Manipulation Room victim no. 201923
Name: Nico Jasper 
Age: 76 years old 
Occupation: Retired
Family Member: 21-year-old grandson, Casper 
Description: Pellet of cyanide is dropped into sulfuric acid which creates hydrogen cyanide poison, then forced victim to exhale 

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"Are you sure you want to do this?" Ezra asked, scrolling through his phone to find the correct location of the riot. "Ezra, I'm certain. And asking me a hundred times isn't going to change my mind." I laughed, leaning forward to see the screen of his phone. He smiled gratefully, "Thank God for that. We're gonna make a difference, I know we are."
"God, I hope so."

He tapped the screen with the tip of his finger, "There. Ebrima Forte Square."
"Oh, me, Kierra and...Credence...we used to go there all the time." I explained. Back when Credence didn't turn ice cold at a glance. He changed and I still don't know why. I doubt I ever will, which only makes the pain of losing a great friend sting more. "Is it close?" He asked, scanning through news article after news article on the 'Ebrima Riots'

I nodded, "Yep, a ten-minute walk, max. Shall we go?" I asked, but Ezra didn't move. His eyes were stuck on the screen, panic-stricken and ten shades bluer. I cleared my throat, "Ezra? Ezra, are you okay?"
He looked up and shook his head, "Yeah, fine. Let's go."
I folded my arms, "You're the opposite of fine. What's wrong?"
He stared stubbornly for a second before giving in entirely and turning his screen to face me. And there, in bright red writing it said 'FIVE PEOPLE KILLED IN THE EBRIMA RIOTS. AREA MARKED AS A DANGER HAZARD'

"I don't think we should go. It's bound to be dangerous. What if something happens?" He asked, rubbing his hands together nervously. I came forward and clutched his arm, "Ezra, this entire plan is dangerous. Everything we're doing right now screams danger. If we stop at the first threat then we might as well quit now."
He glanced up at me, conflicted, before sighing and shaking his head. "You know I'll never forgive myself if you die, right?" He sighed. I grinned, "I expect nothing less."
"I also hate that you're always right about everything..."
"You know you love it really."
"You're right about that too."

We walked to the Ebrima Riots, practically shaking with fear. This was only the beginning of a plan that was going to be more dangerous than we could even anticipate. More people flocked around us as we neared closer. Crowds and crowds of people holding signs. I read them passingly and saw messages like 'Multiply not manipulate!' and 'I'm a murderer. #MRvictim'

I tapped Ezra on the arm as he struggled to make his way through the crowd. "What's a Mr victim?" I asked. He shook his head, "Not Mr...M-R. Manipulation Room initials. It's a hashtag going around, anyone whose been in the room itself is known as an MR victim." I stared at the sign again, before following him through the crowd. Scared of losing me in the vast crowd, he held tightly onto my hand and dragged me through, tightening his grip as the crowds grew denser. I clung to him, practically choked with claustrophobia and scared of becoming lost in such a vast, scary place.

We suddenly broke through the other side, huffing and wheezing. We made it. "This is it...the Ebrima Riots." Ezra exhaled, breathing a sigh of relief. I looked around and he was right, this was it. A riot. In moments the crowd that had been cheering stood silent, bereft. Then came flashes of anger, jeers, shouting. A window was smashed. Some stood panicked, others dissipated as fast as they could, fleeing to the buses and trains, or else just down side streets. But a core of them stayed, burning cars, looting, smashing, destroying property with no thought to whom it belonged to. They had become a mob, mindless and dangerous.

Ezra pulled me towards him and whispered in my ear, "Please stay close to me, I'm worried."
I smiled at him, "Are you scared for me or yourself?"
He smiled back, "Both."

Suddenly, there was the crackling of a mic and distant yelling. "She's making a speech! Everyone shut it! Shush!" Ezra directed me to an empty patch of grass and pointed to a large screen that was being projected onto the back of one of the buildings around the square. There was a woman standing there, a microphone attached to her collar, wearing a shirt that read '#MRvictim'

"I'm Astrid Shiloh, Raven Shiloh's younger sister." She croaked. The crowd went silent. "President Thanatos has told us that someone needs to die in order for the rest of our survival...and he's right. But where does it say that this person being killed by a beloved family member will make any kind of difference?"

Ezra tensed up beside me, "She's wrong. No one needs to die...no one." He sighed. "Get up there." I responded, abruptly, which resulted in him raising an eyebrow at me. "Are you crazy? No way." He shook his head. I folded my arms, "Why not?"
"I'm a sixteen-year-old student with a book full of notes and diagrams. It's me against the whole government. That's why I need to do this...right now, I got nothing."

I nodded, "No one'll believe you. They'll think you're just an optimistic child whose sick of death."
He folded his arms, "Exactly..."

