Muted_Item_8665

Muted_Item_8665 t1_j2ctez2 wrote

One by one, a few dozen nervous teenagers walked toward the announcement stage for the SELECTION. The setup resembled a simple blood drive. The atmosphere was made more foreboding however, as cameras and speakers were strewn everywhere for broadcasting, and COMMITTEE soldiers - also known as 'Pacifiers' - stood guard to eliminate the sources of any potential outbursts.

'I'm nervous, Blaze.' The words came from a serious-looking girl whose long dark hair pooled down her shoulders. Her eyes were glued onto the live footage of the stage - even as she was loading her equipment from the back of their truck. 'You're going to follow the plan, right? This is crucial. We can't allow any scewups. Or rogue rebels forgetting instructions.' Her brows furrowed into a worrying expression.

She felt a pair of sturdy hands on her shoulders. A confident looking fiery-haired boy pulled her to face him. His hazel eyes shone with assurance.

'You've got nothing to worry about, Zel. I'll stick to the plan this time.' He grinned. 'Even if it's not really my style. You can count on me.'

'So, all we are doing is destroying the blood coolers right?'

'Almost. We'll spill the blood coolers to stall the selection, but we'll also try to bring awareness to the rebel faction by announcing who we are on the cameras. Hunter and Petra and the others will use the smoke bombs we got to distract the Pacifiers in the meantime. We'll wait for their signal to move from here. We don't have the manpower or influence to rescue all the participants yet, but hopefully we can make some waves with this.'

'Woah, I'm going to be on TV?' Blaze laughed. Zella rolled her eyes but couldn't restrain a faint smile.

The truck suddenly screeched to a stop. They heard footsteps from their fellow rebels head towards the stage. Clicks sounded and some smoke wafted into the back of the truck. Then...gunshots. And screaming. What was happening?

Zella pulled open the truck gate. 'Wait - what about the signal -?' Blaze grabbed her but she slipped from his grasp. 'Forget the signal! That was Petra's voice!' Zella ran. 'Petra? Petra?!'

In front of her onstage, was Petra, passed out and being taken away by people in tattered clothes. 'Take Zella to the back!' One shouted. The voice sounded older. Somehow he knew her name.

'How d- No. Get your hands off her!' Zella shouted. She charged towards the assailers but several appear behind her and restrain her. She feels a heavy blow to the back of her head and sees black.

The first sight that greeted her was a haggard looking woman sitting feet-crossed from her. Behind her were cameras - that showed the Zella and her friends at their underground base, Zella at her selection, a pristine and empty white room filled with computers, young Zella before her selection in her house with her family. Zella then noticed her arms and wrists were bound and her mouth had been covered in tape.

'Sorry about that back there. Your friends are safe. And we will untie you - but only if you listen to us.'

Zella nodded.

The woman leaned towards her. Her expression was solemn. 'This might be hard to hear, but please believe me. You are fighting for nothing. The 'COMMITTEE' doesn't exist. The 'SELECTION' doesn't exist. You were being recorded this whole time -' She gestured to the cameras behind her. 'Your family was in on it. They were actors. All your families were actors.'

The woman dug in the pocket of her dust-covered jeans. She held something small in front of Zella. It was a plastic rendition of her in a defiant pose, with a small placard toward the bottom. 'Zella - Rebel leader against the Purity castes. Licensed by Seek TV.'

'That's you. A figurine of you. You're on t-shirts too. There's some of you and Blaze together too. You've been surveilled for entertainment. We've interrupted your big rescue mission, to rescue you. Your resistance plan was supposed to be a season finale, and it was all rigged for your rebel faction to win at the end.'

'In the real world, some of us found it inhumane that you kids' lives were completely fabricated. It was clearly unethical. The real world -our world - is rampant with war and poverty. We've been fighting for so long now, no one can be sure which sides were good or bad. That's why your program was invented. That's why parents enrolled kids like you to live a life with simpler conditions, as they saw it. There have been kids pulled from the program - most have committed suicide now because they didn't know what to expect coming into the real world and couldn't face that they were always lied to. Stopping your program was only the beginning. We want to put an end to the rest of these programs.'

The woman peeled back Zella's tape.

'Now the question is, will you join us?'

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