The Cubicle of Doom

by Tina Zeng (7)

I sat on the sticky white chair, feeling ants crawl over my body. The eyes of those around me were invulnerable chains, locking me down onto the icy leather prison. From above my seat, my parents stared at me, their eyes shining with malice. Beside me, an old man with stringy, graying hair sat reading one of the magazines on the table beside him. He glanced sideways at me, those piercing ebony pupils zooming in on me before bouncing back to the article he was “reading.” Probably couldn’t wait for my death.

The floor was a nauseating white, so clean I could see my terrified face in its reflection. My cheeks and lips blanched with dread.

“Arianna?”

“Yes, that’s her,” my mother replied in a voice devoid of all emotion. I looked at the indifferent face of the lady in white who would be leading me to my doom. Her eyes were piercingly blue, shooting through me as if she knew every last detail about me. She took my hand, squeezing and shaking it until I felt as if it were being crushed. I stood up, knees shaking and eyes watering. This was the end. My feet began shuffling across the marble floor, one in front of the other, the sound echoing through the silent room. The woman led me down the hallway to the rooms where victims were worked over.

We passed three doors, and I could sense the evil that must be unfolding behind them.

“He’s out. Let’s get to work and finish this quickly,” uttered a deep voice from behind the fourth door. I paused for a moment, mourning the one who would be “worked” on. I imagined he would have a long face, emerald-green eyes, and golden-brown hair. He could have been a popular coach at my middle school, I thought, and I began heading again towards my own ruination. In my mind, I marked his death. His dying

by Katherine Chui (10)

soul would not be forgotten. I would remember him as a fellow victim until my own last moment.

I thought back to that morning. For my very last meal, I had eaten a delicious breakfast, but now, my maple syrupy pancakes churned and flipped in my stomach as if they had gone raw and were re-cooking in my guts. The pancakes, oh, how glorious they had been, round, perfect circles with an “X” pattern drawn on them with maple syrup. Paradise on Earth! Espe- cially since it was the last food I would ever shove in my mouth. The perfect companion for my magnificent main course, a glass of warm milk and cereal, which now danced and somersaulted beside my pancakes. We reached the seventh door. Etching the image of the white glass in my mind, I walked into the room, then committed to memory every last detail. It was bare, a small white and beige cube with a black leather recliner in the center. Counters surrounded it on three sides, all manner of tools placed meticulously on them. The tools that would bring my destruction. I turned around, desperately wanting to grasp any opportunity to slip away, but the same heinous woman in white behind me had shut the opaque glass door. No one but the monster in front of me would witness my death. The woman looked at me, and the corners of her blood red mouth twisted up in an attempt at smiling.

“You’ll be alright, I promise! You won’t feel a thing!” She crooned mockingly, faking a solicitude that I could see right through. But I had no choice. If I were to escape, where would I go? Sighing my final sigh, I lay on the black recliner. Black as the darkness that would soon envelop me. The woman hooked a face mask onto both of her ears and pulled it down to smile at me. The last smile--or shall I say, grimace--I would ever see. Her fangs gleamed, illuminated from the light above the recliner that she had switched on. I imagined blood on those teeth, drip drip dripping onto the white floor. She held up a needle, thin and glistening in the lamp light. The point was sharp and deadly. The last thing I would ever see. The tube of the needle was filled with a clear liquid, and I imagined it being stabbed into my head, injecting a lethal potion. I bet she would then rip me apart limb from limb and shove my guts around in my stomach. I shuddered. Praying for a painless and quiet end, I closed my eyes. *

“It’s done! Your wisdom teeth are out, didn’t feel a thing, right?” The evil dentist smiled at me. My mom and dad had entered the room. “You were out longer from the medicine than we had expected, but that’s okay, you’re awake now!” She smiled.

“You’ll be back in school on Monday!” Mom and Dad smiled, too. But I wailed. From one hell to the next! Would the torture never end?

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