The Decision- Short Story

I often get headaches. They seem to be the first thing I get when I'm stressed, and I dare you to find even a moment in the past year where I wasn’t stressed. Simply put, I'm always stressed. But today’s headache was something special, something new, something worse. Before, it hurt in specific places such as my frontal lobe or occipital lobe. Whereas today, it hurt in those same places and pretty much every other possible part. I kept my eyes closed, and I could practically hear my head pulsating in agony. I just wanted to sit there and wait for the pain to go away. However, something was telling me that it wouldn’t pass.

Soon enough, I accepted that my head wasn’t going to get better anytime soon, so I decided to start focusing on other things around me in hopes of being able to ignore the pain. Straightaway, I noticed my shoulders felt as if they were burning. It was as if rugby players were practicing tug of war by each team holding on to each of my arms and pulling as hard as they could. I lifted my head up, eyes still closed, and tilted it left and right. I achieved what I was aiming for, and that was to crack my neck, however I might’ve over achieved because the popping sounds that ensued were louder and more painful than I have ever experienced. And trust me, I crack my neck daily.

It was at this time when I realized the smell. There wasn’t one. I like to think I have sharpened my smelling and tasting senses over the many years I’ve spent going from restaurant to restaurant, and there was no aroma in the air; I only tasted the metal in my mouth. Metal, I must’ve been bleeding in my mouth. I could hear nothing but a ringing in my ear, like the one you get when there’s absolutely no sound whatsoever and it feels as if you are in space and your head is about to just pop. Once I came to realize that what I was smelling, tasting, hearing, and feeling was abnormal, I started paying attention to all my senses.

I suddenly opened my eyes, panicking at what I was experiencing, and what I saw confirmed my suspicions. I was sitting down in a wooden chair, hands tied behind my back. The chair and I were inside a cold concrete room, a wall to my back, with a large mirror on the opposite of me. No doors, hatches, or vents. But it was what was in the room with me that freaked me out the most.

There were two other teenagers, sitting in the same chair and position, but facing opposite directions with their backs to a separate wall from each other and me. One of them was a really skinny, really pale, white kid. He looked about average height, but his body mass seemed to be very low. I could tell because he was wearing a black tank top and really tight jeans. On the other side was a really underdressed brown girl. The first thought I had was that she must’ve been getting ready for a pool party or something.

I took another look at the guy, then again at the girl. Then it hit me, they both went to my school. It was hard with my headache, but their names and who they were eventually came to my head. Trevor and Anika.

Trevor was an athletics star. He was fast, sneaky, and quick witted. At our school, football season is at the end of first semester, soccer season is at the beginning of second semester, and track season is near the end of the second semester. Trevor played in all three, he hopped from one to the other every year for the past three years. He was in no way strong, but he was fast. He was a wide receiver for football, a left back in soccer, and he ran all the relays for track. He was never astounding at any of them; he was decent, but the fact that he was able to do three sports year long is what amazes a lot of people. How could he possibly study for his classes, maintain a social life, and play three sports at the same time?

Anika was one of the stereotypical and generic “popular” girls. She was a dancer, and she danced competitively for the school. Her parents were from Iran, but she was born and raised in the states. However, due to the unpredictability of genetics, she was very dark skinned, and she hated it. Because of this, she wore a lot of makeup and went to very expensive places to get her hair and eyebrows done. She was known to be a gossiper, and was friends with everyone in the school at one point or another; however, those friendships would soon end when she spread rumors about very personal things without their permission. She would tell everyone everything about a person, from their eating habits to their drug habits. She’s still one of the most desired girls at the school and it baffles me how blind some people could possibly be. Every guy wants to get with her, and every girl wants to be her. But for the most part, no one else does what she does, and they’re all better off for it.

