Kids. Kids in hospital gowns like mine, attached to white wooden crosses affixed to the ceiling. Literally crucified.

They were silent. Their heads drooping forward, their eyes either closed or staring at nothing. Some seemed to twitch a bit but most were still. Their crosses swung back and forth very slightly.

And the hanging wires... they weren't wires. They were intravenous tubes attached to the kids' wrists. Tubes sucking out their blood.

I almost vomited again right then and there.

In the very center of the room, amidst the rows of hanging crosses, I could see where the rhythmic pulsing sound came from. A huge steel cylinder, which seemed to be collecting the blood from all of the tangled tubes that dangled from the kids' wrists.

I opened my mouth to.... to scream? To cry out in anger?

All I could say was, "What the freak?"