I dreamed.
At first, I didn't know it was a dream. It felt too real, too familiar, like slipping into a memory that had been waiting for me all along.
I was back in the field behind our old apartment building, where the grass grew tall and unruly, and the smell of rain clung to everything. The air was warm, heavy with summer. My mother was there with me.
She laughed, the kind of laugh that made my chest ache with joy, a laugh that wrapped itself around me like a blanket and made the world feel safe. She chased me through the grass, her arms stretched wide, pretending to be some terrible monster. I shrieked and ran, my legs pumping, stumbling, until she caught me and swung me up into her arms.
"You can't escape me," she said, spinning me around, her hair flying wild around her face. "You're mine forever."
I giggled so hard I couldn't breathe. Her chest was warm against my cheek. I could feel the steady thump of her heartbeat, a rhythm that told me nothing bad could happen as long as she was there.
She smelled like soap and sunshine.
We spent hours there, or what felt like hours. She tickled me, told me stories, kissed the top of my head. When I scraped my knee on a rock, she pressed her lips to the wound and whispered, "All better." And somehow, it was.
I thought that was what life would always be. Just her and me, laughing in the sunlight.
But then something shifted.
The grass beneath us withered, turning dry and brittle under my fingers. The sky dulled, clouds rolling in like bruises. My mother's laughter faltered.
And suddenly we weren't alone anymore.
They appeared around us: neighbors, relatives, strangers whose faces blurred in and out like half-remembered nightmares. They circled us, pointing. Whispering. Their voices were low at first, hissing through the air like snakes in the grass.
"Shameful."
"Disgrace."
"Wrong."
The words built, layer upon layer, until they drowned out the sound of the wind, the chirp of birds, even the sound of my own breathing.
My mother's arms tightened around me. Her face was pale. Her smile trembled. She looked smaller somehow, as though the weight of their eyes pressed her into the ground.
And then they came—her parents. My grandparents.
In the dream they towered above us, taller than the apartment buildings, taller than the sky itself. Shadows fell from their faces, darkening everything. Their voices rumbled like thunder, booming so loud I thought the earth might split in two.
"You'll lose us," they said. "All of us. Unless you give him up."
The words shook the air. My stomach turned cold.
I clutched her dress, desperate. "Mama?"
She looked down at me. For a moment, I thought she'd fight them. I thought she'd scream, tell them no, hold me tighter and never let go.
But her eyes filled with tears. And her hand slipped from mine.
"Mama!" I cried out, panicked, trying to grab her again. "Don't let go! Don't let them take me!"
She hesitated—just for a heartbeat, just for a breath. But then she pushed me forward.
Into the hands of strangers.
White coats. White gloves. Faces hidden. They seized me with cold fingers, their grips like iron. I thrashed, I screamed, I begged her to stop them.
"Mama! Mama, please! Don't let them take me! I'll be good, I promise, I'll be so good!"
But she didn't look at me.
Not even once.
She turned away.
And the sound of her footsteps grew fainter, swallowed by the hiss of voices around us.
The strangers dragged me back, away, and my body went limp with terror. The air around me was sharp with chemicals, with something wrong. I clawed at the ground, dirt under my fingernails, my throat raw from screaming.
"Don't do this! Please!"
But the truth was already there, staring me in the face.
She had chosen them.
Not me.
Why?
The question burned in my chest, hotter than fire, sharper than knives. Why didn't she choose me? Wasn't I enough? Didn't she love me?
Didn't she love me?
My tears blurred everything. My lungs ached. My whole body shook with the force of my sobs, the sheer violence of grief that had no place to go.
"Why, Mama?" The words broke apart in my throat, shredded into pieces. "Why didn't you choose me? Why!!!?"
Her shadow melted into the crowd. The world grew darker. The whispers grew louder.
Unwanted.
Disposable.
Nothing.
The words clung to me, digging into my skin until I felt flayed. My chest heaved, my vision fractured, and I screamed until my voice ripped apart inside me.
And then—
---
I woke.
The gymnasium ceiling loomed above me, pale lights stabbing my eyes. I gasped, choking on my own breath, my heart hammering against my ribs.
My head. God, my head.
It felt like someone had slid their fingers inside my skull and started kneading my brain like dough. A pressure so heavy I thought it might split me apart. My temples throbbed. Every pulse of blood sent another jolt of agony, like knives being driven in from the inside.