I had no idea what to make of the current situation I was in though. I didn't want to jump to any conclusions without more facts or evidence, but I was getting a bit scared. This wasn't the police because there are set rules and regulations for a legal interrogation room and the room we were in didn’t meet those, but that’s all I know. Maybe we were kidnapped? They’re holding us until our parents pay our ransoms, then they’ll release us. I haven’t seen any faces other than Trevor’s and Anika’s, so maybe they’ll let us free. But I can’t assume any of that; I have nothing concrete to back up the initial statement I made about kidnapping.

While I was remembering and thinking of all this, my head was still hurting, so I had closed my eyes. Little did I know the others were also waking up. I hear Anika say something but it didn't cut through my hangover nor my headache, so I wasn't able to comprehend.

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When I first woke up, I said out loud, “Wow, how do I already have a hangover when I haven't even gotten to the party?”. That’s when I decided to actually see who I was talking to. And what I saw didn’t shock me. I was obviously being pranked. One of my many friends must’ve rented a room in the back of some store or something, given me some hardcore party pills to knock me out, and dragged me in here with these two other guys.

I went to check my hair and makeup on the mirror that was to the right of me, but then realized I was tied down to a chair. This was annoying. At least I wasn't hurt. I had a headache, but that might’ve just been the shots of vodka I took before leaving my house. That’s a really bad habit: I should probably stop showing up drunk to every party I go to. But I’ve noticed that people are more open to me when I'm drunk. It makes hearing new stories much easier, and more fun. Oh the stories I have locked up in my head. I try to help some people find new friends by telling their stories to other people that I think would be a good match. Doesn't always work out, but matchmaking is an art form, not an exact science. I just want everyone to know everyone else. If I can be close friends with everyone, then I might finally be popular. I just have too many people who hate me; that’s probably why I go out to every party thrown and talk with every stranger I meet. But hey, no harm, no foul, am I right?

But what was surprising was the other people in the room. I know for a fact they weren’t invited to the party, so why would they be here with me? I take a closer look to figure out who they are.

The guy on the left of me is a tall, chinese looking dude. He has light brown hair, a leather jacket, nice pants and belt, and a clean pair of new shoes. He’s dressed really nice, and looks like he works out often. Took me a second, but I recognize him. His name is Ken. He mostly kept on the down low, didn’t attend parties, and didn’t ever date, like anyone. Everyone in the school loves him though; he’s funny and cool, but as far as I know, he doesn’t have many close friends. He never goes out and is always studying. However, that didn’t stop me from digging up dirt on him. Turns out his dad’s a huge alcoholic. He once got a DUI and was almost fired from his job because of it, but he owned a ton of well off restaurants around the city. This meant he was close friends with the mayor who went to his restaurants regularly and pulled in a favor. His mom’s no better; she’s super strict about everything and extremely over protective, a really good example of a tiger mom. She’s never worked a day in her life because her dad is rich and pays for everything for her, like food and jewelry and other expenses. But Ken and his dad don’t know that. She’ll go all out for birthdays and christmas and other holidays, but never once helped to pay the bills and never once donated a to charity. Ken has some issues himself. He is a compulsive liar and extremely two-faced. Well, more like three hundred-faced. He never talks bad about other people or betrays them. He’s 100% against bullying. However, he acts completely different around every person he’s ever talked to. He has a different life story to tell each time he meets a new person. He lies about everything from grades to his hobbies. No one actually knows if all the studying he is doing is helping him because to some people he’ll say he has all A’s, while to others he’ll say he has a 2.1 GPA. Whatever story he needs to sell himself as a likeable person, is the story that fits him.

