The Hourglass by Casey Donaldson

was massive. He looked like he could lift a car with little
effort. Every now and then the boys sitting around him would glance his way,
trying to gauge his reaction to the conversation. Marland let out a strange
squeak and the tremor in her hand increased.
    “He, er, he
doesn’t have anything to do with us, does he? I mean, it’s not like there would
be any reason to, right?”
    “I don’t know.
As far as I can make out, the King and Queen have some sort of agreement in
place.”
    Justin nodded in
consensus. “They use each other to mutual benefit,” he extrapolated.
    “Did you have an
interview with him?” Sarah asked, intrigued.
    “Yeah,” replied Finn,
his hand subconsciously touching a dark bruise on his upper arm that Sarah
hadn’t noticed before. “It was a bit more hands on than yours was.”
    Sarah shook her
head in disgust. “How can they let this happen?” she demanded.
    “Who? The
guards?” replied Finn with a lopsided smile, “what do they care? The King and Queen
already keep everybody in line, it saves them some work.”
    Before she could
reply a bell shrilled throughout the cafeteria and everybody around them got to
their feet, collected their dishes and headed back to the buffet area to
dispose of them. Sarah, Finn, Justin and Marland did the same. Now that she was
aware of them, Sarah felt herself constantly glancing at the King and Queen.
Neither of them collected their own dishes, instead leaving it to one of their
followers. As a group they left the cafeteria, and under the watchful gaze of
the guards ascended another staircase. Sarah found herself walking next to the
curly red-head who told them to be quiet earlier.
    “Where are we
going?” she asked.
    “To work,
obviously.” She glanced at Sarah’s face and chuckled humorously. “Why do you
think they have the prisons in the middle of the ocean?”
    “I thought it
was to protect normal people?” volunteered Finn.
    “It’s so we can
build shit for the military in secret,” she told them bluntly. “I mean, even if
someone managed to steal something and smuggle it away, where exactly are they
going to run to?”
    “So what are we
building that is so top secret?”
    “Stuffed it I know,”
said the red haired girl, turning her back on them to chat to a tall boy with a
large nose.
    Sarah turned
back to the group and found Marland nodding her head thoughtfully.
    “It all makes
sense, you know. I mean, they tell people that we’re out here because its good
PR, but c’mon, shipping out food and maintaining the ship, let alone paying
guards to come out here away from their homes is expensive, right? Do you think
that they are really prepared to spend that kind of money on us? No, this makes
far more sense.”
    “Well at least
they’re not throwing us overboard,” replied Sarah with a half-smile towards
Marland, remembering Marland’s earlier conspiracy theory about what happened on
the ship.
    “Not all of us,
anyway,” said Marland thoughtfully, frowning in concentration. “I mean, what if
we see some really important design or something? They can’t just let us go
with that knowledge stored in our brains.”
    Sarah gave up.
    They soon
understood why the red-haired girl had no idea what they were building. They
were ushered into a massive room, mostly taken up by a conveyer belt system and
various machines situated at random intervals. Placed alongside the conveyer
belt were stools. Lining one of the walls was a huge pile of boxes. Each had a
symbol of an hourglass in a circle sketched onto it. Sarah frowned at the
image. It was nearly exactly the same as her scar. The thought made her
uncomfortable, but she didn’t know why. Before she could think too much about
it she was ushered aside by a guard along with the rest of the new prisoners. The
guard assigned them seats and instructed them on their task. They mostly found
themselves paired off, with one or two of the long term prisoners littered
amongst them in case they