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People who_ve escaped a cult_ what horrifying secrets did you discover · Martin Animations

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  Speaker 1: People who've escaped a cult, what horrifying secrets did you discover?
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  Speaker 1: I was 14 when Father Silas called my name during
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  Speaker 1: morning prayer and said I'd been chosen for the harvest,
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  Speaker 1: and everyone around me started crying tears of joy while
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  Speaker 1: I felt my stomach drop because my brother Matthias had
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  Speaker 1: been chosen three years ago, and I hadn't seen him
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  Speaker 1: since he walked through that red door. The harvest ceremony
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  Speaker 1: happened every autumn at our compound, where 50 of us
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  Speaker 1: children lived in what we called the Garden of Divine Purpose,
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  Speaker 1: and every year three or four teenagers would be selected
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  Speaker 1: to transcend their earthly bodies and join the Ascended Ones
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  Speaker 1: in Eternal Paradise. or at least that's what Father Silas
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  Speaker 1: told us when we'd gather in the main hall and
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  Speaker 1: watch our siblings disappear forever. I remember being seven years
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  Speaker 1: old and asking Mother Deborah why the Chosen Ones never
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  Speaker 1: came back to visit, and she slapped me so hard
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  Speaker 1: my ear rang for three days saying that questioning God's
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  Speaker 1: plan was the first step toward corruption and damnation. We
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  Speaker 1: weren't allowed to speak the names of the harvested children
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  Speaker 1: after they left, because Father Silas said their earthly identities
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  Speaker 1: had been shed like snakeskin, and they existed now as
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  Speaker 1: pure light and energy in service to the divine, but
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  Speaker 1: sometimes late at night I'd whisper Matthias' name into my
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  Speaker 1: pillow and wonder if he could hear me from paradise.
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  Speaker 1: The compound sat deep in the forest, surrounded by chain-link
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  Speaker 1: fence topped with barbed wire that Father Silas said protected
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  Speaker 1: us from the corrupted world beyond, but I'd always wondered
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  Speaker 1: why Paradise needed fences and locks, and why the gates
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  Speaker 1: only opened outward, never inward, and why none of the
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  Speaker 1: adults ever seemed to leave even for supplies. Three other
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  Speaker 1: children were chosen with me that year, and I remember
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  Speaker 1: their faces going pale when Father Silas called their names
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  Speaker 1: during the selection ceremony, because everyone knew being chosen was
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  Speaker 1: supposed to be an honor, but none of us looked honored.
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  Speaker 1: We looked terrified. Naomi was 15 and had the most
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  Speaker 1: beautiful singing voice, and she'd led our evening hymns since
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  Speaker 1: she was ten years old, and when Father Silas placed
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  Speaker 1: his hand on her head to bless her, I saw
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  Speaker 1: her flinch like she'd been struck. Thomas was sixteen, and
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  Speaker 1: could recite every verse of the sacred texts from memory,
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  Speaker 1: and he'd always been Father Silas's favorite during lessons, but
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  Speaker 1: now he stared at the red door with this expression
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  Speaker 1: like he was looking at his own grave. Little Iris
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  Speaker 1: was only twelve years old, and that scared me most
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  Speaker 1: because the harvest usually took teenagers, but Father Silas said
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  Speaker 1: she had an old soul ready to transcend, and when
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  Speaker 1: her name was called she started crying so hard that
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  Speaker 1: Mother Deborah had to carry her out of the hall.
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  Speaker 1: We were taken immediately after the ceremony to the purification
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  Speaker 1: chambers beneath the main building, and I'd never been down
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  Speaker 1: there before because only the chosen ones entered those rooms,
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  Speaker 1: and I remember the smell hitting me first, something chemical
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  Speaker 1: and metallic that made my eyes water and my throat
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  Speaker 1: close up. Mother Deborah separated us into individual cells that
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  Speaker 1: were maybe six feet by eight feet with concrete floors
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  Speaker 1: and a single cot and a bucket in the corner,
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  Speaker 1: and she said we'd spend the next seven days preparing
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  Speaker 1: our vessels for transcendence through fasting and meditation and sacred medicines.
