Jacob was the first one awake. The last thing he remembered was my face above him, promising his safety before his body gave out. He was sure he was going to die, but here he was. His hands were bound to the metal fencing behind him, and his feet were bound together, too. He looked around, staring at the unconscious people around him. They all looked around his age, maybe younger, and some definitely older. Their eyes were open, and they were limply sitting there. They looked dead. Surely not, though, right? They couldn’t be. He started to tug against the ties, but they weren’t going anywhere. He still felt the radio tied around his leg. They hadn’t found it yet. He leaned his head back and took a relaxing breath. He couldn’t help but smile. His plan had worked.

  The truck rolled to a stop a few minutes later. Everyone else was still out. The back doors flew open, and a slight breeze poured inside. Soldiers were standing there, their guns aimed at him. He was the only one moving. One of them climbed inside and stopped in front of him. “We’re here to help you,” He spoke slowly. He reached forward to untie him, but the moment he felt both of his restraints loosen, he kicked the man. The soldier fell back into someone else, but Jacob hadn’t thought much further than that small planned attack. Two soldiers stepped in front of the door, aiming their guns at him. He couldn’t make it anywhere. He went to turn back around, but the soldier he had pushed was gone. He immediately felt a sharp pain in his head. He fell forward, his vision blurry as they grabbed his arms and started to drag him across the ground.

  He could see a large building in front of him as they walked through a large, thick wire fence surrounded by barbed wire coils. Large stadium lights shone over hundreds of vehicles and armory sheds. It was a huge military base. They took him inside a door through some sort of bay and threw him on the ground. He groaned and tried to get up onto his feet, but another person grabbed his arm. It looked like a doctor with a long, white lab coat. He shuffled his feet across the marble flooring to try to catch up. “You’re not supposed to be awake this soon,” The doctor shoved him into a chair. “I know a lot isn’t making sense to you right now, but it will. You’re one of the few survivors,” She kneeled and put her hand on his shoulder. Without warning, something was injected into his neck. He immediately brought his hand up, gaining full consciousness. He stood up with a sharp jolt. “In case you get any ideas, there are guards by the doors,” She pulled out a tray full of injections. Jacob looked around, staring at the room. It looked strange, like a lab, but a doctor's office. He didn’t understand how he got here. “I’m going to have to decontaminate you, but first you need some of these immune boosters-”

  “You’re not injecting me with that shit!" He abruptly stepped back. Metal clanked as he bumped into another tray full of empty syringes yet to be disposed of. “Get me the fuck out of here!” He started to step away, feeling the handle of a door behind him. It was locked. One of the guards stepped up, aiming their gun at him. He stepped towards the counter and grabbed a scalpel, then lunged forward and grabbed the doctor, holding it up to her neck. All of the soldiers stepped forward and aimed at him. “I will kill her!” He yelled. The doctor's arm moved, and something was inserted into his leg. He staggered back, looking down at the needle sticking out of his clothes. He looked up, a dullness behind his eyes, and soon found himself falling to the side. The room started to spin. He ran past, pushing towards the door before he fell to the ground.

  “There’s a reason he’s one of the survivors,” The doctor rubbed her hand on her neck to check for a wound. A small droplet of blood beaded around the puncture. She rubbed it between her fingers. “He’s going to do very well.” Jacob reached for the door, but he wasn’t making it very far. His head fell to the side again. He couldn’t let them find the radio. “Brisk him, then send him to the lab.” He didn’t try to waste his energy. He lay there, limp, until he felt hands around his arms. He swung back, digging the scalpel into a soldier's arm. They jumped back, and he crawled for the door, slipping through and reaching up at the handle. He slammed it shut and locked it. His breaths were getting harder and harder, like something was compressing his lungs. He pulled himself to his feet and stared at the long hallway ahead of him. The whole thing was spinning around and around. He wanted to vomit, but he kept walking forward. He could hear the pounding on the door as he stepped. Each time his shoulder slammed into the wall, it was the only thing keeping him upright. He reached for the next door, gripping the handle and turning it. It opened, and inside were rows upon rows of bunks. Hundreds of soldiers were in here, sitting by each other and talking, each of them wearing the same black tactical clothes. A few heads turned, and that's when he realized they weren’t soldiers. They were all of the stolen people. All of the missing kids. The door closed behind him, and he staggered forward. Nothing here was keeping him upright; it was just a big open room with no rails. The loud talking turned into murmurs as he stood there, forcing his eyes to stay straight instead of rolling back into his head. He couldn’t keep this up for long.

