The Annihilation of Foreverland

head. They were making escape easy.
    Each breath was forced to be shallow and quick as his chest was constricted by the bars. He wasn’t able to turn his head. Thoughts of being buried alive piled up. Trapped, he focused his efforts on breathing, again.
    Mr. Smith returned. He was dragging something long and snake-like.
    Reed wouldn’t look. He barely controlled his breathing.
    Mr. Smith fastened it onto the metal bracket, turning wingnuts to hold it into place. He left the Haystack, the heavy door clicked shut. Locking the darkness inside.
    Reed was tempted to lift up and take the needle. What if it’s a box of rats?
    Water hit his face.
    He choked. Struggled to breath e . Unable to turn his head, he was forced to swallow too much of it, choking on the rest. He managed to hold his breath until it stopped. He coughed up excess liquid.
    Drowning.
    A hose was locked into the metal frame.
    When he had regained his breath, when the burning subsided in his chest, when the bars weren’t pressing as hard, the water came again.
    And again.

17
    Floating in darkness.
    Not exactly floating, that implied motion.
    Danny was just nowhere. There was no sound, smell or flesh. No nothing.
    When the needle had dropped, Danny couldn’t pull it down fast enough. He didn’t bother looking at Reed. He was shivering too much to care about anything but escape. The suffering was worse than the first time. Felt longer, colder. He welcomed the needle like a savior.
    The strap numbed his forehead. The needle hit the stent with a dull thump. His back arched. And then he went to the dark place.
    And it was better than the Haystack.
    Boundaries formed.
    What felt like an endless void shaped into arms and legs and a body. He had no sense of up or down, just a feeling of being curled up in a fetal position.
    Slowly, there was something hard beneath him. Gravity pulled the weight of his body against it. A rhythmic beating throbbed distantly, got louder. Heartbeat. Blood rushed past his ears.
    The ground thundered beneath him.
    The world spun and pain struck his arms—
    “Don’t challenge me, son.” The voice was modulated and robotic. “Wake up.”
    Danny’s head bobbled and neck popped. His eyes began to open. First, light. Then color. Then the details of a mechanical face. Danny was twenty feet off the ground, in the clutches of giant mechanical hands.
    Danny’s world shook violently, again. A word vibrated in his throat but didn’t make it out.
    “You ever have any delusions about who runs our camp, let this be a reminder,” the thing said.
    Danny’s arms filled with sparking pain. The monster squeezed until they were painfully numb.
    “You might be a hero in the game room, but you’re a little thirteen year old bitch. You got that? Life on the island is short, and I’ve been here way longer than you, so get in line, son. I don’t care what Zin told you about the tracker volts, I’ll stuff your head up your cornhole before they konk me out. You’ll be tasting last night’s dinner for weeks.”
    The lower jaw jutted out. Flames ignited on the incisors like pilot lights.
    “Try me again and I’ll set your head on fire. You hear?”
    When Danny didn’t respond, his world shook. The popping in his neck was louder.
    “You hear—”
    “Whoa, whoa there, Sid. You’re going to turn him into a jellyfish if you’re not— ”
    Danny crumpled on the ground. The mechanical beast’s enormous hand clamped around Zin and lifted him up. The fingers squeezed so hard that Zin bulged like a water balloon. Then he melted, dripped to the ground like mercury, coagulating and reforming. Zin was whole again.
    “I’m not kidding, Zinski! You start putting ideas in Danny Boy’s head and I’ll cook you both.”
    “Sid, you got to remember that he just got here. He’s still a poke, man. He needs a little introduction to the needle before you start throwing him in the Foreverland game room. Just give him a second to get used to it, will you? You remember what it was like on your second round?”
    Zin was engulfed in a cloud of fire. He was unfazed when the fire died, pinching off a small flame dancing on his sleeve.
    “Both of you.” Sid pointed back and forth. “Don’t jerk off all day, you hear? If we lose and you’re MIA, then it’s cornhole time. Got it?”
    Danny nodded. Zin gave him a thumbs up.
    The ground shuddered as the monster trotted across the Yard. Danny bounced with each step.

    How’d you do that? Those words were