Chapter 1. The hunt
My Raspy breath quickens. My heart pounds faster, harder, louder than my feet. I’m never going to make it; I’m too slow, no. They are too fast! I push myself as hard as I can to push myself forward. If it hadn’t been the noise of my feet fleeing from their pursuit, it was surely the blood my heart was trying so desperately to pump fast enough. I know I’m pushing too hard. My lungs burn, my thighs ache, and I can hear my pulse beating like a drum in my ear. Stop, you are going to die either way! The small thought passes my mind; I almost think I slow my pace by just a fraction of a second…NO! What am I thinking! I can’t give out now! Not after all of this! What would Sam do if I actually got caught? Everyone knows what happens to people who break the law… and I’m the only thing Sam has close to surviving. I focus on that as motivation, even while the thought of my chances of surviving are slim if I get caught.
My uncle left me his safe house to me when he died. He once worked in the society, he worked in designing buildings. In fact, he had come up with one of the best ideas, the underground safe homes. Unfortunately the society felt as though rebels could eventually start an underground tunnel to flee to the pacific, where they supposedly could escape to a better society. But my uncle refused the society’s denial, and he started to build safe houses. This was the only one he was able to make before the society caught him stealing technology that he used to program the security system. And once your caught denying the society…we all know what happens. The safe house is immune to bombs, gas, and only lets in the faces of people you program in it. Right now it only has Sam, my father, and I programmed in. It has all the supplies, food, and water for ten people to survive for up to fifty years. How he did it, I have no idea.
I’m there! I’m almost there! I’m going to make it! I see the small slim corner I cut through the rocks to reach my underground safe house. My uncle left this to me before died.
They’d never be able to fit through there. Even if they did they wouldn’t pass all the security locks I had set to get through to the safe house. This is where Sam and I promised to go in case of some emergency where the ‘Takers’ (What we call them in our village) ever came to get one of us.
I’m only a few yards away from the slim crack beneath the rocks… Snap! I feel a strong heavy forces press against my legs, back, and head sending me to go flailing to the ground. My nose crunches and I can feel the warm trickle of blood running down my face into my mouth. The strong metallic taste overwhelms my mouth and I gag, vomiting across the green forest ground. I can see the net that I’m captured in. My legs are in a twist, strangled by the heavy metal weight on the corners to keep me held down. The net wraps around my torso leaving my head face planted into the damp dirt.
I inhale a gulp of air. I see the head officer walk right into my face to lean down close.
“This one was pretty fast, huh boys?” his deep raspy voice says with a slight chuckle. I hear the other officers agree with amusement in their tones. The officers don’t seem to have any heart what so ever. They are laughing at me. They are laughing because they know what will happen to me. They are laughing because they know I am going to die.
I don’t have to ask the men where they are taking me when they carry me away. I know where I’m going.
The Maze.