A small nametag is shining on her breast pocket:
V. Kameneva.
Russian. She notices me staring at her and flicks her laser gaze right at me. It’s beyond uncomfortable. Worse than the look my dad would give me if I were slouching at the table in a public restaurant.
My cheeks warm and I stare at the ground, praying that she won’t speak to me. She doesn’t, but she keeps throwing glances in my direction as we pass. Because of her nametag and the red band tied around her left arm, I make an assumption that she’s an officer rather than a mere soldier. She’s overseeing the arrival of new prisoners.
“Cassidy,” Sophia hisses, stiffening.
“What?”
I peek around her, watching the line of people disappearing into the girls’ locker room. As we’re pushed inside, we have to cram between rows of lockers. Everything from happy face stickers to musty bathroom towels are scattered around the floor. I’m guessing when the EMP hit, this school evacuated fast. Maybe they were in the middle of a basketball game when it all went down…
Flecks of cold water hit my face, and I get a glimpse of what’s going on down the line. All of the showers are running at full blast. The privacy curtains have been torn off, and everyone is being forced to strip and walk through the showers.
“How do they get the plumbing to work?” Sophia whispers.
“They must have their own generators,” I reply. “Maybe they’re tapped into a private well or something.”
“Alright, strip down and leave your clothes at your feet!” The woman named V. Kamaneva marches down the aisle, gesturing to the showers. “Walk through the showers quickly. You will be inspected and then you will be given new clothes. Move it along quickly! No delays!”
I’m momentarily frozen. Embarrassment, shock and a thousand other emotions rush through my system, and before I know it, I’m standing at the front of the line, right next to Sophia. We’re both terrified. Sophia looks like she’s going to pass out. I might, too.
Kamaneva claps her hands together in front of my face.
“You’re holding up the line! Move it, move it!”
The armed female guards in the corner of the room look bored with what’s going on. I stare at the floor and strip off my clothes — even my awesome combat boots. When I’m done, I realize that the only thing I haven’t removed is the necklace Chris gave me months ago. His graduation necklace. Panicked at the thought of losing it, I take it off my neck and pretend to set it in my pile of clothes. With all the noise and commotion — not to mention the absolute humiliation of being forced to march naked through a row of showers with a bunch of soldiers watching — I pop it into my mouth. The gold tastes sour against my tongue.
Sophia and I walk through the showers. The water is freezing and the pressure is so powerful that feels like I’m being stabbed with a thousand tiny needles.
Dear lord, this is like P.E. all over again.
Okay, maybe not, but still…I keep trying to relate this to real-life experiences to make it seem normal. But it’s hard, because this is not normal. This is a nightmare.
When we finally finish the never-ending shower run from hell, we stumble onto the other side of the locker room. More female Omega troopers are waiting. Half of them are armed. The other half is standing there, chucking towels in our faces. I catch one. It’s covered in dirt and grime. Lovely. I wipe the water off and try to shake the moisture out of my hair.
On the bright side, I’m clean.
On the not-so-bright-side, I still don’t have any clothes.
I keep my eyes glued to the wall or the ground, afraid that if I look up, I’ll realize how embarrassing this situation really is and have a full-on panic attack. I’m already on the edge as it is.
After everybody has dried off, we literally get clothes thrown in our faces. I grab the material. It’s rough, brown and the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen. The fashion police would shoot me on sight if I walked around in this thing in Los Angeles. But it’s something to wear, so I throw it on. It’s a shapeless piece of cloth, little better than a potato sack. Your basic set of trousers with nothing more than a piece of string to keep them around my waist. We all get beat-up tee shirts, too. I look like a stereotypical hillbilly now.
Sophia gives me a once over when we get the clothes on.
“Pretty bad,” she mouths.
I almost smile.
We’re given cheap shoes next. They’re all different sizes, like somebody fished them out of a dumpster. I get stuck with a pair of cheap gladiator flip-flops that are two sizes two big.
These won’t last more than a day.
Kamaneva and her guards throw open the rear-exit to the locker room.
“Alright, this way. Get in line!”
We start moving again. At the door, a couple of women are waiting with scissors. I blanch. They’re cutting off the prisoners’ hair. I grab my long red locks, hair that falls all the way to my waist. Hair that I’ve been growing out since I was in Middle School. Sophia stands motionless in the doorway. Her hair is already above her shoulders, therefore they only end up cutting off a few inches. Just enough to make it a generic, masculine hairstyle.
I’ve still got Chris’s necklace between my teeth, so I keep my mouth closed. But I’m nothing short of horrified. Take away my clothes and dignity, but don’t cut off my hair. Ever. The woman with the scissors takes my wet hair in her hand and holds it for a minute. I swear she almost looks sorry.
Almost.
I hear the hair being hacked off and when I’m pushed through the door, my head feels like it’s floating above my shoulders. The weight is gone. I touch my scalp. My hair is probably only a few inches long. Long enough to be combed over, but not long enough to put in a ponytail.
I. Flip. Out.
I spit the necklace into my hand and tie it around the inside material of my stupid outfit. And then I start crying like a little girl, shocked with the loss of my long hair, marching around naked through a bunch of showers, being hauled in a semi-truck like a piece of livestock. It’s like a tornado of bad luck. A hurricane.
A blizzard.
Sophia is the one who saves me from myself. She takes my face between her hands and grits out, “Stop crying. We’re not safe yet.” She gives my shoulders a rough shake. “Cassidy? Come on. We’ll get through this together.”
I take a deep breath, barely able to see her through my tears. Sophia nods and hooks her arm through mine, and then we’re moving again. There’s really no downtime around this place, is there?
We’re led away from the gymnasium, back towards the center of the school. Towards the classrooms. I see a science building, a history building…I sigh. History was always my favorite subject growing up. Why does Omega have to take anything that’s halfway decent and turn it into something twisted?
Kamaneva and her guards open up another set of doors. A classroom marked LAB. We’re marched inside. Chairs, desks, books, pencils and anything else of remote convenience have been removed from the room. All that’s left are some plain counters, minus the vials and test tubes. The only windows are small slits near the top of the ceiling, making an escape through a those openings impossible.
Kamaneva walks up to a giant chalkboard at the front of the room. She grabs a piece of chalk from the lip at the bottom of the board — I’d like to know who left chalk in the room but took everything else — and starts writing. Nobody dares say a word. There are about thirty or forty of us packed inside the room.