I had no idea how long I was out for. My mouth was extremely dry and I had a massive headache. I slowly opened my eyes. It was dark in the room. I looked down, and noticed my hands weren't tied up anymore.

I noticed there was weird numbers imprinted on the underside of my right wrist. What the hell? I tried to rub it off, but it wasn't budging. Had they permanently tattooed us?

I slowly sat up, trying to ignore the pounding in my head. I was in a large room filled with cots. Most of them were empty, but a few were still occupied by people I vaguely recognized from school. It looked like they were still knocked out.

I slowly got myself off the cot and stood up. There was a door at the far end of the room. I went to it, and twisted the knob. It wasn't locked so pushed it open slowly.

It just led to another dimly lit room, this one a lot smaller than the previous one. There was just a worn looking cloth divider, one desk, and a bored looking attendant sitting at it, reading a book. She looked up when she heard the door creak. With an annoyed expression, she came over to me.

"Here." She handed me a bundle of black cloth. I saw it was a plain shirt and a pair of pants. "Go behind the curtain and change into these." She nudged me towards the divider.

Still groggy, I did what she said. I immediately felt bad for anyone holding on to a couple of extra pounds, because the shirt and pants were tight. Once I was finished, I came back out and she took away my old outfit. Then she handed me a pair of black boots.

"Put these on," she told me and watched as I put them on. "How's your head?" she asked when I was done.

"Pounding," I answered. It made it difficult to focus on anything.

She went back over to her desk and pulled out a water bottle and two large horse pills. "Take these. It will get rid of the headache."

She must have seen me balk. "We can do this the easy way, or the hard way. Either way, you're taking the pills."

I could tell she had been through this a million times routine a million times. Something in her tone combined with everything else I had seen today told me to believe her. So I took the pills and swallowed them both in one large gulp of water.

Bad idea.

The pills wouldn't go down and I ended up choking, spitting them across the room and spewing water everywhere. The attendant looked at me in absolute revulsion. Had this never happened to anyone else before? I felt my face grow extremely hot.

Without saying a word, she just handed me two more pills. At this point I would've just rather dealt with the headache, but I tried again, this time taking it one pill at a time. I still gagged a little, but managed to get them down.

To my surprise, my headache instantly vanished. "Whoa," I murmured in astonishment.

"You may go now. Someone will be waiting outside to collect you."

I headed towards the door she was gesturing to. I was beginning to feel like I was in some sort of mental institution. A shiver ran down my spine as I pulled open the door.

Thankfully, it looked more normal outside this door. Still like some sort of creepy military boot camp, but at least the dim flickering lighting and white walls had been replaced by dark colors and clean, modern lines. It was a familiar face waiting outside the door.

"Welcome to headquarters," Aiden said to me.

"Where are we?" I asked.

"Does that really matter? This is your home now."

Melodramatic much? I rolled my eyes. "Where are all my classmates?"

"They're in the dining hall. Ezra is about to give a sort of orientation speech. That's where we're headed now."

We walked down a hallway that opened up into a huge, cavernous room. The ceilings were at least forty feet high, and I could see some skylights that let rays of sunlight burst through.

"This is the main area, kind of the epicenter," Aiden said. "The heart of the building. All roads pretty much lead to here." He steered me off to a large hallway to the right. "The cafeteria is this way."

It was packed with people. Most I didn't recognize but all looked like kids about my age. Some people looked scared, some looked angry, but most just looked confused. Everyone was wearing the same black outfit I was. I scanned the faces, looking for Jake. I couldn't find him.

"Go ahead and find a seat somewhere. Ezra will be here shortly." Aiden turned and exited the way we came, leaving me standing there by myself. I was suddenly gripped with an overwhelming urge to cry, like when my dad had dropped me off my first day at kindergarten. I just wanted to go back home.

I didn't see anyone I recognized, so I just went to the edge of the nearest table and sat down.

No one was really talking, some kids were just exchanging meaningful glances at one another. Most were just looking around.

