Word count- 1,176

-Zoey-

It’s been a month since her punishment. Zoey’s back still has scabs and itchy. It’s probably going to scar her whole back. They have been watching Zoey since Sandor died.

She gets in her lineup, and they always look at Zoey with the whip in their hands. After lining up, she goes to the great hall to eat. She still eats by herself; she’s always by herself. Every time she goes past their table, they stare at Zoey. Not with disgust, worse with hope. She’s not the answer to these people’s problems.

Zoey sits at her back corner table away from everyone. All of them are staring at her. She sticks her middle finger at them and eats her stale bread. As she leaves the great hall, the group of people stops Zoey.

“Hey, wait,” Serenity said, stopping her.

“Yeah,” Zoey says in a sarcastic tone.

“We are all going to die. We need you,” she said, sounding desperate, like she’s everyone’s last hope. They will be very disappointed.

“Look, I’m not some hero and some last hope,” Zoey tries to explain.

“You’re lost. I remember you and your friends helped everyone. “You guys were starting a rebellion,” Serenity began, but Zoey interrupted her. “Yeah, and then they died,” she said, leaving them standing there. Zoey didn’t see the shocked look on their faces, she just felt it. “Lost, I’m not lost, I just finally woke up,” said to herself. She heads to the mining site. Looks like the tougher guards are working here today. Great.

A couple hours pass, and they start to get tired, mostly the older people. They slow down and the guards are whipping the elderly. The older Volentors cry in pain. They start to bleed; their legs are shaking. Zoey grinds her teeth; She’s shaking, she’s so enraged. Zoey punches the stone wall, the wall shatters where her fist was. All eyes on her, Zoey swung at the guard. He was on the ground, knocked out. The younger generation joins in on the fight. Some people get the elders out of here. They go take the older man out of here. The riots are through the mining system, people are fighting back today. She screams being enraged. Zoey grabs the next guard and starts to hit him. She can’t stop. All Zoey sees is red. Then she feels this eclectic shock in her back, and everything goes all black.

***

Zoey wakes up in the so-called hospital, laying in a rusty old bed. The mattress is completely flat and smells like mold. She tried to sit up, and that’s when she noticed someone had chained her hands to the bed. Zoey hears the door open slowly, and men come walking in wearing their fancy suits. They look at her like she’s the disappointment in the family. A low growl comes out of her. She feels enraged again; Zoey feels so much power. It’s power that feels like it needs to be released. “Nocere tibi non sumus iens,” the guards said. She laughs because all they do is hurt them. Lying to her saying they aren’t going to hurt her. “Quod omnium vestrum est,” Zoey answered back in Latin’s Earth’s dead language. On Earth that means “that’s all you do.” They put their hands up like they are surrendering. “We don’t want to hurt you, Zoey,” one man said in very broken up English.

“Why are you here, and why am I chained up like a dog in the medical building?” She questioned.

“You started the riots by hitting Sgt. Zoul, that’s why you’re chained up here,” one man said. There’s four of them all in tailored suits and fancy watches. “I wouldn’t have to, but you treat us like shit,” she snapped at them. “Your kind will destroy our people,” another man barked at Zoey.

“You’re the monsters, we don’t lock up our own kind, make them starve, and put us in slave labor until we die!” Zoey shouted at them. Some stuff starts to shake in her room. The third man steps in to defuse the situation. “Zoey, please remain calm. We have to put a new collar on you. Your powers are unstable,” he said, holding up a new one. Zoey has no clue about her powers, or if they’ve even manifested. She feels alive, Zoey feels whole for the first time in her life. “I am never wearing a collar ever again.” Zoey tells herself. Zoey didn’t respond fast enough. They hold her down; Zoey squeezes her eyes shut. She hears things shaking in the room; hearing things crash on the floor. They let go of her. Zoey opens her eyes and screams. The walls crumble, she screams, “I am never wearing a collar ever again!” They ran away from her. Well, they try. Zoey smirks, she puts her hand out in front of her. Forcing them to stop, no matter how hard they try to leave. They aren’t leaving here alive. They scream in pain as she shatters everything in their bodies. Their bones are first, the sweet sound of revenge. Zoey hears their bones break and crack one by one. She starts their organs next; they all start to bleed from everywhere they can bleed out. Their bodies turned limp; Zoey dropped them on the concrete floor. She breaks the chains and walks out. Never feeling so alive until today. The guards are getting calls on their radio that something happened. There aren’t any guards around. She stops and listens. Zoey hears guards whispering and radios on the lowest volume. The guards and the rest of her kind are hiding. She opens up shacks, the first one is her old sleeping quarters. Looks like most of the other slaves are here. Zoey raises her hands to take their collars off. They all touch their necks, and they all smile next. “Where’s everyone else?” She asks them.

“The Great Hall,” one brown-haired girl said.

“Get out of here and run as far as you can. We have powers, use them, protect our own and only our own,” she tells them. Exiting the shack and making her way to the Great Hall, tearing off the doors with her gifts. Zoey heard screams, and she recognized Serenity and her friends. “I’m not lost, I’m just awoken,” Zoey declared, removing everyone’s collars and walking away. There was a guard standing right outside the building. “Your Cretins,” he said in very broken English.

“And you’re the monsters,” she said as Zoey lifted him off the ground. She threw him on the other side of the camp. He died on impact. Zoey heads out of the great hall and heads towards the gate. The other Cretins are behind her, following Zoey. She didn’t ask for this; she was avoiding leading them. Zoey’s not a leader; she’s just someone who wants to live in peace and alone. Before she can do that, Zoey needs to lead them out of this concentration camp, and that’s exactly what she does.