Slowly, the boy opened his eyes. The world blurred around him in misshapen fragments as he stood up and assessed his surroundings.
Where am I?
He ran. Quickly, his legs bounded, as the tough soles of his feet hit the scorched ground. He ran for what seemed like an hour at the least, for there seemed nothing else to do.
At last, he reached a sign of civilization. Suspended in midair only a foot before him was an ornately carved door. Eagerly, the boy reached forward, but stopped short the moment his hand touched the cool brass knob. He realized that he could not remember his name. The boy knew, somehow, that he was in an unfamiliar place, and yet he could not recollect what place he called home. Somewhere, in the back of his head, warnings from childhood stories about going through mysterious doors ate at his conscience. Something about a girl and three bears?  He couldn’t remember. Of course, his natural course of action was to open the door.
Inside, a vast room was before him, with tall, looming pillars on either side.
“Hello? Is anyone here?”
A slight shuffle from the corner of the room caught the boy’s eye. From behind one of the pillars emerged a small girl, maybe ten years younger than the boy, who was in fact near adulthood. Her hair was matted and tangled, her face gaunt and pained. Her fingernails, the boy noticed, were utterly filthy. The girl reminded him of himself, years ago, though he couldn’t recall why.
When she saw him, the girl’s eyes sparked with fear and shock. Dragging a broom behind her, she quickly scurried off in to another room. She returned shortly, this time with a hunched old man.
“Be gone now” The man waved the small girl away. When she was gone, he hobbled slowly up to the boy, inspecting him carefully with an intrusive eye. “Who are you?”
“I don’t know”
“What do you mean you don’t know? Don’t be ridiculous. Where did you come from?”
“ I-I have no idea. I just woke up here and-”
“Wait. What work facility do you belong to?” The suspicion in the man’s voice elevated.
“ I don’t know. What’s a work facility?”
“How old are you, boy?”
“ I don’t-”
“ You can’t be more than 16 or 17. Come with me.”
The man led the boy down a dimly lit hallway. The boy, who was, at the height of his youth, quite strong and full energy, adjusted his long strides to those of the decrepit
man who lit their way with a wavering candle flame. As they walked, the boy’s head filled with questions.
“What is this place?,” asked the boy, gazing in awe at the intricate design of the spiral staircase that they were ascending. “Where are we?”
“Classified information, I’m afraid,” grunted the man. “Only a few people in the universe know our location. I myself am not included in that few. It’s not Earth, that I know for sure.” They reached a landing and entered in to another long, dark passageway. “Although I can’t tell you where we are,” continued the man, “I can tell you why we are here. If- If, that is, you’re interested in knowing” Looking down at the man, the boy suddenly saw the loneliness in his eyes. They were the eyes of a man who had not told a story in a very long time.
The boy nodded. “ I would love to hear about it.”
“ It started with a pill”. The old man paused dramatically, looking towards the boy for a sign of interest. The boy was preoccupied with the hunched shadow projected by the man on the walls.
“ A pill. But oh, this pill was no ordinary pill. It was the pill of life, they called it, a pill that would make you--” He paused again for dramatic effect- “immortal”
“It was too easy. There were no side effects, no small print or legal issues. I’d like to say that I had my doubts about taking it, that we all did. That would be a blatant lie. Tell me boy, if offered a pill of immortality, how could you resist? At first, it was perfect. It always starts that way, doesn’t it?  You should have seen it down there. Families would sit down for thanksgiving dinner, and there would be four generations, all stuck in the bodies of thirty year olds. You see, the pill causes each person who takes it to age until thirty, then remain at that age forever. Those of us who took the pill later in life, as I did, stopped aging immediately.  My boy, I can not tell you how many times I have cursed myself for taking that pill. To be stuck permanently in this sick, weak body is a form of punishment far more horrible than death. I tried often to end my own life, but the pill did its job too well. Instead of the having the eternal peace I craved, I lived on, but with the horrible pain of my self inflicted wounds.
“Then, the inevitable happened: Earth became overpopulated. No one was dying, and yet the birthrate was just as high. So, the world powers met, and decided to outlaw the birth of children, so as to avoid any further growth of the population. For the most part, the new law has done its job, but, as always, not everyone listens. Every so often, a child is born, and my job, which I volunteered to take just to get off that horribly crowded planet, is to retrieve the illegal child, and bring them here. In this mansion, they toil long hours every day, to create goods to be shipped back to earth. After all, should not the illicit rascals be put to use? Ah, here we are-” The old man, now out of breath from his excited, rambling account, reached forward, opening a heavy metal door.
Inside, children sat on long, wooden benches, working away to make toys, clothes, and even food items. Each child, the boy noticed, was yet to be a teenager. The old man explained.
“ Once the children arrive to the mansion, we allow them to age to be twelve years old. If they got too old, they could physically overpower me, so when they turn twelve, we give them an extremely high dosage of the immortality pill, which stops their aging process dead in its tracks. Which reminds me-” He lead the boy to one of the wooden tables, past starving, feeble children, who stared at the boy with sullen gazes. In the center of one table lay a cluster of small white pills. “You must take these immediately,” prodded the man with a grin, “for you are already a bit too old for my taste. Your aging must stop before you reach 18.”
A wave of nausea intermingled with horror swept over the boy. Quickly, he grabbed the pills from the table, threw them on the ground, and violently crushed them to white powder with the tough soles of his feet.
“You idiot!” cried the old man, as the boy stared proudly at the ruined pills on the cold floor. “Those pills don’t grow on trees, you know.” Retrieving another from his pocket, the old man attempted to shove it down the boy’s throat. Vehemently, the boy spat the pill in the man’s face, before pushing him forcefully away. As the boy made a run for the door, the old man regained his composure. It was quickly clear to him that he lacked the physical strength to overpower a healthy teenage boy. He glanced over at the filthy children, still working away at their various tasks. He had a plan.
That night, the mansion was eerily silent. From child to child, whispers were passed of the old man’s plan. They gathered pots and pans, rolling pins and irons, brooms and knifes. It was to be a glorious night of fun, the children were sure.
The boy was half asleep on the cold marble floor or the mansion’s dining hall. In his state of semi-consciousness, he could hear with remarkable clarity every sound and movement in his surroundings. He heard the ticking of the grandfather clock, the trickle of a dripping faucet, and then-- was it- breathing? He sat up in alarm. As his eyes adjusted to the dark, he saw the outlines of dark figures in the corner. The old man-yes- and behind him- the children, wielding their comical choices of weaponry.
Slowly the figures moved towards the boy. “If you refuse to live forever,” whispered the old man, “then you must accept the opposite- immediate death”.
“And what of you?” croaked the boy desperately. “ Will you kill me, and watch me die, knowing that you would do anything to be in my place?”
“It is too late for me, boy. I took the pill. I can not die. For you however?---” He smiled, a toothy grin which caused a cold shiver to run through the boy’s bones. “For a boy as young and healthy as you, death, it seems, is a worthy punishment.”
The children dragged forward, staring at the boy with their dull, lifeless eyes. Suddenly, the boy remembered. He remembered his name, his hometown, his family, and his friends. “My name-!” he cried. “My name is--” The children closed in. The boy screamed.