As my eyes adjusted to the light I began to feel around me. I felt a cold, flat surface underneath me. It was metal. I looked around to see that I was in a metal box. With no obvious way of escape I ran my hands along the walls trying to find any indication of a door. I felt a slight indentation in one of the walls though there was no way of opening it on my end. Feeling defeated, I turned and slid my back down against the door.

I needed to take my mind away from the situation. I thought back to my mom making breakfast in our cramped kitchen. I watched as she danced to the music playing on the stereo while flipping her famous blueberry pancakes. The smell filled the house.

“Freedom, stop staring and join me!” she said as she pulled me towards her.

An alarm jolted me back into reality. Light started trickling in through the outline of the door. Unknowing of what was going to happen next I felt it best to retreat to the opposite end of the box. As I sat down, waiting for something to happen, I began to doze off. Dreaming seemed to be my only way of escape.

My mom named me Freedom because it was something she didn’t have, but wanted me to experience. My name was a sign of hope. Not only for her, but for everyone in our apartment building. We lived in a small neighborhood called Niabury in New York, which is somewhat notorious for its crime rate. Growing up I was involved yet not involved with the crime in my neighborhood. Shoplifting is pretty much the extent of my criminal record. My mom wanted to give me as much freedom as possible while not letting me go down the wrong path in life. I was allowed to come home in the late hours, go where I want and eat what I want, but I was in no way allowed to mess up this life she worked so hard to give me.

The door creaked open and a figure walked in. He grabbed me by my neck and pulled me out into the hallway. I didn’t scream because honestly what would that do. There’s no one here to help me. After the initial shock wore off I realized I recognized the man dragging me through the dark corridors. He went to the same high school as me, but graduated three years earlier.

“Billy?” I asked.

“Hello Freedom” He responded.

“What’s going on? Why am I here?” I said.

“You’ll find out when we get there.” He said.

Before I knew it we were in a large atrium packed with people of various ages. I knew the majority of them and they knew me by the look on their faces. We made our way through the dense crowd ending up in the center of the atrium. A man began speaking on the balcony above me. He started talking about how children were being taken in Niabury and how he was forming a group of outsiders to help him fight the people taking them
I leaned over and whispered to the girl next to me, “why are they being taken?”

“The government is scared of these kids. They have powers that they don’t know how to control” she said.
Everything started to click as I looked around to see posters hung up on the walls of missing children. We had to find them.