“What is the room?” I ask.
“They call it The Purifying. They take all souls into that room who they don’t agree with. Liz, they kill them! I had been seeing large bags on tables being rolled out, but never do we ever see the people again.”
“How sure are you?” I ask.
“One-hundred percent sure.” She frowns while looking at her feet. “We have been here for a couple months now, and in that time, I have gotten to know many people. One of them I became friends with when we were being held with the voyagers. She was caught taking an extra book in The Library. They called her to the Souls Council, they then held her in a cell for a few days. An extra book.”
“What happened then?” Jake asks.
“Everyone is entitled a second session with the Souls Council, some second sessions are hours later, some are days. If they are deemed guilty, they are sentenced to The Purifying. We are all told that it is a place you live to learn how to be integrated back into society, but she never came back.”
“Maybe she is still in there,” I say.
“No,” my mom says firmly. “The bags they bring out of that room are kept in a chamber for three days before being disposed of. The day Martha was taken to The Purifying, I snuck into the chamber and looked in all the bags. They were full of dead bodies, hers included.”
My mom looks at both of us with such a mix of fear and sadness.
“Oh my,” I whisper with a hand to my heart.
“Children are taken there too, and I fear that one day Lydia might do something they don’t like, and they wouldn’t think twice about taking her.”
“We have to get out of here,” Jake says, “but we can’t do it right away. We must make it look like they have gained our trust. You will have to explain to Dia that she needs to be extra good.”
“I see,” I say, “They might not watch us so heavily if we didn’t look like we were going to run off right away.”
None of us say much of anything. We all know that we have got to get out of here, and we know Jake is right. Dia enters the room confirming the fact our conversation must be over for the moment. If these people don’t think we are going to try to escape, maybe they will cut down on how heavily guarded we are. Mom says that she knows a way to get us out of here, and we have got to trust she does, because this isn’t something that needs to be talked about around Dia yet.
Jake and I hug my family goodbye and return to our temporary home. We both lay on the bed, staring into nothingness. Both of us know that to talk about the situation right now won’t do any good. It will be important to talk to the others about what’s going on somehow.
“Ladies and Gentlemen,” a voice calls out from the doorway of the pod. “May I have your attention, please.”
We walk out of our cubby to see R. J. and ten guards standing in the opening. All around us, everyone is coming from their dwellings. Some of the people we know, others we don’t.
“Would the members of the following cubbies join me, please,” the president addresses.
The guard on his right pulls out a piece of paper from his pocket and begins to read.
“Would the members of cubby A, B, E, and F, come forward?”
Magi walks up first followed by Eli, Mar, and Zac. Jake and I come up behind them, while Shawn and Leah follow behind us. As we come up, the man in the suit turns around, leading us out of the room.
At the last moment I look behind us, realizing my mom and Dia were not called to come with us.
I hope I see them again.
We follow the man and his guards into the great white room. From there, we take the stairs up, the ones I had used to come down this morning. That seems like days ago.
Instead of going right towards the offices, we take a left, walking back over the soundproof glass walkway. Each of the members of our group look down into the room below us.
“It’s mirror on the other side,” I whisper to Jake.
He nods, intrigued that you can’t hear a single footstep it is so sturdy.
We walk down yet another hallway and by now I am lost. For part of our journey this morning I was still trying to gain my bearings and couldn’t see where I was going.
We finally stop in front of a room that says Soul Council.
Jake and I sigh at the same time. The rest of our group have no clue as to what this place is. I am glad that we had gotten to talk to my mom before we were called here.
“What is this place?” Shawn asks.
“You will learn that soon enough, Mr. Brad,” R. J. says, “or is it Shawn that you prefer these days?”
“Shawn,, thank you,” he answers back. “Brad is dead... Has been for a long time.”
“Very well, Mr. Shawn, all of your questions will be answered soon enough.”
Shawn doesn’t press for answers. If the man is correct, we will be learning answers to them soon, and boy do I have lots of questions.
We are directed to enter the room. When the door is opened, a group of men and women in white suits sit at one end of a crisp white table. Johnathan and Rebekkah are among those sitting in the room.
“Please be seated,” Rebekkah stands, gesturing at the chairs. Her eyes are fixated on me. I am not the
