“Yo!, what the f-”

“Shut it kid if you know what's good for ya!” The man was in his face before he could blink, a barrage of questions being thrown at him, one right after the other before the boy even had a chance to answer the previous. The only question that he'd been able to answer was when asked about his name.

“Bryce.”

“What? Speak up runt!” The other spat, bits of drool running down the side of his greasy mouth.

“BRYCE!" 

A mixture of fear and anger washed over the kid, confused at why the little man was suddenly pushing him around like a rag doll, holding his arm where a bruise was mostly forming from being manhandled earlier.

“What are you doing?” Bryce asked as the man did a great job of it ignoring him.

“Why are we here, dammit??”

But the kid's questions continuously fell on deaf ears as he was pushed onto a table and shackled by the wrist and chest as a machine loomed overhead, humming as it scanned with a red laser beam across the boy's face and elsewhere. 

“Get up jerk!” The man yelled, quickly unlocking the straps and, in the same motion, pulling him by the arm up and off the cold stainless steel table. “Now get the hell back out there!”

The kid stood against the wall, holding his stomach for fear of vomiting and doing his best to calm his own nerves while watching the many other kids who were in the same mess -or worse- as he was. This was insane, the whole process went by so fast, first being pulled away from his friends and family and now this...herded like cattle to some unknown fate and having no control over the variables. Bryce surveyed the room and, while he wanted to break down and cry like many of the other boys and girls bruised and battered, he held it back. His head screamed for mercy, his insides churned like a vat of boiling lava, and muscles were tender from the physical abuse since his capture, but the kid stood strong regardless knowing that a complete breakdown wouldn't help his current situation anyway.