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  Speaker 1: The sacred medicines came three times a day in the
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  Speaker 1: form of white pills that Mother Deborah would watch us swallow,
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  Speaker 1: and at first I took them obediently, because I'd never
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  Speaker 1: questioned the compound's rules in my entire life, but within
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  Speaker 1: an hour of taking that first dose, I felt like
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  Speaker 1: I was floating outside my own body. Everything seemed distant
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  Speaker 1: and unimportant, and when Mother Deborah came back to measure
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  Speaker 1: my arms and legs with a fabric tape, I couldn't
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  Speaker 1: even feel confused about why she needed my measurements because
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  Speaker 1: the pills made all my questions feel fuzzy and irrelevant.
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  Speaker 1: She wrote numbers in a leather journal muttering under her
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  Speaker 1: breath about compatibility and market value and optimal harvest timing,
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  Speaker 1: and those words should have terrified me, but they just
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  Speaker 1: drifted past my drugged consciousness like leaves on water. On
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  Speaker 1: the second day, she brought this machine with her that
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  Speaker 1: she pressed against my chest and abdomen, and I could
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  Speaker 1: hear beeping sounds and see green lines on a small screen,
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  Speaker 1: and she'd nod to herself and make more notes in
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  Speaker 1: her journal. The fasting was brutal even through the medication fog,
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  Speaker 1: and by day three my stomach felt like it was
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  Speaker 1: eating itself, and I could hear Naomi crying through the wall,
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  Speaker 1: and Thomas shouting something I couldn't make out, and Iris
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  Speaker 1: screaming for her mother who'd died when she was six.
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  Speaker 1: Mother Deborah would come check on us every few hours
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  Speaker 1: and give us sips of water and more pills, and
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  Speaker 1: she'd stroke my hair like I was a pet being
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  Speaker 1: groomed for show. and tell me I was so lucky
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  Speaker 1: to have been chosen for this sacred purpose. On day four,
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  Speaker 1: something in me snapped awake through the medication haze, and
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  Speaker 1: I started pretending to swallow the pills, but actually holding
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  Speaker 1: them under my tongue until Mother Debra left, and then
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  Speaker 1: spitting them into cracks in the concrete floor. The fog
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  Speaker 1: started lifting gradually, and with clarity came absolute terror, because
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  Speaker 1: I could finally process what Mother Debra had been saying
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  Speaker 1: about compatibility, and harvest timing, and market value, and those
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  Speaker 1: weren't words you used for sending someone to paradise. I
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  Speaker 1: pressed my ear against the wall trying to hear what
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  Speaker 1: was happening in the other chambers, and through the concrete
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  Speaker 1: I could hear Naomi praying in this desperate whisper asking
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  Speaker 1: God why he wanted her to die so young, and
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  Speaker 1: that word die echoed in my skull because we weren't
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  Speaker 1: supposed to die, we were supposed to transcend. Thomas was
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  Speaker 1: silent in his cell which scared me more than screaming
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  Speaker 1: would have, and sometimes I'd hear footsteps in the corridor outside,
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  Speaker 1: and voices discussing lab results and tissue typing and surgical schedules.
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  Speaker 1: On day five, Mother Deborah brought me actual food for
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  Speaker 1: the first time, a piece of bread with butter on it,
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  Speaker 1: and she watched me eat it with this expression that
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  Speaker 1: looked almost like grief, though she tried to hide it,
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  Speaker 1: and when I asked her why she was being nice,
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  Speaker 1: she said I needed my strength for the journey ahead.
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  Speaker 1: Her hand shook when she gave me the evening pills
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  Speaker 1: and I pretended to swallow them while watching her face,
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  Speaker 1: and I saw something there that looked like guilt, or
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  Speaker 1: maybe regret, but then she blinked, and her expression went
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  Speaker 1: cold and professional again. Day six was when I heard
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  Speaker 1: the screaming coming from somewhere deeper in the facility, screams
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  Speaker 1: that sounded nothing like transcendence or paradise, but exactly like
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  Speaker 1: someone being hurt very badly, and I banged on my
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  Speaker 1: door until my fist bled, but no one came. The
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  Speaker 1: screaming went on for what felt like hours and then
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  Speaker 1: stopped abruptly in a way that made my blood run cold.
