Chief Piece- Jenna

Where am I? Is this the Outside? What did they do to me? What have they done? Don’t put me here. I don’t want to be here. Their hypnotized eyes are staring at me. At me. Looking into me. Wandering. Don’t make me stay. I want to go back to the Inside.

It’s quiet in here. Mechanical minds doing work for the Combine. Routine work. People are talking, studying, working.  I walk past the librarian’s desk, and go to the computer lab. Seated students are sitting in front of the machines. Mesmerized.

Shelved books surround me, their words suffocate the air. Everything around me is friendly yet with a false sense of warmth. All I hear is the metallic typing of the keys. I’m too exposed here. I don’t belong. Straight faced, I walk past the people, avoiding all types of interactions. I shy away from eye contact. I feel small here.

The cold glass windows bring me back to the hospital. I look outside to the fields. Kids run in formal lines, rigid, static, unchanging. The sun glistens off their helmets. Focused, I walk into the conference room. I sit in silence, looking out the windows observing them.  I hear Chatter. Meaningless chatter. The librarian shushes them to be quiet, they’re misbehaving. They stop talking and they begin their work, fully absorbed in the work of the Combine. Suddenly, they all get up.  They all mill past in a synchronous movement leaving the building. I decide to walk out, follow them, and see where they are going. I walk into a bookshelf by accident, and the books fall over, and they all clang as they hit the floor. The librarian tells me to pick them up.  They all keep filing past me, staring at me.

I am the kink in the machine that they must fix.