Chapter 7

In the morning, we all woke up early, we ran through the plan one more time, and prepared ourselves. Patrick stood in the far corner of the room, farthest away from the door. Amanda stood in front, and Sky stood with her back against the door frame. Everyone else (Even Martin and Natalie) Made a sort of human shield between Patrick and the door. Then we waited. We waited for an entire hour before the guards finally came. There were two of them, big and strong looking. They took four steps into the room and tried to push Amanda out of the way, but she kicked them both in the knees and punched them in the stomachs and throats. The guards, who were startled and hurt, stepped back.
“Oi! What do ya think you’re doing?” One of them said.
They tried to push through her again, but she punched them again, and somehow got onto the back of one of them, putting her arm around his neck. She grabbed his head with her other hand, and turned his head slightly, He cried out and stumbled over, right as she jumped of his back. She turned to face the other guard, who was reaching for his gun, he cursed when he saw that it was gone.
“What the--!” He shrieked, “Where’s my gun!”
He whirled around and cursed to see Sky and Victor pointing guns at him.
“Wintergreen, take this!” Sky yelled over her shoulder, handing me a gun.
I took it and aimed it at the guard on the ground, who was trying to stand up. I must admit I felt bad, but I reassured myself that we were the good guys, and this was the right thing to do.
The guards both had their hands up, and now they were standing against the wall. Then I remembered:
The security cameras.
“Guys!” I screamed, “More are coming!”
They all groaned.
“Why don’t we just let them take him!?” Martin demanded.
Sky whirled around, now pointing the gun at him.
“Because he’s our friend! We’ve got to defend him! How would you feel if you were him? Huh!?”
That was a big mistake, we were all staring at her that we didn’t see the guard pull something out of his bag and sneak up to her. By the time we noticed, It was too late.
“Sky!” Victor screamed just as there was a loud snapping noise and her body lit up with sparks.
She was on the ground, unconscious or dead. The guard with the shocking device walked up to the human barricade that was in front of Patrick. I knew I had to act fast. My hands were shaking as I aimed my gun at the guard’s foot, and slowly pulled the trigger.
Boom.
Everyone turned and gawked at me, and then at the guard, cursing on the ground. Just then a sea of guards came in, pointing their guns, all of them wearing gas masks. There were too many for us to stop.
“Well done,” We heard a slithery, deep voice say over the intercom, “Now, time to sleep.”

The air vents immediately started to spew a purple gas. If felt like my lungs were imploding and my throat swelled shut. I coughed and gagged. Slowly everything went darker and darker, and before I knew it, I went senseless and everything went black.

chapter 8

I slept for several hours before I woke up. I was tied to a chair by the arms and legs with leather straps. I couldn’t see much for a few seconds, but then my vision focused. I looked around and saw my cellmates tied to chairs like mine. We were in a small, dark room with no windows. Martin and I were the only ones awake.
“What did you mean, when you said he was dead, how could you know?” I demanded.
He scoffed and smirked.
“You don’t even know what the Translation Process is, do you?” He asked.
“No,” I said, “I don’t.” I felt rather stupid.
“Ugh!” I heard Victor call, “Where are we?”
I turned to look at him, he had a nasty gash on his forehead that was still bleeding.
“Are you alright?” I asked.
“Yeah,” He grunted, “Well... No,” He moaned, “But I’ll live.”
“If they don’t kill us.” Martin retorted.
Just then, Lia and Natalie woke up.
“Where are we?” They both moaned at the same time.
“We don’t know,” Victor said.
There was a silence until everyone else was woken up. Just then, the door swung open with a bang against the wall. Three people walked in, I turned to look at them. A rush of relief came over me as I recognized one of them.
“Oliver!” I called, “What--?”
But then I stopped, he didn’t seem afraid; In fact, he looked like he was rather enjoying himself, he had a smirk on his face and his eyes seemed amused. He wasn’t wearing his usual grey hoodie, but a black leather jacket with a black shirt and black pants, along with black boots. His hair was longer and messier. I knew he wasn’t his usual self.

“What happened?” I continued.

He laughed. But it was a different laugh.