That’s when the other guy, the one in front of me, woke up. I recognized him right away: Trevor, the creep. He looked up, then around. All of a sudden. he started flailing around, maybe trying to break from his bonds, but when you have toothpicks for arms it’s very hard to get anything done, let alone tear through a thick rope. Don’t even get me started on all the screwed up things he does. From what I’ve heard, he deals major drugs for a local, small time, no name “gang”. He delivers from the seller directly to the buyer, and has never been caught by the police, by parents, or by rival gangs. But the thing about rival gangs is that there aren't any; the gang that he’s in can barely even be called a gang. It’s honestly just an organized drug dealing business. It’s whatever though; they can call themselves whatever they want. Both his parents were killed during a hostage situation where the same gang that he works for now held up a jewelry store a couple years back. There was only three hostages, Trevor's parents and the owner of the store. The gang members killed them all and took all the jewelry. No one knows what happened to them, whether they got caught or escaped. Either way, it’s a great story. Everyone that knows he joined the gang calls him stupid and I think I heard that a doctor called him mentally unstable. He lived with his aunt and her two twin daughters, but the freakiest thing is that both the daughters were found dead in a car accident. The coroner said they died on impact, and it was written off as a road accident, but I heard that Trevor cut their brakes before they left for a fun day out. Everyone knew the twins had really expensive tastes and were attention seekers, and apparently Trevor didn’t like that one bit.

Well that’s enough storytelling for now, but I’ve got way more juicy details about both of these losers. At the moment, I just want this prank to be over with so that I can get to the party. I heard the host has a huge pool. Whoever is pulling it is taking a while; I have places to be and things to do. Also, Trevor is creeping me out; he still hasn't stopped flailing around. And Ken looks like he’s thinking, or dying, I honestly can't tell. Or maybe he’s sleeping? That’s actually a good idea. I might take a nap right now.

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I’ve made mistakes. Many mistakes. There’s a lot of mistakes I won’t share with you. Just know I regret absolutely nothing. Every action and word I’ve spoKen, I meant everything. I’m ready to accept the consequences for all of my actions. Everything I have ever done, and ever plan on doing has a purpose. Everything I have ever done, and ever plan on doing is justified. If I die today, I’ll die knowing I’ve lived my life to the fullest. Or whatever is full at my age. Full is very subjective. Different people want different things out of life.

One thing I can’t have though is others suffering because of me. Ken is actually a cool dude, and Anika is just guilty of having a big mouth. They haven’t had to face any of the things I’ve ever done; they don't deserve this. But that brings up a good question: what is this? And what are Ken and Anika doing here? Is there some way we’re all connected?

Ken tried to be friends with me once. He offered me a deal: I teach him how I balance all the sports I do with a normal life and he’ll let me workout with him and teach me how to get stronger. What he doesn’t understand is I don’t have a normal life. I’m in football because every player needs adderall. They need it to focus during games and in class so they can pass and keep playing. I happen to run fast so I got a spot on varsity as a wide receiver. With the amount of adderall the quarterback takes, I don’t ever have to worry about catching the ball because his passes are always on target, extremely accurate, so I really just need to have my arms open and the ball will land there. Anyway, I decided to turn down Ken because I felt he needed to focus more on his other hobbies other than working out. Ken has his own addiction: underground racing. He owns a CRX, but he modified it like crazy, to a point where his record is fifty wins and four losses. That’s an impressive record, unlike the school's soccer teams. While the football players abuse adderall, the soccer players buy marijuana by the bucket loads. You might think that’s an exaggeration, but one day they were having a party and they literally bought enough marijuana to fill three buckets. Surprisingly, it was all gone that weeKend. But it’s whatever for me. The more people buy, the more money I get from the ten% I get to keep from sales. That’s basically what I know about Ken; he likes to keep his personal details to himself. Only reason I know about his street racing career is because I once had a client who was at one of the races and everyone was talking about the legendary Ken and his magic car.