When our eyes returned to the stage, Astrid was still talking. She was speaking of her sister, Raven Shiloh, and her amazing work. It was amazing, indeed. She created homes for children orphaned by the Manipulation Room, dating programmes for those who had their partner's taken and wanted new lives and she worked tirelessly to end the Manipulation Room for good. In the end, that's what killed her. Which is what everyone else is afraid of. Death. Not the room itself, but what it holds. Death.

Photos flashed on the screen, disappearing almost as soon as they appeared. "What are the photos?" Ezra asked, turning to face me. I shrugged but a man standing behind us wearing a shirt that said #MRvictim answered the question. "People that died in the Manipulation Room." He paused before pointing to the screen. "That's my grandfather...Nico Jasper." He cleared his throat, a pained expression flashed over his face. "I killed him."

Ezra nodded slowly, his eyes drifting to the screen, bright and wild with anticipation. I knew exactly what he was looking for. He was looking for his father, just like I was looking for mine. We were both desperate to see a glimpse of our beloved fathers. After the Manipulation Room, Mama didn't keep up photos of him. It hurt her too much to see him, to know why he wasn't alive anymore. Ezra turned back to the man who was wiping tears on his navy shirt, "That must've been hard."

The man shrugged, "It was him or me. My mother convinced me that he would barely have lived past then anyway...and that he wouldn't have lived a very pleasant existence knowing he killed his own grandson. She was probably right, but I still felt like...like a cold-blooded murderer!" He rubbed his hands together and choked down his tears, his lower lip was trembling and his eyes were tearful and bloodshot.

I turned to Ezra, slightly baffled and awkward, having no idea what to say and hoping he'd find something. He just nodded slowly, "It wasn't your fault. Your grandfather would've wanted you to live your best life."
I nodded in agreement, "Yeah, he wouldn't want you to live your life overcome by grief and regret. I'm sure."
The man cried into his sleeve, and I grimaced as thick layers of snot stained his shirt. He staggered away; mumbling thank you's as he was engulfed by the crowds.

Ezra cleared his throat but didn't say anything. Neither of us knew what to say. "Damn..." I exhaled. Ezra didn't reply. His eyes were glued to the screen and I followed his glance. And there he was. Ezra's father. It was quick, and if I blinked, I would've missed it. But it was there. Clear as day. Ezra trembled, biting his lip; his forehead was creased with pain. I put a hand on his shoulder, awkward as always and unsure of what to do. As it turned out, however, I didn't need to do anything.

Ezra practically fell on me, sobbing uncontrollably into my shoulder. He wrapped his arms around my neck and found comfort in my arms as I hugged him back. I hugged him tight and whispered consolation into his neck. I could feel his whole body shaking against mine. I stroked his hair and held him close, hearing his cry die down over time till it was simply a sob. Eventually, he pulled away and I couldn't help wishing he hadn't. He wiped his eyes on the sleeve of his jumper, biting his lip so hard I thought it would bleed.

He groaned, shaking his head and flicking his hair back off his face. "I'm so sorry. That was...embarrassing." He whimpered. I wanted nothing more than to hug him again, to take full advantage of being in his arms. Or him being in mine. Either way I wanted to experience it again. I shook my head, "It's only embarrassing if you make it. I understand, Ezra...I understand."
He leaned against a nearby car that had been turned into a wreck of metal and exhaled, rubbing the back of his neck. "That hug...it was nice."
I smiled, "It was, wasn't it?"

He cleared his throat, "When your dad died...did you ever dislike your mother? Like you couldn't help feeling like she was a murderer. Like she had murdered your father voluntarily."
And I knew exactly what he was talking about; because that's exactly how I felt. I didn't speak to Mama for weeks after Papa had died. I didn't even come down for dinner or sit with her in the evenings. It was selfish of me and quite frankly, stupid. Mama had just done an awful thing and she needed someone to support her. She needed me to be there for her and I wasn't.

Echo wasn't either. She dealt with her grief in different ways. She was never home, always out with friends or staying at a boy's house. When she was home, she was a nightmare. I reacted by being completely silent; she was quite the opposite. Yelling and screaming when there wasn't any milk in the fridge, because Papa would always make sure there was milk in the fridge.

Our totally-out-of-order reactions didn't end naturally either. They ended when we were all sitting in the living room, three and a half weeks later. The air was full of tension, so thick it was suffocating. Mama asked if we wanted to go out to dinner to which Echo replied with 'Yeah, lemme just go and ask Papa' and I remained silent. Mama exploded with something that wasn't grief or rage. It was ten times worse. It wasn't the disappointment card either. It was like she blamed herself entirely. Like we were right...which only made it worse because secretly we knew we weren't.