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  Speaker 1: And later that evening, Mother Deborah came to my cell
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  Speaker 1: with red stains on her white sleeves that she tried
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  Speaker 1: to hide by folding her arms. She looked exhausted. And
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  Speaker 1: when I asked her what had happened, she said one
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  Speaker 1: of the previous Harvest children had experienced complications during a
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  Speaker 1: secondary procedure, but that I shouldn't worry because I was
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  Speaker 1: young and healthy and my success rate was projected at 73%.
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  Speaker 1: Success rate for what I asked, but she just gave
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  Speaker 1: me more pills that I pretended to swallow and told
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  Speaker 1: me to rest because tomorrow was preparation day and I'd
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  Speaker 1: need to be strong. That night, I couldn't sleep because
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  Speaker 1: my mind was finally clear enough to understand that something
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  Speaker 1: was fundamentally wrong with everything I'd been taught my entire life,
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  Speaker 1: and I thought about Matthias walking through that red door
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  Speaker 1: three years ago and wondered if he'd screamed like that
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  Speaker 1: and whether anyone had heard him. Through my small window,
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  Speaker 1: I could see other cells across the corridor, and in
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  Speaker 1: one of them I saw movement and pressed my face
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  Speaker 1: against the glass and saw someone looking back at me,
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  Speaker 1: and even in the dim light, I recognized those eyes
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  Speaker 1: because they were Matthias' eyes and he was alive, but
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  Speaker 1: he looked wrong somehow, like parts of him were missing.
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  Speaker 1: Morning of day seven arrived and Mother Deborah came to
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  Speaker 1: dress me in the white ceremonial robe that smelled like
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  Speaker 1: bleach and something else. Something that reminded me of the
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  Speaker 1: metallic smell in the preparation chambers and my hands wouldn't
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  Speaker 1: stop shaking even though I was trying to appear calm
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  Speaker 1: and compliant. She braided my hair with white ribbons and
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  Speaker 1: I watched her face in the small mirror on the
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  Speaker 1: wall and saw her lips moving in what might have
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  Speaker 1: been prayer or might have been counting. And when she finished,
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  Speaker 1: she just stood there for a moment with her hands
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  Speaker 1: on my shoulders. You're a good girl, she said quietly.
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  Speaker 1: And I'm sorry about this, but some children are born
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  Speaker 1: for harvest and that's just God's plan. and I wanted
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  Speaker 1: to scream at her that this wasn't God's plan. This
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  Speaker 1: was something evil disguised as religion. But I kept my
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  Speaker 1: mouth shut because I needed to stay calm long enough
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  Speaker 1: to figure out what was really happening beyond that red door.
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  Speaker 1: They led all four of us to the main hall
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  Speaker 1: where the entire compound had gathered, and Father Silas stood
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  Speaker 1: before the red door in his ceremonial robes that were
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  Speaker 1: embroidered with symbols I'd never learned to read, and the
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  Speaker 1: other children were singing those haunting harvest hymns we'd practiced
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  Speaker 1: since we were small. Thomas had a fresh bruise on
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  Speaker 1: his face and wouldn't meet anyone's eyes, and Iris was
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  Speaker 1: completely limp like a rag doll in Mother Deborah's arms.
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  Speaker 1: and Naomi was just staring at the red door with
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  Speaker 1: this empty expression that scared me more than crying would have.
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  Speaker 1: Father Silas began his sermon about sacrifice and divine purpose,
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  Speaker 1: and how we four had been selected from among all
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  Speaker 1: the children to serve the highest calling, and I watched
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  Speaker 1: his face as he spoke, and saw something there that
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  Speaker 1: wasn't holy at all, but was cold and calculating like
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  Speaker 1: he was appraising livestock. He talked about the garden of
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  Speaker 1: paradise waiting beyond the red door, and how the ascended
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  Speaker 1: ones lived in eternal bliss free from the corruption of flesh,
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  Speaker 1: and as he spoke I noticed details I'd never seen before,
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  Speaker 1: like how his ceremonial robes were expensive silk, not the
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  Speaker 1: simple cotton we children wore, and how he had a
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  Speaker 1: gold watch on his wrist that probably cost more than
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  Speaker 1: everything in the compound combined. My feet moved forward when
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  Speaker 1: Mother Deborah pushed me toward the aisle, and I walked
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  Speaker 1: past my brothers and sisters who were singing about gardens
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  Speaker 1: and harvest and eternal peace, and I saw their faces
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  Speaker 1: full of genuine belief and love, and I realized they
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  Speaker 1: had no idea what was really happening because the pills
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  Speaker 1: and the isolation and the constant indoctrination had made them
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  Speaker 1: blind to the truth. As I got closer to the
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  Speaker 1: red door, I saw something that made my blood freeze.