I clutched at my head, nails scraping through my hair, desperate to dig the feeling out. But it didn't stop. It only grew sharper, twisting, twisting, twisting—
My stomach lurched.
Without warning, bile surged up my throat and I vomited, hot and bitter, splattering across the cold concrete. The taste of acid burned my tongue, seared the back of my throat.
I gagged again, body convulsing, until another wave of sickness tore through me. More vomit spilled out, splashing over my hands, the floor, the thin fabric of my clothes. My body shook with the violence of it, as if something inside me was trying to claw its way out.
When I finally stopped heaving, I lay gasping, strings of spit hanging from my lips. My throat burned raw. The stench of vomit filled the air, mixing with the sterile chemical tang that already coated everything.
The pain in my skull didn't ease. If anything, it grew worse. My vision flickered in and out. Sweat poured down my face, stinging my eyes, dripping into the puddle of bile beside me.
I curled onto my side, clutching my stomach, whimpering. My whole body felt wrong, foreign, like my skin didn't fit anymore. My hands trembled uncontrollably. My chest tightened, every breath a struggle.
It felt like dying.
It felt worse than dying.
Somewhere nearby, a boy groaned. Another whimpered, a broken sound. The gymnasium was filled with it now—the scattered noises of suffering, of bodies rebelling, of boys like me being torn apart from the inside.
I tried to lift my head. The lights above swam, doubling, blurring. Shapes moved at the edges of my vision—white coats, white gloves, calm faces.
The men in white.
They walked among us slowly, methodically, like gardeners inspecting a crop. Some boys were still unconscious on their cots. Others writhed on the floor, vomiting, sobbing, clutching their skulls as I did. None of it moved the men in white.
They didn't comfort. They didn't scold. They simply watched.
I could hear their shoes clicking against the floor. Hear the faint scribble of pens against clipboards. Hear the snap of rubber gloves.
Every sound drilled into my head, unbearable.
I wanted to scream, but my throat was raw, shredded from both the dream and the vomiting. The best I could do was a strangled whimper.
The memory of the dream clung to me like a shroud. My mother's face. Her turning away. The voices whispering what I already feared: that I was nothing. That no one would ever choose me.
Tears blurred my vision again. My chest heaved with sobs I couldn't contain.
And the men in white just kept walking.
The gymnasium swelled with sound.
Not words, not the safe hum of conversation, but broken noises: gagging, choking, the wet splash of vomit on the floor, the raw edge of boys sobbing through clenched teeth. The smell thickened into a choking haze—acid bile, piss, and the sharp sting of antiseptic that seemed to seep from the very walls.
My body trembled. I tried to push myself up, my arms buckling beneath me, but the pain in my head spiked so violently that I collapsed back into the mess I'd made. My skull pulsed, my vision fractured into shards of light.
Somewhere to my left, a boy screamed.
It wasn't like Alexei's scream—wild, thrashing, begging. This was sharper, higher, the scream of a body betraying itself. It cut off suddenly, swallowed by choking coughs.
One of the men in white knelt beside him. I forced myself to look, though my stomach turned with every movement.
The boy's limbs jerked uncontrollably, like a puppet tangled in its own strings. His back arched, eyes rolling up into his skull. Foam spilled from his lips.
The man in white didn't flinch. He pressed two gloved fingers to the boy's neck, waiting, counting. Then he looked up and gave a small nod to the others.
Another man approached with a metal case. He opened it with a snap. Inside gleamed syringes, vials, tools that reflected the gymnasium lights like fragments of ice. He selected one calmly, filled it with a clear liquid, and slid the needle into the boy's arm.
Within seconds, the convulsions slowed. The boy's body sagged, limp, his chest rising shallowly.
"Stabilized," one of them said, jotting something on a clipboard. His voice was flat, stripped of anything human.
They moved on.
The boys who could still move pressed themselves against their cots, trying to shrink into the shadows, though there were no shadows to hide in. The gymnasium lights were merciless, washing every face pale, turning every tear into a gleam.
I tried to crawl backward, away from the spreading puddle of vomit beside me, but my arms shook too badly. The moment I moved, another wave of nausea rose up. I gagged, spitting bile, my throat tearing with the effort.
The pain in my head didn't ease. It throbbed, twisted, like something alive inside my skull was pressing outward, clawing for escape. I couldn't stop shaking.