There had to be hundreds of kids in here. I wondered if all of the abductions had gone as smoothly as ours had. I wondered what was happening in the outside world right now. My dad must be terrified for me.

My mother had died in a car accident when I was a toddler, on her way home from work, and my dad had been very protective of me and my sister ever since. I became determined to survive whatever was about to come next. I couldn't stand the thought of my father losing someone else he loved.

Everyone began looking up and to the right, where there was a large balcony. I could see Ezra standing informally near the railing, looking down at all of us. He had a neutral expression on his face. I noticed several people with guns had come to guard the perimeter of the room.

It was the same beefy guys who had corralled everyone into the vans. Crowd control, no doubt, I thought to myself as I saw several people look at the guards in fear. Whatever had happened at the schools today must have been really bad.

Ezra began to speak. "Hello, recruits." His voice was somber. "I'm sure many of you are very confused as to what is happening to you right now. You probably have a lot of questions. You are probably angry."

"Let me start by saying that none of your families have been harmed. As long as you stick to the routine we have constructed for you here, they will continue to remain safe."

"But, if you decide to misbehave here, I cannot guarantee things will remain that way. This probably makes most of you very angry. Let me say this: it is perfectly normal to feel this way. For now. But understand this-we are not the bad guys."

"In time, you will learn what it is we do and what our mission is. We are doing this for the greater good, and soon most of you will come to believe in our cause."

Several people looked at each other with expressions of incredulity or indignation on their faces. I felt the same. How could he possibly think kidnapping us from our homes and watch as innocent people got murdered was going to get us to join their cause?

"You have been fed lies," Ezra continued. Oh god, here we go. "Our current political environment has robbed all of you of any meaningful future, of any hope of living an independent, successful life."

"This has been done on purpose. Our society is slowly rotting from the inside out, and we want to change that. Society is enslaved right now, we want to wake up the people of this country to see this quiet desperation you are living in right now."

"It's not going to be easy. Our numbers our still small. But our will is strong. I hope in time many of you will see this, and will want to join us. To change the future." He paused, looking down at us, at each and every one of us.

For some reason his eyes seemed to linger on me. At least that's what it felt like. Then the moment was over.

"Thank you. Aiden here will be issuing instructions on room assignments shortly. Good night." He turned and disappeared.

The room was silent for a heartbeat, then broke out with yelling. Most people sounded scared. 'What would they do to our families?', 'Were we stuck here forever?'. I wondered the same.

"Please settle down!" Aiden had appeared again, speaking into a megaphone.

Everyone turned to look at him, but no one stopped talking.

"Let us out of here!" someone yelled above the crowd.

"Yeah you lunatics, we want to go home!"

A mob broke out, and everyone began yelling insults at Aiden, at Ezra, some people were just yelling at the ceiling.

Something loud and piercing shattered across the walls. A spasm of fear pierced me, and I ducked automatically. Several people screamed and we all looked around for the source of the gunshot.

"HE SAID SETTLE DOWN!"

It was one of the guards, and he still had his gun pointed in the air, ready to shoot again.

Everyone shut up quickly. The guard lowered his gun shortly, still eyeing us coldly.

Aiden spoke into the megaphone again. "I would like everyone to look down at the inside of their left wrist. You will see a two rows of numbers and letters imprinted there. The first row is your ID number. Don't worry about that for now."

"The second is your room assignment. The first digit refers to the wing you are assigned to, either ten or eleven. The letter following those numbers is the side of the corridor you are on, L for left and R for right. The next set of digits is the room number within that wing. The numbers range from 00 to 15."

"For example if your wrist reads eleven dash R dash twelve, it means you are in wing eleven, right side, room twelve."

"When you get to your room, you will see a scanner above the doorknob. Place your left wrist up to the scanner, and the door will open for you. After ten p.m., all doors will be permanently locked. All recruits must be in their room by that time. Doors will only open for the people assigned to that room. The corridors directly behind you,"-everyone looked behind them- "are clearly labeled 11 and 12."