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  Speaker 1: There were scratches around the door handle, deep gouges in
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  Speaker 1: the wood like someone had clawed at it desperately trying
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  Speaker 1: to get out, and there were dark stains on the
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  Speaker 1: threshold that looked suspiciously like old blood that had been
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  Speaker 1: scrubbed but not completely removed. Father Silas opened the red door,
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  Speaker 1: and the smell that hit me was nothing like incense
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  Speaker 1: and flowers, but instead pure chemical antiseptic, mixed with something
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  Speaker 1: rotten and wrong, and I saw Thomas gag beside me,
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  Speaker 1: and Naomi actually stopped walking completely, until Mother Deborah shoved
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  Speaker 1: her forward hard enough that she stumbled. He gestured for
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  Speaker 1: us to enter and whispered blessings that sounded more like threats,
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  Speaker 1: and as I crossed the threshold— He leaned close and
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  Speaker 1: said my sacrifice would fund the compound's mission for another year,
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  Speaker 1: and that word sacrifice echoed in my head with its
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  Speaker 1: true meaning. Not spiritual sacrifice, but physical permanent sacrifice. The
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  Speaker 1: door slammed behind us with a heavy metallic click, and
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  Speaker 1: instead of the stairway to paradise, I'd imagined we were
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  Speaker 1: standing at the top of concrete stairs leading down into
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  Speaker 1: fluorescent lit darkness, and the chemical smell was so strong
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  Speaker 1: it burned my nose and throat. Thomas turned to look
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  Speaker 1: back at the door, and I saw his face go
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  Speaker 1: white because there was no handle on this side, just
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  Speaker 1: smooth metal. and Naomi started crying in these quiet hiccuping
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  Speaker 1: sobs that she tried to muffle, and Iris was completely
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  Speaker 1: unconscious in Mother Deborah's arms. We had no choice but
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  Speaker 1: to go down the stairs, and with each step the
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  Speaker 1: air got colder, and the smell got stronger, and I
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  Speaker 1: could hear machinery humming and beeping sounds like medical equipment
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  Speaker 1: and voices discussing procedures and recovery times. At the bottom
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  Speaker 1: of the stairs, the corridor opened into what looked like
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  Speaker 1: a hospital hallway, with white tile walls and fluorescent lights,
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  Speaker 1: and steel doors with small windows, and through those windows
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  Speaker 1: I could see them and I felt my legs give out.
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  Speaker 1: My brothers and sisters who'd been harvested in previous years
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  Speaker 1: except they weren't in Paradise, They were in cells behind
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  Speaker 1: locked doors and some of them were missing limbs and
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  Speaker 1: others had long surgical scars across their bodies and one
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  Speaker 1: girl I recognized as Leah, who'd been chosen two years ago,
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  Speaker 1: was hooked up to machines through tubes in her arms
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  Speaker 1: and chest. Mother Debra walked ahead of us like this
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: was completely normal and she started explaining in this clinical
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  Speaker 1: voice that the harvest wasn't a spiritual ceremony but a
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: medical procedure where they removed organs from us children and
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: sold them to wealthy patients who paid enormous sums for
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: young healthy transplant tissue. She said it so matter-of-factly like
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: she was explaining how to do laundry and I wanted
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  Speaker 1: to scream but my throat had closed up completely. Thomas
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  Speaker 1: threw up on the pristine white floor, and Mother Deborah
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  Speaker 1: slapped him hard across the face and told him to
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  Speaker 1: show some dignity, and remembered this was a holy calling
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  Speaker 1: that would save the lives of true believers, even if
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  Speaker 1: technically speaking it also made Father Silas extremely wealthy in
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  Speaker 1: the process. She led us past cell after cell, and
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  Speaker 1: I saw children I'd grown up with children I'd shared
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  Speaker 1: meals and chores and prayers with, and they were all
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  Speaker 1: alive but wrong diminished missing pieces of themselves, both literally
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: and figuratively. In the third cell on the left I
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: saw him and the scream that came out of me
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: didn't even sound human because Matthias was there behind that
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: locked door and he was missing his left arm completely
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: and had a massive scar down his chest and when