I wasn't the only one.
All around me, boys groaned, vomited, writhed in pain. Some lay still, their eyes fluttering, their lips moving silently as though praying.
And the men in white walked among us like shepherds.
Not helping. Not saving. Just watching. Recording. Measuring.
We weren't children to them. We weren't people.
We were experiments.
---
Time twisted. I don't know how long I lay there, half-curled on the floor, swimming in nausea and pain. Minutes, hours—it all bled together into one endless spasm of suffering.
At some point, footsteps approached me. I flinched instinctively, curling tighter, but a hand seized my arm with cold precision.
"Subject is conscious," a voice said above me. "Reaction strong."
Another voice: "Neurological response consistent. Mark it."
I tried to pull away, but their grip tightened, pinning me. A light flared in my eyes, blinding me. I turned my head, groaning, but the light followed.
"Pupil response normal. Mark it."
A gloved hand forced my jaw open. Something sharp scraped against my gums. My body convulsed.
"Resistance high."
They let me go without warning, and I collapsed back onto the floor, coughing, gagging, wiping spit from my mouth with the back of my hand.
I wanted to scream at them. To curse them, beg them, anything. But my throat was raw, my voice shredded. The only sound that came out was a pitiful whimper.
One of the men crouched down so his masked face was level with mine. His eyes were gray, cold, utterly detached.
"You will adapt," he said, as though the words were fact, not comfort.
Then he stood and moved on.
I pressed my forehead against the cool concrete, shuddering. Tears leaked from the corners of my eyes, sliding into the puddle of bile beneath me. I didn't even have the strength to wipe them away.
Adapt?
How am I supposed to adapt to this?, it feels like I am going to die any minute
The word echoed in my skull, colder than the pain, sharper than the knives in my brain.
---
The room shifted again, not with dream but with motion. The boys were herded.
Orders barked, sharp and clipped: "Up. Line up. Move."
Those who couldn't stand were dragged. Those who resisted were gripped and shoved until they staggered forward.
I tried to push myself up, arms trembling. My legs buckled beneath me, but a hand seized my collar and yanked me upright. I stumbled forward, gagging, nearly collapsing again. The grip didn't ease.
We formed a crooked line, swaying, shaking. Some boys clutched their stomachs. Others stared blankly ahead, eyes glazed, as though something inside them had already been broken.
I caught a glimpse of Alexei at the far end. His still alive!, what a relief, but face was chalk white, streaked with tears. His hands twitched at his sides, clenching and unclenching. He looked hollow.
When his eyes met mine, something flickered there. Not strength. Not hope. Just the shared recognition of two animals in the same trap.
I wanted to say something to him. Anything. But the words stuck in my throat, drowned by fear.
The men in white walked down the line, checking us one by one. Their eyes scanned, their hands tested pulses, lifted eyelids, scribbled notes.
None of us spoke.
We were too afraid. Too broken. Too aware that nothing we said would matter.
And through it all, the pain in my head pulsed on, relentless, as though something had been seeded inside me and was clawing to take root.
---
That nightmarish inspection lasted forever—or maybe it was only minutes. Time didn't feel real anymore.
Finally, they moved away.
When they left, the gymnasium fell into a hollow silence.
Boys slumped against cots, curled on the floor, or stared blankly at the ceiling. Some cried quietly, the sound thin and pitiful. Others didn't make a sound at all.
That was when I noticed.
Only boys.
Not a single girl lay among us. Not one voice higher, not one face softer. Just rows of pale, shaking boys.
My chest tightened. On the Van , I remembered sitting near a girl—Mira.
Where was she now?
Had they taken her somewhere else? Another room? Another building? Was she strapped to a chair like I'd been, screaming for someone to help?
Or worse?
The thought dug into me, sharp as glass. I wanted to believe she was alive. I wanted to believe she was strong enough to survive whatever this place was. But the truth pressed harder: I didn't know. And not knowing was its own kind of torment.
---
I sat on the cold concrete, my body still trembling. My throat burned, my stomach ached, my head felt like it was splitting in two.
But worse than all of it was the dream.
Her face. Her hand slipping from mine. The sound of her footsteps as she walked away.
I pressed my hands over my face, sobbing silently, though the tears wouldn't stop.
Why didn't she choose me?
The question throbbed in me, heavier than the pain, heavier than the fear.
And no matter how many times I asked it, the silence answered back.