Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 5

with G-26, G-28, and likely all the others before me. I waited to be erased. And come they did. Two men in white coats with hands I could not escape. The first one grabbed my left arm and tossed me to the floor. The second threw himself over me, pressing me against the white tile, holding me prisoner with his weight. He was at least three times my size, but all I wanted was to be free and somehow I pushed him off. I sat up, and when the other guard came at me I lashed out to stop him, the back of my hand snapping his nose. Blood gushed from his face, smearing my hand. I stared at it in shock.
    When I felt the pinch of a needle, I screamed and fought just like the others did. I remembered G-Twenty Six's fight, how they needed four men to hold him down, and how one of them pressed his knee against Twenty-Six's neck until it snapped from the pressure. I watched it happen with my forehead pressed against the glass, wished the entire time Twenty-Six would just stop fighting them, because what was the point? They always won. We always lost. And I would never feel his gaze on me again.
    Lying here on the floor, feeling the poison spreading through my veins, I finally understood. It was life. Twenty-Six just wanted to live. They all did. I gasped when the men let go of me, the fight gone out of me. I had lost too.
    I collapsed on the ground, the white walls spinning around me. Waiting for it to end, I wondered if I would be the last to exist inside these four walls, or if this would be the fate of those that came after me as well. Those destined to be born inside this prison of ivory. I looked at the men, then at Dr. Mercier. She only had sorrow in her eyes for me. I turned away, then I was just gone.
    ****
    I almost didn't believe reality when I reopened my eyes and found myself still in my room and breathing. I barely moved my head so I could look around. There was nobody with me, but there were clear signs someone had been in my space. I sat up slowly and counted how many things were out of place, or more accurately, what things were there that had never been before. There was a blue round and padded chair on the far end of my room in place of the cold metal chair they made me sit on when I had to watch an education video. A few feet from it was a larger and newer video screen. There were other trinkets scattered on the floor I did not recognize, weirdest of them all was the line of buckets in a row next to the wall. I could have spent the entire day investigating these strange new things, but my attention was concentrated on one spot in my room. One that was more important than any of the new things that suddenly appeared. The door that had been closed all my life. It was wide open.
    I did not dare get close to the door, fearing it was some sort of trap. So I walked to the window and tried to figure out what was going on. The men looked busy, but not their usual - staring at the monitors, or mixing new medical cocktails busy. They were moving stuff, changing stuff. To my left, the walls of Twenty-Eight's old room were gone. Men came and went taking chunks of it away. The room to my right, Twenty-Six's old room, still had its wall, but its door was also wide open and people were doing stuff in there too. In the middle of it all stood Dr. Mercier. She had a small digital pad in her hands and seemed to be directing the chaos. Three people were with her; two men that nodded after every other word she said and a boy.
    The boy's back was towards me and all I could see was his hair. But suddenly his shoulders stiffened and he slowly turned around and saw me. My chest tightened when his eyes found mine, but not in a bad way. It was more like a force was pulling me. Different. Yet similar to when I had first seen my neighbors that day over a year before.
    I stood in front of the glass window and watched as the boy said something to Dr. Mercier. She looked up to see me awake, nodded, and the boy made his way towards me. He stopped right in front of me, the glass the only thing between us. His skin looked just like mine, but his hair was dark versus my light, his eyes a bright blue versus my dark hazel. No one needed to tell me that this boy was just like me. Not human. And he was outside. He was free.
    I remembered the open door. Maybe I was free now too.
    I met his eyes and held them, watching the little flinches play across his face as he watched me. He placed his palm against the glass and I pressed my own hand against his,