On the other hand, there’s Anika: the single most hated person in the school. I’ve been around, and everytime she comes up in conversations, it’s all just negative stuff. There was a time I had to deliver to a party, and the guy who was buying told me to stick around and have some fun. I decided I might as well take a break because I was done delivering for that night. Anika walks, or rather stumbles, up to me and tries to become friends with me. I didn't know she was the infamous Anika because she never introduced herself, and I thought she was nice so I opened up and told her a bit about me. She had this thing about her that just made you feel comfortable and want to talk. However, a couple days after our conversation, I heard people were saying I had killed my cousins. This infuriated me, because it was an accident, I had nothing to do with their deaths. Yes, I disliked them, but never enough to commit murder. One thing Anika doesn't know is that her older brother is an addict. He has a similar allure to Anika, but in reverse. He can’t stop talking, and somehow gets everyone to listen and stay listening. So I learned a lot about Anika and her parents, and also other family members. However, unlike Anika, I didn't spread those stories. Mainly because I didn't want to bring up parents in general. My own parents were killed by a rival gang to the one I joined. The guy I report to tells me one day I’ll be able to confront the killers myself and get revenge or vengeance or whatever, they’re all the same. But he said for now I have to keep working, building up my reputation, and climbing up the social ladder until I'm at a point where I'm respected enough.That’s when a thought hit me. What if I’m here for a gang related incident? I hadn’t been paying attention to my surroundings until just then. For the most part, I'm not afraid of death, but I'm curious and would like to see what this is about.

But the more I thought about it, the less I thought it was gang related. With gangs, It’s all about fear, not suspense. They would send in members that are tatted up with spiked bats and hand guns. They wouldn’t keep us in here, locked up for such a long time, just waiting. And there’s no way it can be a rival gang because my gang is the biggest and has the most respect. No one would ever dare to kidnap a member; It would start a turf war. I’ve heard descriptions of police cells; however, I’ve never been in one, and this isn't anything like what I’ve heard. I honestly dont know whats happening. I guess I might as well give up trying to break loose. I'm just wasting my energy. Looks like Trevor and Anika fell asleep. I guess I can take this time and meditate. My doctor told me I need to work on managing my anger, or I might become emotionally unstable.

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As the test subjects calmed down, the three scientists in white lab coats behind the two way mirror put down the pens they were taking notes with. The room they were in was small and dark. There was but one light bulb hanging from the center of the ceiling, emitting a low yellow hue, and one plain wooden table. They each had note pads which contained details of each of the test subjects and a pad of sticky notes. They had every bit of information on the subjects they could legally get their hands on. They seemed to have very little down as far as notes go. In unison, they turned to face one way and marched in a line out the dark room and and out into a brightly lit hallway.

The hallway was much bigger, had a marble floor and walls and the lighting was a vibrant white. They continued to march down the hallway until they reached a door on the opposite wall from which they left. The scientist in the front lifted his right hand to knock on the door. However, instead of making contact with the door with his knuckles, he kept his hand up, at a perfect 90° angle to his body, with his forearm facing perfectly parallel to the door just inches away from touching his nose.

There was a barcode under his palm and on his wrist, which was directly across from a scanner placed on the door. The scanner read the barcode, recognized his clearance, and swung open the door. The door slowly opened, with no sound nor inconsistency. The scientists waited patiently until the door came to a full stop before entering the room.

Inside was a barren office room. It was similar in design to the hallway, with nothing inside but a man sitting in a chair behind a desk. No color, no paintings, flora, lamps, nothing. The man was a general, which could be inferred from the insignia on his military uniform, which is a silver eagle with outstretched wings. Once the scientists marched in, they turned in unison, and stood shoulder to shoulder facing the general, and the general stood up to greet them.

“At ease!” commanded the general.

“Sir, yes sir!” replied all three scientists at once. Once this was said, the general sat back down, while the scientists continued to stand in a rigid manner.

“What’s the report today men? Any progress? We’re gonna need some soon if we want to keep the board happy and our investors pockets open.” asked the general as he looked attentively at the three men standing in front of him.

The scientist in middle steps forward and reads, “Subject # 110177: Light head trauma present. Small tear in the supraspinatus on right shoulder. First to wake. Drowsy and possible dizziness. No attempt at leaving constraints.” He then takes a step back.

The scientist on the right does the same and says, “Subject # 110178: Intoxication levels of of .16 - .19. Second to wake. Sole one to speak. Slight attempt at leaving constraints. Look of disgust when facing Subject #110179. Sole one to fall asleep and snore.”

Then finally the scientist in the left follows suit and says, “Subject #110179: Dehydrated. Last to wake. Extreme efforts to break constraints, no result. Resorted to meditation.”