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  “Jacob?” One of them yelled. Everyone looked the same in his blurry eyes, but he recognized that voice. “Holy shit, it’s Jacob. It’s Jacob!" Andrew yelled. As he fell forward, Andrew caught him and laid him down.

  “The radio, take the radio,” Jacob kept reaching for his leg, but he was losing the muscle strength to do so. Andrew pulled up his pant leg, staring at the radio in front of him, then took it and stuffed it into his shirt. The doors swung open, and Andrew stepped back, folding his hands behind him and standing like a robot. Each person on the bunk beds did the same; they stood up, faced forward, and folded their hands behind their backs. Soldiers flooded in, aiming at each kid as two picked up Jacob and started to drag him away. He lost every ounce of strength he had left. He felt a hard blow to his stomach as the butt of a gun dug into his ribs. He disappeared behind the door, leaving Andrew standing there, watching and unable to do a thing.

  Once the doors closed and all of the soldiers left, Andrew stayed where he was, looking at the ground where Jacob once lay. “He made it out,” Colton stepped up beside him, putting his hand on Andrew. “I don’t know how he managed that,” Breelyn came running up, Emma and Phoebe on her heels. She was out of breath, but had a glimmer of hope in her eyes.

  “That was Jacob, right?” Breelyn put a hand on her chest. She ran up here as quickly as she could, and it had taken her breath away. “Was Amelia with him?”

  “No, she wasn’t,” He pulled the radio out of his pocket and held it in both of his hands. He spun it around a few times.

  “Where did you get that?” Emma stepped up so she could see. They all stood around it, wondering how a radio got into his hands. A radio from the outside.

  “I got it from Jacob,” Andrew pulled out the Antenna, but quickly closed it in case it started to make any noise. “Why would he break into here to give me a radio? He risked his life for this thing?” Peter came walking up.

  “You need to hide that,” Peter stepped into a gap in the circle. “People are starting to get curious,” Andrew glanced back. A few people were staring, but they didn’t dare to say anything. Not to this group. Their group was the most excelled out of the rest. They were seen as leaders here. “How far does that radio reach?” He took it from Andrew and started to turn it around. He pulled out the Antenna. It was longer than he figured it would be.

  “It looks like it would reach far,” Phoebe said, her arms crossed. The uniforms they wore were uncomfortable on her skin, but after a few days, she was getting used to them. “We need to figure it out. He knows something we don’t, so we need to talk to him about it.”

  “Do you think he’s coming back?” Colton brought up a new possibility. Emma crossed her arms. She was a fairly anxious person, but this was a new type of fear.

  “What if they kill him?” She shuddered at the thought. A new feeling fell over all of them. “Should we go after him?”

  “If they were going to kill him, they would have done it already,” Hunter was standing behind Colton, his arm in a sling. He had a limp, too. He was still recovering from the bombing, but he was unnaturally healed. They had taken all of the child victims from the hospital. “We just need to wait.” Everyone nodded in agreement. Andrew tucked the radio back into his pocket, and they went back to their bunk in the corner. They all sat in a circle, staring silently at the floor or the walls. They had been here for what felt like months, but it hadn’t been long at all. “It might be our only chance at talking to him,” He tried to lift his arm on his own, but it ached.

  After Hunter was left in the triaging area, he was taken to the hospital with the others. He got surgery to fix his arm, but it was expected to be a long recovery. His ankle was just sprained, and there wasn’t much they could do about that, either. Each day, while the others were sent off to train, he was sent back to the infirmary for quicker recovery. They injected him with new things each day, which healed his body much quicker than any medication that had been previously invented. Still, he wasn’t out of the woods yet. He and the others spent a good amount of time trying to find out what the point of their being here was. They had taken every injured person, though none were too old or too young, to try to heal them for something. Everyone was uneasy here, but nobody tried to retaliate either. They were given guns to train, pushed to their limits every day, but no matter how many of them there were, nobody was willing to risk their life to break out of here. Something calmed them all down. He was a bit skeptical about the injections, but they were helping him nonetheless. Until he was fully healed, he couldn’t do anything. He didn't want to leave, though. Why leave a place like this?