I'm sick, deathly sick. It's this new thing that the doctors aren't sure of yet. It's kind of like a living thing inside my body, and when the doctor's try to cut it out, it multiplies and kills you instantly. Kind of like a new form of cancer.

I don't want to die. Mom and I heard of this lady who is in charge of a special quarantine house for kids like me (because only kids seem to get it). I guess when I die, the disease will spread to other people like wildfire. This lady though, knows of a cure and does a special test on all the kids she brings in.

We walk into the facility and the woman smiles at us. I wonder how she can be so cheery when she's dealing with sick people.

"You are the last of the bunch arriving today, follow me." She says.

We got up some pretty long stairs. I'm more in shape than my mother, and I get impatient with her quickly. I'm scared, I want to be cured. There's a tunnel in the wall with more stairs, but these ones you have to climb like ladders. Again, mom is slow.

"Hurry up, Mom." I snap. I don't know why she doesn't want me cured. She's been crying a lot lately, I know she'll miss me. I don't want to think about that, though.

The air is different through the tunnel and so is the light. It's like we have entered a different world. It gives me the chills, but I sit down in the circle of people that have already formed. There are three boys, I believe an older brother, a father, and a cousin, there was also a young girl like me, and her mother. Adding Mom, myself, and the woman, we made 8 all sitting in a circle, except that she was standing.

She waked to the corner of the room and passed each of us a small glass filled with a thick, pink substance. "This substance," she explained, "is part of the cure. The beast inside you however," she looked at the other young girl and me, "needs a life for it to be satisfied, so one of the drinks is poisoned. The cure will not work unless everyone drinks and one of you dies."

I listened to this before quickly drinking mine. So what if I had the poisoned drink? I would only die sooner, and not have to live with the illness. I looked at mom, who was staring at the drink cautiously. The other people around us had already started drinking, except that the other girl was bickering with her mom. My heart fluttered in fear. "Mom, hurry up, would you drink it already?"

A strange smile flickered on the weird woman's face. My mom drank the stuff and shook her head a bit. I sat there, trying to notice if I felt any different, but nothing new happened to me. My knee hurt a bit.

"Which glass had the poison?" I yell at the lady in my fear.

"None of them did," the lady wasn't smiling anymore. "Neither of you girls deserve to have the cure."

My heart sank. If she really had the cure, how could she hold it back? Really?

She motioned for us all to get up: the other girl and her mother were still bickering. I got up and went downstairs. I hugged my mom when she started crying. This was going to be the last time she saw me alive. I was still angry at the woman, for making us believe there was a cure. Even if there had been rumors that people were cured, i don't believe them anymore.

After tearful goodbyes we were led to where we would be sleeping, and met other kids. The only ones who really caught my attention was a boy my age who was small for his size and had a childish look to him, the girl who had been bickering with her mother, and a taller boy.

There were kitchen staff there who were all smiling a little. I guess they were trying to make our last days nice. They seemed nice at least. They passed out treats and we sat down, and like teens we got to know each other pretty quick, though I'm bad with names. I never caught the boy's name who was on the small side, he spoke too quietly and sat too far away from the rest of us. I kind of liked how quiet he was.

After dark, when the night staff had gone away, we all sat in a circle-like pile on the cold floor because the beds were too hot for us. I was sitting by a tall boy who's name was Chris and the bitchy girl who's name was Amber. We were all talking quietly about our friends and home life.

I grew bored with the conversation and turned to the small boy. "I don't think I caught your name."

"It's Merlin," he said, "for short anyway."

I thought about the name Merlin and tried not to laugh at him. I had to lean forward to hear him, I've always had bad hearing.

"When I hiccup," he said, "the conveyor belt down stairs that has the food on it turns on."

And not for the first time I heard the click of the conveyor belt starting. "It must be the illness reacting to us."

"Let's get some food," someone else said. Like magic we all stood at once.

The lights we walked under flickered on and off, giving us a supernatural appearance. It was a little creepy. The kitchen staff were busy making us late night snacks, it was almost as if we sensed them doing it, or they sensed us. I stuck next to Merlin. I thought he needed friends more than the others. I wonder how he managed to fail the test, he was a sweet and innocent kind of person.

"How long ago did you notice that we affect the technology around here?" I asked Merlin.

"From the very first of the night, but when I said something, no one heard me." He admitted.

As we ate our snacks, outside the windows grew light. I was starting to feel weird, and my knee continued to pain. I knew it was in my knee like I knew that my knee was a body part. My vision was starting to go blurry.

A kid made a pass at Merlin. I couldn't understand how people could still be so mean close to their own deaths as well as his. He was hurt and walked away. I saw him stumble, and I knew it was over then for us all. I went to him and picked him up, thankful that he was so small, and carried him over to Amber and Chris. Chris looked like he was sleeping, with half his night-time snack still in his hand. I sat and held Merlin.

"You shouldn't have to die alone," I told him.

I noticed the kitchen staff had vacated the premise. Merlin smiled a little and laid his head on me.