Trapped!

I felt a sting on my right arm.

"Sorry I have to do this to you,"

A heavy weight pulled my body down into the arms of a person I trusted. Carefully he carried me to an unknown location, it couldn't have been far from where we met because I was only on the brink of losing consciousness. The last thing I saw, was four tiled walls and faeces in the small cramped room I was put in. Perhaps a few flies too, and lots of dirt. Filthy.

A while later, a beautiful smell woke me up. I opened my eyes and I lay in a neat and tidy room on a simple single bed with fresh clean white linen and a desk. It felt like I had had a deep, satisfying rest - but where was I?

I went to the wooden door which seemed not to match the rest of the tidiness of the room. It was obviously man-made, painted green and had was complete with an old fashioned latch.

"Yawn..hi!" a familiar voice greeted me. Shannon! She was my bestest of best friends of all time. She was here too. Phew. Some relief at last. It so happened we opened our room doors at the same time.

"Let's go! Get your bag and let's go! Classes are starting soon,"

Just like a robot, I went and grabbed my blue backpack sitting on the wooden chair in my room and followed her.

It was a huge warehouse-like building, with rooms on all sides of the structure and a huge dining hall in the middle which would also be our gathering place. The atmosphere was dark- but surprisingly trim and neat. We attended classes that taught us life skills. Things like sewing, cleaning, and even looking after the sick in makeshift hospital beds. Or so I thought.

After classes, my newfound friends, Shannon and I decided we would go out to the fields nearby to grab some fresh air. I was feeling more energetic but somewhat untypically colourblind. As soon as we stepped out of the building an army of heavily armed guards chased and surrounded us! "Put down your weapons!" One shouted. Weapons? Me? Us? Who?

Shani produced a watergun and started squirting it around. What was she thinking! Immediately one soldier pulled out his machine gun and aimed it at her head. Chugchugchug! Shani fell to the ground screaming in angst. She was gone.

Without a word, they whisked us into a big darkened room and there was a woman in there. Mrs Lang was her name. She had short white curly hair and freckles. She wasn't old but probably old enough to be someone's grandmother. My mind was racing. This wasn't right. I thought everything was normal even the shooting of my newfriend Shani. We all looked to Mrs Lang like a goddess, a king, our leader.

Months passed and everyday we each had a daily needle. Everyone seemed ok with it and happy to oblige.

But there was one day when I didn't get my needle. Or didn't get a full dose of it. I was looking at my backpack and it was blue. Or was it pink? No, definitely blue. A few blinks later it looked pink.

"Is something the matter here?" Mrs Lang boomed as she noticed I wasn't acting normally.
"I ...my bag...it's pink. I hate pink, and my bag is blue." Mrs Lang then took me to the principal's office which turned out to be a hospital ward.

"Now that you've discovered me, I will tell you everything but I will give you your daily shot and you will remember nothing. I am Mrs Devina Lang, your master. Everyday you get a shot of my secret drug just to keep you in line. The things you see and perceive are not what they are. You and all your other friends live in old toilet blocks which have been abandoned and not cleaned for years. After injection of the drug you perceive it as a clean room. You also attend my school where you follow a program to make you a worthy homemaker. You think your bag is blue, but it actually is pink. The drug makes you see things very differently. There is no escape out of here. All the people in here have been injected and I have carefully collected them from their daily lives. We have doctors, musicians, engineers, rubbish collectors, all sorts, and you are all equal."

I listened. Oh boy. Beside her was a baby on a hospital bed. It was well and truly alive and healthy but it was just lying there.

She had more to say but I gathered all my energy and darted.