Red light. Blood walls. The color. Howl was scared. The screeching, the flashing. Pulsating, highly audible and visible pain. It wouldn't stop. Everything had been white. Then. The hatch closed behind him. Above him. He had come from the ceiling. The desert. Pain. No sky. Pain. No wind. Stale air. Ears hurting. Howl clutched his ears. He never wanted to let them go. His head began to pound. He closed his eyes tighter and tighter and began to grimace. What was happening?
Though full of flashing red light, the room lacked definition, save the ladder leading back up to the closed hatch. To the desert. To serenity. Nature. And concrete. Howl wanted out. He started running, tears leaking from his eyes at pain. He couldn't even hear his own feet frantically slapping against the ground. Why was there no sky? Keep running. Trip. Why was there no dust? The boy lay flat on the ground. Thought. I have to get up. Action. Crawling. Walking. Running. Defeating.
Howl was angry. Rage was building. The more he felt, the less pain hurt. Sound was drowning out from the beat of his own heart. The flashing blurring into violent pink. Escape was becoming clearer as he lost control of his emotions. His brain overriding his senses. He no longer thought. He acted.
He didn't see the wall. He didn't know there was a door. He wasn't expecting change. First his shoulder, then his torso and head. The door flung open into a dark hallway. Howl kept running. He didn't hear the siren becoming faint as he fled the pain room. Blue lasers shot from the wall and scanned his body as he ran down the hall. They beeped, one by one, as he passed. Ahead, green lights in a grid above an archway lit up. One by one. Howl's rage was about to break. Sweat poured from his glands and mixed into the sand all over his body. The touch of nature. He could feel it. Cooling down his body. He could comprehend parts of reality again. The pain had almost completely gone away. Only ringing remained. A headache would soon follow.
The rage broke as soon as the boy cleared the archway. All eight lights green inside the grid. A door slid shut with a wisp and a click. Pitch black. But. Howl could see himself perfectly. Tears welled up inside his eyelids, waiting to spill. So much confusion. So much for a boy his age. Even for a boy who was said to have killed. Killer. He wasn't one in that moment. He wasn't even a Riser Dog. Just a child. A child who wanted the love of his mother. The protection of his father. The boy had neither. He had to be Howl. Killer had to be him. He needed bravery. He summoned it. But still a boy. It only did so much.
The new room filled with images. People sleeping in beds. Mechanical arms monitoring glowing boxes lined with buttons and switches. Children being stuffed into bags. Adults dancing, looking half dead. Humans operating machinery. No one, a smile. All glazed. All working for nothing. More dancing. Men and women in handsome clothing, clean cut and smug. Handshakes. Green paper. Grounder Birds. Riser Dogs. Sun Cats. Roof Rats. Children plugged into walls. Lights turning red. Bulbs flashing green. Pens checking paper.
Howl. "Where am I?"