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: he saw me his eyes went wide with horror and
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: he started throwing himself against the door screaming my name
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: and screaming run and screaming they'll take everything until there's
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: nothing left. Mother Deborah pulled me away from his cell
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: and said he'd been an ex donor very compatible tissue
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  Speaker 1: type and they'd harvested one kidney and partial liver and
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  Speaker 1: one lung and his left arm had developed an infection
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  Speaker 1: after a bone marrow extraction so they'd had to amputate
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  Speaker 1: and he was scheduled for his final harvest next month
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  Speaker 1: where they'd take whatever was left and then dispose of
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  Speaker 1: the remains. She said this like she was reading from
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  Speaker 1: a shopping list while my brother screamed and I could
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  Speaker 1: see other children in their cells reacting to his screams
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: starting to shout and bang on their doors, and the
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: whole facility erupted into chaos. Naomi had collapsed completely and
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: was being dragged by her arm, and Thomas was backing
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  Speaker 1: away slowly like he was trying to find an escape route,
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: and Iris had woken up and was staring at everything
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  Speaker 1: with these huge, terrified eyes. Mother Debra took me to
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  Speaker 1: a preparation room that was set up like an operating
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: theater with steel tables and bright lights and surgical instruments
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: laid out in neat rows, and she started explaining the
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: procedure in that same clinical tone, saying they'd take one
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  Speaker 1: kidney first and part of my liver since those organs regenerate,
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: and then depending on my recovery, they'd harvest more in
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: stages over the next few years. She said about 60%
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  Speaker 1: of children survived the first surgery, and those who did
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  Speaker 1: became permanent donors kept alive in the cells to provide
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  Speaker 1: ongoing tissue and blood and bone marrow as needed, and
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: I thought about Matthias living in that cell for three
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: years having pieces of himself removed one by one until
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: there was nothing left to take. The wealthy patients who
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: bought the organs were told they were receiving divinely blessed
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: transplants from willing young believers who considered organ donation their
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: spiritual calling, and they paid prices that made Father Silas
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: a very rich man and funded this entire underground facility.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: She showed me consent forms with forged signatures and medical
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: records that had been falsified and explained how they'd been
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: running this operation for over 20 years using foster children
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: and runaways and kids whose parents had sold them for
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: money and no one ever came looking because we didn't
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: officially exist in any government database. Father Silas had connections
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: with corrupt social workers and judges who provided him with
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: children and in return he'd give them a cut of
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: the profits and everyone was happy. except the children being
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: slowly carved up in the name of God. Something in
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: me that had been obedient and compliant my entire life
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: finally snapped, and when Mother Deborah turned her back to
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: prepare the anesthesia, I grabbed the nearest surgical tray and
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: swung it at her head with every ounce of strength
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: I possessed. The sound it made when metal connected with
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: skull was sickening, but she dropped like a stone and
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: blood pooled around her head on that pristine white floor,
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  Speaker 1: and I didn't wait to see if she was breathing.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: I just grabbed the keyring from her belt and ran.
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  Speaker 1: I unlocked Matthias' cell first, and he stumbled out on
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  Speaker 1: unsteady legs, his remaining arm reaching for me, and when
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: we hugged, I could feel how much weight he'd lost,
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: how his ribs pressed against my chest, and he was crying,
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: saying I shouldn't be here, saying they'd take me apart
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: piece by piece like they did to him. I told
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  Speaker 1: him we were leaving all of us, and I started
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: unlocking every cell in that corridor, and children poured out,
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: some of them barely able to walk, and others who'd
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: been there so long they'd forgotten what the sun looked like.
