side looks as relaxed as ever. He doesn’t even try to shake them off. He just stands there, watching the others squeal and squirm, and then he turns his head towards me and shakes it.
            I stop fighting. My hands are numb from the rings, two heavy anchors holding me down. One by one, we all give up. There is no way to break free from these bonds, no way out of the box, no way to know what is happening, or why.
            “Thank you for your cooperation.”
            Not like we had any choice, I think.
            Then the voice starts naming people, one after the other, and stating their age. It starts with the crying girl next to me. The voice tells her she is Mary Fisher, 10 years old. Something else uncurls from the back of her box, and she cries out in pain and then sinks to the floor. Unconscious. I hope.
            The voice makes its way around the circle, leaving a trail of unconscious bodies. Those of us who are left start to panic, start to tug at our rings again despite numb fingers. I try to free myself indiscreetly, because I can feel the boy’s eyes on me, watching, scrutinising. When I meet his stare, his eyes are hard. He shakes his head again, then faces forward to receive his information.
            Thomas Ryder, 17 years old. He doesn’t make a noise when the thing uncurls, and he sinks to the ground almost gracefully. And even though he is unconscious now too, I can still feel that hard stare, instructing me not to struggle.
            I don’t listen, because I am the voice’s next victim.
            “Florence Heart,” it says, “17 years of age.”
            The whir of uncurling comes from behind me. I look down at my arms just as two long sharp needles sink into my skin. It burns, even worse than the sun, and I bite my lip so hard that I taste blood. The needles sink deeper until they’ve vanished completely, and then they start to move, probing my body, tapping against the bone. I can see the submerged needles, now long bumps in my skin, and I resist the urge to throw up.
            The two needles retract, covered in blood, and the rings snap off. My arms are free, but the overwhelming urge to sleep comes over me. I let my legs fold underneath my body and I find myself drifting in and out of consciousness. Darkness and light, comfort and pain.
            Just before my body fully shuts down, I hear the voice again, and I wonder if the others can hear it too.
            “You have only one objective.” She says. “Find the End.”