Everything was tight. Lukas felt packed into a carnal cage, locked behind bodies sitting in chairs. His chest felt shriveled, preventing him from breathing. His jeans were too tight and too high, the cuffs dangling at his ankles like flood pants. His shirt was tucked, or rather stuffed, into his jeans, shoving into his thin stomach. He had buttoned the very top button of his collar.
Lukas sat almost curled, his hands folded, back and neck arched, and legs together as if he were trying to keep warm. He had to breathe through his mouth just to swallow enough oxygen. Everything was bound, wound, welded, belted, bolted, and locked throughout the trip. Looking at the window, into the amorphous blackness of space, he lost his sense of time, and it settled his raging panic.
He felt slammed into a wall. Everything stopped as the ship docked into the academy, and he had to give life to his limbs again. He reentered the physical plane, stretching his limbs with clicks and clacks. As the hordes of kids trickled off the ship, Lukas awkwardly looked for an opening to walk into the aisle and off the disastrous pill. The armed guards shattered what remained of his frail heart. Much of it had long fled, and the rest was back home. He lurched forward like a snail with a particularly heavy shell. His hair looked so combed over and slick that one would expect there to be a trail of slime as well. The legions that teemed through the facility reminded him of what he'd read of the Holocaust, a catastrophe that was twofold relevant to his heritage.
Beholding the enormous walls, he began to lose his spatial sense. The chrome ramparts looked taller with every moment, and the waves of other teenagers seemed to sway and slosh about, giving him sea sickness so far away from water. Sitting in the cushioned seats gave him some sense of stillness, but his light head and heavy chest made him dizzy regardless.
Then came the lady. Stoic and erect, the echo of her voice seemed to bend the walls. It's tone and pitch fluctuated, but she seemed to only get taller and taller. Looking down at his hands, his skin began to rustle and rumble, fleeting little bumps scurrying under the surface. When he looked back up, her frightening visage seemed to look right into him, obscuring his entire line of sight. She seemed to be the only one there while everything else had been forgotten or blocked. Everything he had feared had come true, and as much as it seemed like an unsettling dream, it was clear that it was no dream.
When she finished speaking, his sense of space returned to normal. He felt deflated, ready to collapse and break into a fit. His arm twitched slightly, and he seemed to have no control of his legs. His legs laid there as long, dead branches. While his sight returned to normal and his mind stirred with this surreal reality, he still felt ill. He thought he may feel ill for a long time.