“Well atleast we didnt have any deviants this time around. Has the machine come out with a report?” asked the general.

“Yes sir! It will arrive on your computer soon.” replied the middle scientist.

“Lets hope it we get legible results this time around” stated the general as he put on his reading glasses and turned to the computer in front of him. For the next half hour, the general spent his time drudging through the massive piles of information in order to discern if the machine was correctly doing what its inventors promised it could do.

A couple years back, in 2039, man had made huge strides in the world of science. A colony was striving on mars under the watch of the CEO of the Planetary Society, Bill Nye. Gigafactories powered the entire world thanks to none other than Elon Musk. And a small group of no name inventors built a rudimentary mind reading machine. It could turn memories, dreams, and thoughts (both conscious and subconscious) all into binary code which then could be translated into readable data. However there were many issues, and no practical use for such a machine. That is until the United States military got their hands on the patents. They paid the group of inventors 113.4 billion dollars for the rights of the machine. It was a no brainer for the rag tag inventors, and sold it without a second thought.

When the military brought it down to their remote labs, they worked to find and fix all the issues. The biggest problem was the mass amounts of data that would flood in. The human brain has huge amounts of information stored within it, and the machine would read all of it. If the computer couldn't handle all of it, then it would get fried and would be rendered useless. So for the next couple years, .25% of the american tax dollar was spent on testing and improving this machine. Back in the present day, the year 2060 is coming to an end, and so was the general’s analysis of the report given to him by the machine. He got up to print out the final copy, then came back and sat down in his chair. “This right here, will change the world as we know it. Life on mars and efficient power production will pale in the light of this discovery.” said the general in a cheery voice.

“May we ask why sir? How can a machine that can read minds be more important than adding biological diversity in studies of life? How does it even compare to providing low cost energy to all cities across the globe?” the middle scientist inquired.

“Imagination good man, imagination. Just listen to what they were thinking.” The general then proceeded to relay the foremost thoughts the test subjects had while they were being maintained in the room.

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“Quiverific, isn’t it?”

“But what does that actually mean. What can we learn from these seemingly feckless thoughts.”

“Look at how each of the kids takes in the situation they’re all in differently. Ken was cool and calm, he was thinking logically and trying to use his senses to understand where he was. He dismissed the idea that it might be police right away, then thought it might be kidnapping but decided not to assume anything. Anika was lighthearted and optimistic, she thought it was all a prank. She was laid back, telling stories, and ended up taking a nap. Trevor was ready to die. He didn't really care, and when he got curious, he thought maybe it was a rival gang or the police for like a second but ended up saying it wasn't and went back to not caring whatsoever.

Then there was how each of the kids viewed the other kids in different ways. Ken looked at Anika and basically said she spread rumors and everyone liked her. He was pretty factual in that sense, only really gave his opinion at the end when he had the whole "how can people be so blind" thought. Then he looked at Trevor and saw the best aspect of him, his athletic ability. He essentially praised him. However what he said wasn’t subjective, and were statements that anyone would say about Trevor. Anika looked at Trevor and Ken and saw the worst in them. She criticized Trevor’s parents then Trevor. She just told a bunch of personal stuff like it was nothing, they were just stories to her. She even lied and twisted the truth about Trevor. Trevor looked at Ken and Anika and mostly just talked about himself, because he didn’t have much to talk about. He said whatever he knew about, but that wasn't much. So he made up for his lack of knowing the other two kids by talking about himself. He's the only kid to do so, which exposed Anika as a person who does spread rumors.

Now think about the possibilities if we spread the range to the whole city, or the whole state, hell, let’s cover the whole world. We could stop any and all terrorists, dictators, corrupt politicians, serial killers, rapists before they’re able to do any harm.”

“But what about privacy?”

“Answer me this. Would you rather have major crime rates become near negligible, or live in a sin ridden world where monsters are allowed to do what they please every day. We must be willing to give up our thoughts in order for world peace. I have the perspective to sacrifice just a little for the greater good. Are you?

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