"Please begin to make your way to your rooms now. An attendant will be in shortly to see that everyone has made it to their assigned rooms. Good evening." He left too.

Nobody moved. One of the guards stepped forward, looking angry. "Let's get moving everybody!" he said in a frightening voice.

People began to shuffle forward, but hesitantly, waiting for someone to take the lead. One of the guards standing near the corridors started grabbing people by the wrists and shoving them toward their correct wing. Things began moving much quicker after that.

The people who had managed to find their friends in the mosh of people quickly began comparing numbers to see if they were in the same room. I looked down at my number. To my surprise, I saw that mine read 11-R-12. I began to make my way to wing eleven. The hallways looked much like the rest of the building, made of some sort of smooth dark stone, wall to ceiling.

The doors looked like they were made out of heavy duty steel, and I saw kids struggling to pull them open; they were obviously heavy.

It quickly became clear that wing 11 was all girls, and I assumed wing 12 was boys only. I got to my room. It didn't look any different from the others. I don't know why I had thought maybe it would.

There was a big, black, heavy duty looking box right above the knob. I looked around, and saw other kids inserting their hand into the machine until it reached the scanning apparatus. It would then flash green and the door would unseal. I stuck my hand in, not knowing what to expect. It didn't hurt, just made a small beeping sound. Then the light flashed, and my door cracked.

I pulled it open-it was very heavy like I had assumed-and walked inside. It was a plain looking room that had two bunk beds on opposite sides of the room. Four desks were placed against the walls, and there was one door on the wall directly opposite the door. There was already a girl sitting on the lower bunk on the right side of the room. She looked up when she heard me.

"Um, hi," I began awkwardly. "I'm Riven."

"I'm Grace," the girl said. She was beautiful, with shiny blonde hair and huge, stunning blue eyes.

She didn't say anything else, and I didn't know what to say either. Was there any appropriate conversational topics in a situation like this? I wasn't a small talker on my best day, much less in these circumstances. Being what appeared to be underground, it wasn't exactly like we could talk about the weather.

I just took a seat at one of the desks, and neither one of us spoke.

Another girl entered the room a couple of minutes later, yanking the door open with a huff.

"Jesus, could they have made these damn doors any heavier?! This day just keeps getting worse and worse. God, is it hot in here? I'm sweating like a pig. I thought it was supposed to be cool underground." When the door shut behind her, she looked around at me and Grace. "I'm Kat."

Grace looked up at Kat with zero expression on her face. "I'm Grace."

Kat looked at me.

"I'm Riven," I told her.

"Good to meet you, I guess." She started making her way over to the empty set of bunks. "You don't mind if I take the other bottom do you? Heat freaking rises, and I'm already hot as crap."

"No," I told her. "I don't mind."

"Ahh, thanks so much." She plopped down on the bed, then sat up, then looked at me. "You can come sit over here with me if you want. Those chairs look so uncomfortable."

I smiled at her gratefully and went to join her. Kat was pretty too, and she had a wild, free spirit vibe about her. Her black hair was chopped short, and I noticed she had a tattoo behind her ear. "Thanks," I said when I sat down next to her.

"No problem." It was silent for another few minutes. "So, where are you guys from?" she asked.

Grace again looked up from her nails. "I'm from South Carolina."

"I'm from Pennsylvania."

"Neighbor! I moved to New York a few years ago. What grade? I was a senior."

"Senior too," I replied.

"Me too," Grace chimed in.

The door opened once more, for what I figured was the last time. Our fourth roommate entered. We all looked as she walked through the door.

She had brown hair like me but it was stick straight, with brown eyes and freckles across her nose and very tan skin. I guess her to be Italian or something. She had a slight pudge sticking out of her pants, but wasn't fat by any means. She tried to shut the door as quietly as possible. Then she looked at all of us.

"Hey roomie, welcome to the club," Kat said sarcastically. "I'm Kat. This,"-she pointed to me-"is Riven, and over there is Grace."

"Hi," Grace and I said in unison.

The girl waved slightly. "I'm Natalie."

