set of stairs in a field, leading down.
The place we were being taken was underground.
My feet were heavy as I descended the stairs. We walked through a maze of corridors, until we came to a large room. “Sit down!” the Wraith guards ordered in Russian, so we would understand. The guard behind me pushed me into a chair. A man appeared behind me. There was a buzzing sound; then a razor was taken to my head, my messy black hair falling onto the floor around me.
In minutes my head was shaved. The Wraith guarding me pulled me to my feet. He pushed me into step behind the other boys. The line slowed down. When I got to the front there was a man behind a desk handing out black sweatpants.
The line stopped as I was handed my pair, and the Wraith walked before us. “Strip, leave your old clothes on the floor, and put on your new pants.”
We did as commanded, and once we were all in the black sweatpants, heads shaved, the line started to move again. Feeling a trickle down my chest, I looked down only to see lashes and blood from the whipping I’d taken outside. I didn’t care. They’d taken my Inessa. I wasn’t going to feel anything.
We walked and walked deeper into the darkened corridors, until the sound of buzzing and screaming drifted down the halls. The boys in front of me began swaying on their feet, sweat dripping down their backs. And one by one we approached the room of screams.
When it was my turn to enter, a man standing at the door handed me a piece of paper. When I looked up, there were rows and rows of flat beds. The boys were being forced down and a man took a buzzing needle to their chests. As I walked through the mass of beds to the free one at the end, I saw that numbers were being tattooed on their chests. I frowned, until I remembered the paper in my hand. Glancing down, I saw the number “194” staring up at me. I was pushed from behind, and a man next to the free bed took my number and pointed to the bed.
I lay down, and in seconds the man pushed the buzzing needle into my skin. My mouth clenched at the pain and my body tensed. But I didn’t cry out like the other boys. I refused to let these Georgians see me break.
It was excruciating. Almost unbearable. But I never moved. I didn’t move until the man with the needle stepped back and wiped at my chest with a wet rag. The wet rag felt like a hundred bees stinging my flesh.
Yet I still didn’t flinch.
The Wraith guard pulled me from the bed and walked me down a hall. Dull thuds, screams, and shouts came from the room at the end of the hallway. I took a deep breath, bracing for what I would see next, but, honestly, nothing could have prepared me.
A room, bigger than I’d ever seen in my life, was filled with boys of all ages. And they were fighting. Some with weapons, some without. My eyes roved over the huge room, watching the boys hitting and drawing blood. I swallowed. I knew I was looking at my future.
The Wraith guards ahead pushed some of the boys into a pit and stood around them with folded arms. A guard lifted up his hand and ordered, “Fight!”
The boys stood, all fearfully staring at the Wraith guards. A guard lunged out and hit one across the face. The boys backed away as the guard repeated, “Fight!”
Fists and arms suddenly went flying, and the boys fought. They fought until blood was spilled.
The guard beside me pushed me into a pit to my left. I stumbled onto the sandy surface; then other boys were pushed in with me, too. A guard moved toward us when from the corner of my eye I saw the woman watching me. A man was beside her and she pointed into the pit.
The Wraith guard lifted his hand. As he did, rage swept through me, my blood boiling from the anger swirling inside. “Fight!” the guard shouted, and my legs moved toward the nearest boy. My fists flew; my legs kicked at anyone in my path. I bit, I clawed, and I kept going until the guard pulled me back.
“Stop,” he hissed into my ear. When I looked around, the boys I’d beaten were lying on the