A Savage Life

We had to walk by a spooky looking, white hall before we reached the food court. It was pristine, but there were doors on the walls this time, and not like I’ve seen before. Each door was metallic and had a small window with caged-shape bars on them. It kind of reminded me of a cellblock where prisoners live while they’re in jail. And then I remember my stay in the County Pen, and conclude that I definitely am in what looks to be a cellblock. But I- CRASH!

I nearly jumped through the ceiling. There was a psychotic-sounding man banging on the bars and screaming, “Help Me! Help Me!”

But what was scarier is that the man had the arms of a gorilla and the eyes of a wild cat. Long IVs were strung out across his muscled arms and into his head delivering this green fluid into his body. His chocolate skin was throbbing as the veins looked like they’d explode at any given minute.

I stopped and stared at him as he screamed and reach out his hands, as if to grab me. He only hissed at Anastasia and Darrel as the two of them grabbed me and pulled me back away from the mutated man.

“I see you are admiring experiment 4 8 6. His name is Pumps. Pumps say hello.” Anastasia said lightly, as if the man- no, Pumps (Whatever kind of name that is) - was as young as three.

This was cruelty. What did they do to that poor man? In fact, I should be worrying too. What will they do to me? “Don’t listen to them! They’re evil!” Pumps called out.

I heard him scream out louder, “DON’T TRUST THEM! DON’T TRUST THEM!” while Anastasia and Darrel kept a straight face as they led me down the hall.

They had said nothing more, but they led me to a food court. A big cafeteria-like place, where the food didn’t look tasty, nor was it very appetizing. The food was lined up in machines and squired onto your plate like toothpaste. A nasty, brown slush that was today’s specialty- fruit medley.

As a special guest of honor, I got to sit in a secluded place, and stared at by everyone, and my escorts. Kind of like the kid that snored in class or dropped their tray or even the kid that accidently had gotten a little too loud. I had the place silenced like a king, and the eyes were my subjects awaiting my verdict. It did nothing to make eating this brown goop any easier.

You eat with your eyes, and as a testament to that, I had tasted my “fruit medley” and it tasted about as good as it looked. Flavorless.

“The food here is bland.” I said.

“I know,” Darrel assured me. (It wasn’t much assurance anyway.) “You need nutrition Neanderthal.”

“Would you stop calling me Neanderthal?” That came out louder than I wanted it to; but I think we all knew it was coming.

Darrel and Anastasia just grinned at me going, “Ok Neanderthal, we will escort you to a scientist to determine if you really do not want to be called Neanderthal.” Darrel said. I came close to popping his mouth, and a blood vessel. Why would I need a scientist to determine this? Ugh, I HATE, no I LOATHE this place!

And so, the smiling duo sent me to Dr. Sickley. He assured everyone that was what I wanted and now I’m known as, drum roll please, Intruder. Ugh, my luck. Why me? I mean really, why would you call me Intruder? I never intruded on anything, let alone intruded on their lives. I was invited more like. Well, it was a forceful invite, but it happened because of a weird chance of fate.

“Why would you call me Intruder?” I asked forcibly. I had to; this wasn’t making any sense at all.

“Intruder,” Dr. Sickley announced to me. “It is for your own welfare that we contemplate your troubles, as most people are too incompetent to make healthy decisions. But if you insist, we will no longer call you intruder, but Guest.”

“My name is Joshua Darren Asbury,” I spat. “And you may note me as such!”

I shot out of that room before he had a chance to speak. I didn’t know where I was going, all I knew was that I was going somewhere in this prison. Even if it was the Janitor’s Closet.