God Help The Defectives

To live on Irk, there's one thing you must have in order to excel, and to survive:

You must not be a defective.

A door slammed open, whimpers could be heard within the other cells from the booming, sudden sound.

A young, one-irken-year-old smeet leaned forward slightly, grabbing hold of one of the bars of her cell. Big, bright green eyes gazed across the hall with curiosity and fear, as an Irken guard came in from down the hall. The whimpering from the other Irkens in the other cells tripled and grew in sound. Someone was going to be taken and executed, and the tiny smeet knew that.

Being born a defective, was not something any of them could help. It was simply a birth defect that they couldn't have prevented, that anyone could have prevented. But what the smeet still wonder, was why? Why was there such harsh prejudice against defectives? Everyday she was forced to watch her own species, irken defectives of all ages, being taken, some by force, some with the use of violence, then taken, never to return. But she could remember all of the others… the ones who died… she remembered so clearly, the sound of their screams. The screams that would last for minuets, before it lowered, then abruptly would end.

She knew her end would come soon. It was only a matter of time.

Defective smeets were given, at least from the rumors she had heard from the others, a quicker death than the older defectives. But that didn't mean they were treated any better just because they were smeets. Their Paks would be surgically removed, and then they would lay there, watching their life clocks count down. And for those ten minuets, the slow, painful shutting down of their small bodies would be unbearable, and they would soon pass out, most likely by the time their life clocks reached five minuets. The darkness would last until the count down was over, and then, another life would wait for them.

The defective smeet wondered about the life after would be like.

She had also been told from the others, that since they were defectives, they would most likely wake up in another hell, just like the hell they were already in. The thought of dying and having to come back to the daily torture of ridicule and later execution, frightened her more than the death itself.

The defective smeet was never even given a name. When she had been hatched from one of the many Hatcheries underground on Irk, once she had her Pak attached to her spine, one of the Irken smeet caretakers who was going to get her ready to be assigned a job, discovered that her Pak had mistakes within the coding. After that, she was immediately removed from the Hatchery and locked up like an animal, and she had been locked up in the same cell, ever since.

So, a month or two of having been locked up, she gave herself the name 'Echo', for she knew that when the day of her execution came, her own screams would echo off the walls of the Defective Holding Cells, and all the others who had known her, would hear her screams, before they too, would abruptly stop.

She was so caught up in her never-ending thoughts, that she didn't even hear the loud, booming footsteps heading in her direction, until a large figure stood in front of her, in front of her cell door. Echo blinked her eyes, coming back into reality, nervously glancing up at the large figure standing in front of her.

As she watched the Irken Guard unlock and open her cell door, a sick, realization overcame her. Today was the day. She was going to be executed shortly. Young Echo realized this, and shivered at the thought. The dark green irken blood of all her now-deceased friends would surely still be there, staining the floors of the execution room, as a reminder of what she was:

A defective.

Without even a word spoken, the guard grabbed Echo by her antennas roughly, causing her to cry out in surprise and pain. That sent another shockwave of realization pulsating through her body and mind, that her execution, would in fact, be a seemingly never-ending torture that would haunt her, even in the afterlife. At least, that's what she figured.

As she was dragged down the hallway, passing by familiar faces of fellow defectives she had known for some time, Echo watched as she was pulled further and further away from the only place she called home: Her holding cell. That one cramped space in the Defective Holding Prison had been her home for almost her whole life: a year. It was in those moments that she knew she was nearing the execution room, as she noticed some of her living defective friends crying for her, that she realized, that even though this place was made to be like a hell of sorts, it was more like a home to her. All these fellow defectives were her friends, they were like her family.

And now she would be joining her other friends, the friends who were deceased. She hoped they would welcome her to the afterlife with open arms.

Though, she felt some peace as she remembered the friends that had been executed. She knew they were free from the confinement, free from the hostility. She knew she would be free, free with them. And in that moment, she was ready.

Thirty minuets later, instead of screams, only a solemn silence echoed throughout the hallways of the Defective Holding Cells.

She had gone quietly, like a candle being blown out.

A/N: I wrote this randomly after listening to the song 'God Help The Outcasts'. It reminds me so much of the irken defectives who are forced to confinement and execution. This is a minor, VERY MINOR preview to the sequel of "The Irken Ashes", that involves a new female Tallest, who wants peace for the defectives. That's the only info of the sequel I will give at the moment. XD

Please review!