I walked beside him and leant against the car wreck, glancing up to see Astrid Shiloh still talking on the stage. "I didn't speak to my Mum for four weeks...and I know now, how selfish I was. My mum needed someone more than she ever did, and I wasn't there for her." I exhaled deeply, "This room's taken so much from us. That's why what we're doing right now is so important."

Ezra smiled wistfully, "You're...amazing. You know that?"
I grinned, my cheeks burning up as he spoke. "You're not so bad yourself."
The crowds were growing larger and larger. People were yelling and screaming, cheering and hooting. No one in the crowd was silent. The crowd was one body, moving and speaking together as it settled at the front of the stage.

Ezra and I watched as Astrid finished the last of her speech. "I'd now like to hand it over to my dear friend, Natlee Lucida." She announced, but before Lucida could get to the stage a random man who seemed to be dishevelled and exhausted launched himself at the microphone and grabbed it. There was a quiet gasp that due to the enormity of the crowd was infinitely louder and confused murmurs spread across the people. I leaned closer so that Ezra could hear me and asked, "What's going on?"

He simply shrugged, "I have no clue...a fascist maybe?"
The man breathed heavily into the microphone and cleared his throat, "Y'all are crazy and imma tell you why!" He yelled, putting up one arm and pointing to the sky. He was acting drunk, but I wasn't sure he was. He was drunk on something, but not alcohol. "Okay, so I killed my girlfriend, yeah. Proper nice gal too. Shout-out to her in heaven, her name's Brianna. Well, it was. Before she was dead, you get me?"

Ezra groaned, "This man is crazy."
I nodded my head in agreement. "Okay, so yeah...I killed her. It was proper nasty and yeah, I was kinda sad. Like you pathetic lot, basically. Horrid business. But then I realised Thanatos's intention." He paused and coughed into the microphone, spraying the front row of the audience with saliva, before continuing. "He just wants us to survive, you know. He's a good guy, at heart. Y'all are just selfish. Blind to the truth." There were many yells of disapproval, a lot of swearing too. No one was willing to listen, which was good. This man was talking absolute ludicrous. Anyone who stuck up for that man was just as bad.

"Thanatos changed my life for the better. And when I finally realised, I was indebted to the man. He's a good guy, our president. Don't be so nasty, yeah?" Everyone continued to yell and shriek, some even resorted to throwing things at him which he was quick to dodge. After he'd cleverly dodged someone's trainer he shrugged. He started to walk off stage before stopping and returning to the microphone. "I'm just saying, when you're all suffocating on the streets, seeing your lives flash before your eyes as ya face death, you're gonna wish you listened." And just like that he ran off stage, disappearing into the crowds who tried hard to keep him out.

The crowds were silent for a moment, both from fear and utter disbelief. The D word of 'death' had been used and now people were frightened and unsure. It's always a deeper subject when death is brought into it. Suddenly, the same man who had been crying to us earlier came forward and yelled out into the crowds "Bullshit!"
This resulted in everyone screaming approval and yelling signs of agreement. The noise was so loud that it was almost unbearable.

Ezra looked around before turning to face me, "This is...crazy."
"Did you take pictures?" I asked, wearily looking around, trying to dodge people running by. He held up his phone, "'Course I did. Shall we get out of here?"
I nodded slowly, "Yeah...lets go."

I followed him back through the crowd but forgot to grab onto his hand this time. To say I feel like I was drowning in the crowds makes as much sense as a raindrop protesting to join the ocean... but I did. I just wanted to find a quiet tree in a quiet spot to feel serenity once more, a book open on my lap and the breeze tickling my neck. I was the raindrop that falls on the beach, sits on a pebble and adores the ocean from close by, savouring the salty aroma and the motion of the waves.

I gasped for air as I was practically engulfed by the crowd. There were elbows in my rib, hands on my face and I was struggling to think straight. "Ezra! Ezra, where are you?!" I screamed, receiving strange and worried looks from everyone in the crowd. I didn't care, I yelled so loud my throat hurt. A second of struggling later and he was there. Right in front of me with his arms wrapped protectively around me. He was staring at me with diamond eyes, ten shades brighter with worry. "Lyric! Are you okay? God...I'm so sorry." He dropped his head on my shoulder and exhaled with relief. I let the comfort of his head resting on my shoulder flood my body with calmness and I leant my body against his.

"Never leave me again." I whispered breathlessly, just loud enough for him to hear. He nodded into my shoulder before grabbing my hand and threading his fingers through mine. "I'll never leave you again. That's a promise." He stated, holding up our clasped hands.

And he guided me safely through the crowds and onto an empty patch of grass where we traded the photos we'd taken and discussed the plan further.

I knew, when I looked into his eyes, that he had made that promise, and he intended on keeping it.