“I now must tell you all what has been going on around here.” He said, his voice sounded like the one over the speaker, not Olivers. I was so confused.

“This place is the Factory. It is where we train prisoners, just like you, to be like these gentlemen here,” He gestured towards the two guards, “Then we will send them out into the world to do my bidding. I am Morte.”

“What!?” I screamed. How could Oliver be Morte?\

“Hush,” He grunted, “I was getting to that. This government is falling, the leaders of your country are idiots. I can change that.”

“How can you change that?” Piper demanded, “None of them are as idiotic as you are!”

“Shut up, you stupid girl!” Oliver shrieked, “Anyway, when a prisoner is under the age of 18, they are unready for the Machine, so we keep you in a cell until you become of age, when your time has come, you will be taken into a room, where the machine is, then we will remove the memories that corrupt your mind, and fill it with new purpose, you will become one of the Diabolica, my followers,” He paused, “And as I have been told, It is that special day for one of you. We shall deal with that next week, shall we?”

A silence filled the room as everyone turned to look at Patrick.

“Did he do that to you?” I asked, “You were once Oliver Sharp, do you remember any of that?”

He laughed.

“Ahh, one of my favorite subjects,” He cooed, “The Translation Process. The Translation Process is a well... Process... In which we remove the memories of an individual and replace them with the memories of another, In which case, I replaced the memories of this stupid boy with the memories-- or shall we say the... Soul-- of me, Morte. For my old form has grown weak and fragile, This form is stronger. When the memories of another are removed, we put them into a box, in the form of a sort of hard drive, there they stay, incase we need those memories for any... Information we might need. However, the hard drives for the victims of the Translation Process are slightly... damaged, shall we say? There are missing parts that make it harder for everyone but me to unlock.”

I was in shock, this was not Oliver, I couldn't speak.

“But you said that you have to be eighteen to get your memories removed!” Lia stated, “You don’t look much older than me!”

“Indeed,” Morte grinned, “But this boy was different, He was higher in his grade as well as build, he was strong enough. Well, that is enough for our lesson today, Number 2456, and 4593, escort these children back to their cell,” He gestured towards the guards.

They both looked sad, they un-tied us all out of the chair and re-tied our hands behind our backs, they both led us all out the door and into a big room, full of bustling people wearing similar clothes to those of the guards, there were hundreds of computers and pieces of complicated looking machinery.

“It’s strange,” one guard said to the other, “We used to be people, normal people, with lives outside of here.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, 2456,” The other guard snapped, “We are the intelligent ones, you don’t want to be one of those silly little people who run around with no direction! Have you forgotten everything you’ve learned?”

“But think about it, 4593, you used to be one of those people. Surely you were happy enough, they can’t be that directionless!”

“Shut up,” 4593 scolded, “Don’t make me report you.”

The guards were silent for the rest of the walk, the whole time I was thinking of Oliver, He wasn’t here anymore. He was a hard drive sitting in a box somewhere, with little chance of coming back. I was crying, distraught with the loss of my friend. It made me sad to see his body taken over by the evil man called Morte.

When we reached our sell, we got pushed in. The door was slammed shut and locked. All nine of us groaned to see this dull room again.

“I... I had no idea,” Richard stammered, “I’m so sorry, Wintergreen.”

I nodded half heartedly and went to lie on my bed, I watched Amanda clean the gash on Victor’s face. She was so nice, yet so sad. I watched Sky and Lia argue about what we should do next while Patrick tried to stop them. I watched Richard talk to Piper about their stories. I watched Natalie and Martin growl and complain. I then imagined all of them with all of their memories removed, doing the bidding of Morte. I shivered at the thought. I remembered the conflicted guard, Number 2456 and how he missed his old life, even though he remembered none of it.

These thoughts stayed with me until I fell into a deep sleep that lasted until morning.

chapter 9

The next morning, I was the first one up, I combed through my hair with the small combs provided for us, I went to the bucket of water and used the towel to wash myself, I ate my bowl of oatmeal that the guards gave us every morning, I looked in the dirty mirror, I looked horrible, but I wasn’t worried about that, I had my mind on other things. Oliver, Morte, the Diabolica, and if I was ever going to get out of this plac