Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 5

missing that made me different.
    The day I turned thirteen I woke to find the mirror gone, and in its place stood a view of the world beyond my four white walls. A glass window, I was told it was, by the man that brought me breakfast. I ignored the food, choosing instead to stare at the world beyond for the first time. My room was just a small part of a large semi-circle; there was a painted circle on the center of the floor with a symbol that I recognized from the clothing the men wore. The surrounding area was occupied by at least two dozen men looking busy. I recognized some of them as people that have come to ask me things; try and make me do things, or pull my arm to extract as much blood as they needed. But the most incredible thing about this new window was the revelation that next to me on the edge of the semicircle were two other rooms with two other boys that stared as intently as I at the world beyond. One to my right and one to my left. The one to my left touched the window tentatively as if scared it might become the mirror again. He was younger than me, a year or two, I guessed. His hair, his eyes, his skin, all looked like mine. The one on my right did not look like me, his hair was darker, his eyes lighter. He was older and he ignored the men working, fixing his gaze on me instead. I stepped back under the scrutiny, too unfamiliar with the world to know what looking at someone like that meant.
    I wasn't alone. I wasn't the only one trapped by white walls. The knowledge brought me relief, but it also brought me pain as I looked at the older boy and realized that it would be years before I reached his age. Years I had to endure inside these four walls.
    Some of the men called me Gab, but most called me G-27 or just 27. It wasn't hard to decipher the source of this name after I saw similar numbers by the doors of my neighbors. G-26 to the right. G-28 to the left. I remember the night G-Twenty Eight waved at me and smiled for the first time. I smiled and waved back only to hear the beeping of the door and one of the men rushing in to pull me away from the window - warning me that if I ever acknowledged the others near me, the window would be taken away. I rather have a view of a silent and forbidden world than none at all.
    I learned early on that letting them poke and test me was easier than being held down and gagged. They wanted something from me. Something from us . But apparently we weren't giving it to them. I spent my days doing what they asked of me, watching my education videos, taking my tests, and watching silently by the window. Sometimes I tried to talk to them, but I was always ignored, brushed off or directly told to 'stop talking'. Yet when they were done and left my room sometimes I wished they would stay just to escape from the silence. The white walls were too quiet. The white walls didn't respond when I said something. It was worse knowing there were others nearby - to see them, and be forbidden to talk to them.
    That thirteenth year brought many new things to my limited world, but also took them away. Before the year was over the rooms next to mine, with boys that resembled me, became empty. Fear took over the monotony of my life. It became a countdown of when would I be gone as well.
    Then two weeks after my fourteenth birthday, everything changed. I had just finished my breakfast and was looking out the window of my room, watching the men filter in for the day and sit at their computers. I had watched this routine so many times that just by watching the first twenty minutes, I could predict what they were planning for me that day or what concoctions they were going to inject in my body. It was a daily ritual, but this day was different.
    Just ten minutes after they started their work, the main doors opened and a woman I had never seen before walked in. One of the men tried to greet her, but she waved him off and went straight toward me. I stepped back apprehensively as she stopped in front of me on the other side of the glass, staring at me with a gaze I had never experienced before. I was only familiar with the disappointed faces, the furious faces, and the unforgettable one Twenty Six gave me the day I first saw him. She looked at me for a few seconds. I saw her mouth move and a man that had been watching her carefully with unhappy eyes strode forward to stand next to her. I recognized him as the man that gave orders to the others. He answered whatever she had asked, and suddenly