"Do you go by Nat? If so, that would be awesome, we can be Nat and Kat! I hope you don't mind, but everyone has sort of picked beds already. The only on left is the one above Grace." I didn't know if Kat was a nervous talker or if she was trying too hard. Either way it seemed very forced.

"No, that's fine," Natalie said. "And I guess you can call me Nat if you want. I go by whatever."

The girl went over to the bunk occupied by Grace, and began climbing to the top bed. She lied down, then rolled over so her back was facing us.

"What are we supposed to do now?" Grace asked.

"I have no clue. Honestly, I'm having a hard time believing I'm not about to wake up from some crazy dream." Kat got up and walked around the room. It didn't take very long; there wasn't much to see. She stopped at the other door and tried to pull it open. It was locked, so she stuck her hand in the scanner above the handle. Nothing happened.

"What is supposed to keep us occupied in here? Everything is empty, and this door won't open. Are we supposed to sleep in these same clothes? And what about the bathroom? I'm gonna have to go eventually. Plus I haven't eaten since this morning." She came back and sat on the bed. "This seriously sucks. I want to go home. Do you think they were serious about hurting our families if we misbehave?" She looked at me and Grace.

"Probably." Grace nodded. "When they herded us up, I saw one of the guys shoot a teacher. No hesitation, nothing. The teacher just tried to say something, then BAM! The guy didn't give any warning. There was a lot of gun shots at my school. I think a lot of people died. I don't think they would hesitate to kill our families either."

"That's awful," Kat said. "I was working in the attendance office when they broke in, so I didn't really see anything. I think they gassed us first. One second I was sitting down, just filing some papers, the next thing I knew, I was waking up in that creepy room with all the cots. Don't remember a thing, which is kind of good, I guess."

"Yeah, it was terrible. I think a lot of people at my school were killed too." I didn't elaborate on the part I had played in helping them into the school. I was feeling guilty beyond belief at this point, knowing what happened at my school could've gone differently if I hadn't been such a coward.

"What do you think they are going to do with us?" Natalie had rolled back over to face us, but still had her head on her pillow.

"I don't know. They said they want us to join our 'cause' or whatever. I guess they're going to make us soldiers."

"I just want to go back home," Natalie said.

"I want to too," said Grace.

A knock on the door, then it began to open. A girl, about our age, maybe a year or two older, came in, holding a clipboard.

"When I call your name, say here," She said in a monotone voice, then looked down at her clipboard.

"Katherine Zhang."

"Here," said Kat.

The girl marked something on the clipboard.

"Natalie Hernandez."

"Here."

"Grace Atwood,"

Grace looked up at the sound of her name. "Here."

"Riven Moreno."

"Here," I responded.

She made one last mark on her clipboard, then looked up and around at all of us. "So, Aiden went through the basics of the rules, but I'm going to go into more thoroughly."

"You might have noticed, but the wings are separated by gender. 11 is the girls wing, 12 the boys. During normal hours-from 6 am to 9 pm, intermingling between rooms is permitted. Doors must be left open at all times during the day if someone is occupying them. Anyone caught with their door closed will be punished. Everyone must be in their room by 9 pm. No one is allowed to be out of their room between the hours of 9:01 pm through 5:59 am. If you are caught out of your room after hours, you will be punished."

"Wake-up call is at 6:00, at which time the room will be scanned to ensure all occupants are present. A bell will ring to ensure everyone is awoken promptly. Since you are new, someone will be waiting at the end of the wing to escort you to the cafeteria where you will be served breakfast. After that, testing will begin."

"There are several phases. The first stage is testing conventional intellect and reasoning. This will be a written test, much like the assessments you have taken in school throughout the years. The next section will be physical fitness, which is self-explanatory. The third section is a series of latent cognition tests, which will entail brain scans and other miscellaneous testing methods."

"In between sections, meals will be given. There is no need to attempt to prepare in any way for these tests. They are merely given to place you in the appropriate training group, which will begin as soon as all testing is complete. You will be notified