Consume. Eat. Do what you can.

Cold walls, floors, bodies… a blue winter tint seems to be over us all. Shriveled bodies, missing limbs, heat only through some peepholes in the walls to the courtyard.

The crackle of electricity turns on. The guards are coming. “Quick, quick children!! Get closer, get in!” Says the widow.

She’s been here since I can remember. A sickly woman with no legs. She has a beaten shawl around her and scoots once a week to the other side of our cell.

The plastic soles hammer into the metal floor and the noises are quickly followed by metallic joints being unlocked along the wall.

“Kids, quick!!” The widow hissed.

But I couldn’t move. Fear crept up. My throat tightened and the knots in my stomach confused me whether I’d throw up right now or if I would cramp into myself.

“Yanti!!” She yelled.

But the door was opened so quickly, and Karla and I were both ripped from the collars of our shirt. The widow cried lowly, and to be silenced a nightstick found its way across her cheek.

She weeped beyond the now shut door.

They took us elsewhere in the dank chamber and rotten smell of blood wafted about. Where were we?

“Up here, now!” The man threw me on the table with straps. Karla stared in horror. “Pin him!” The man barked at her.

“What?!” She asked.

“Unsatisfactory.” He spat at her and raised the nightstick. “Do you want to end up like that old bag?”

“No…” she whimpered, beginning to tie me in.

“Karla?” I asked.

A heavy whirring stirred me. Whats happening? What’s going on?

Brzzzzzzzzzz.

“Karla! What is that?! Sir! Sir!” I yelled.

A searing pain erupted from between my bicep and shoulder. “Ahhhhhhhhh! Stop! Stop! Stop!!!”

Red. And then black.

—

I woke up in a red room. Oak and spruce wore its amber stain well. Karla was there, too. We were sitting at a table.

And then they came in. Ladies and Men dressed in ridiculously clean outfits. They must’ve never dealt with starvation. They must’ve never dealt with the cold. The pain. The consumption that life is.

“Welcome, welcome to our paradise,” the blonde, nasally lady gleamed, “today, we have a very special meal. An ungraded meat and quality-A calves. Grown from the our very own institution!” Her voice raised at the end.

She unveiled the silver platters. Two legs with a deep brown glaze were set, framing the center. And then she lifted the middle piece. An arm of a child- my arm, reaching skyward, with something in its grasp. A red sphere? I’ve never seen something like it before.

“As always, we show gratitude by returning a piece of what we’ve taken.” She sliced effortlessly through a tendon, and I felt a tinge as she did.

“An arm for our kingdom’s reach, and a leg for the strides we’ve made thanks to your sacrifice.”

“Consume. Eat. We do what we can.”