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  Speaker 1: There were maybe twenty children total in various states of harvest,
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  Speaker 1: some missing kidneys, some missing parts of their livers, some
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: with only one lung, and all of them scarred and
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: broken and furious, now that someone had finally opened their cages.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: Matthias knew the facility layout from his three years of captivity,
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: and he led half the children toward a service tunnel
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  Speaker 1: he'd discovered during his time in the cells, while the
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  Speaker 1: rest of us created a distraction by rushing the stairs
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: back toward the main hall. We could hear Father Silas's
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: voice calling down, asking what was taking so long and
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: whether Mother Deborah needed assistance with the difficult ones, and
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: when he appeared at the top of the stairs and
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: saw his children covered in blood and rage, his face
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  Speaker 1: went pale. He tried to close the door but Thomas
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: hit it with his shoulder and we all pushed through
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: into the main hall where the other children were still
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: gathered and when they saw us their singing stopped abruptly.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: I screamed that Father Silas was a liar and a
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: murderer and the harvest wasn't spiritual transcendence but organ trafficking
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: and I showed them my brother missing his arm and
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: the other children with their surgical scars and for a
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: moment there was absolute silence. Then one of the younger
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: children asked if the ascended ones were real and I
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: said no, they're not real. They're dead or locked in
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: cells being carved up for money and you could see
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: belief shattering across 40 faces as everything they'd been taught,
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: their entire lives revealed itself as a lie designed to
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: make them complicit in their own exploitation. Father Silas tried
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: to salvage the situation by saying I was corrupted by
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: demons and spreading lies. But then Matthias spoke up and
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: described in detail what they'd taken from him, and how
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: many other children he'd watched die in those cells, and
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: his voice had this dead quality that was more convincing
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: than any passionate speech could have been. The other children
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: from the compound started backing away from Father Silas, and
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: some of the older boys actually moved toward him with
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: fists clenched, and he realized he was losing control of
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: the situation he'd maintained for two decades through lies and
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: drugs and isolation. He ran for the red door trying
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: to lock it from the other side, but the children
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: from the cells who'd rushed the stairs were already climbing through,
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: and they were angry in ways that children who'd been
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: drugged couldn't be, because they'd been conscious and aware during
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: their harvests, they'd felt every cut, even if they couldn't resist.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: Father Silas made it to his office and locked the door,
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: and I could hear him on the phone calling for
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: security or backup or whoever helped him run this nightmare operation,
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: but Matthias said we didn't have much time before more
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: adults arrived. so we needed to leave now. I grabbed
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: Iris and Naomi and Thomas and told them to follow me,
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: and Matthias led us to the service tunnel he'd mentioned
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: a narrow concrete passage that ran under the compound's perimeter
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: fence and connected to an old drainage system. Some of
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: the children from the cells were too weak to run,
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: and some were still in shock, but about 15 of
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: us made it into the tunnel before we heard shouting
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: and footsteps behind us. We crawled through darkness for what
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: felt like hours, my hands bleeding from rough concrete and
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: Iris whimpering on my back. and behind us I could
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: hear Father Silas's voice echoing through the tunnel system shouting
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: that we couldn't survive in the corrupted world that we'd
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: be lost without his guidance. But I'd rather be lost
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: and free than found and harvested. So I kept crawling
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: until finally we emerged through a rusted drainage grate into
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: the forest beyond the compound walls, and I saw the
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: sky for the first time in seven days, and it
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: was the most beautiful thing I'd ever witnessed, even though
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: we were all bleeding and terrified and had no idea
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: what to do next. We ran through the forest in
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: our white ceremonial robes that got torn and muddy, and
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: some of the younger children kept falling and but we'd
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: pick them up and keep going because stopping meant death,
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: and none of us were ready to die, not after
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: we'd fought so hard to escape. We walked for two
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: days following a creek because water had to lead somewhere,
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: and we ate berries and drank from the stream, and
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: at night we huddled together for warmth and some children
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: cried and others just stared into the darkness with empty eyes.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: Matthias was getting weaker, and I knew his body was
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: struggling without the medications they'd been giving him to prevent
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: organ rejection of the partial transplants he'd received from other donors,
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: and I prayed to a God I no longer believed
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: in that he'd survive long enough to see real freedom.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: On the second day, we found a road— an actual
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: paved road with yellow lines and a sign that said,
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Millbrook Population 8,341, and I fell to my
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: knees and sobbed because there were 8,341 people who existed
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: outside Father Silas' compound who lived normal lives who weren't
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: being prepared for organ harvest. A car stopped when the
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: driver saw us, 15 children in torn white robes covered
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: in mud and blood and bruises, and the woman behind
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: the wheel went pale and grabbed her phone and within
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: minutes police cars and ambulances filled the road. The officers
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: wrapped us in blankets and tried to ask questions. but
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: most of us couldn't speak coherently. We just kept repeating
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: fragments about the harvest and the red door and the
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: cells and the organs, and they must have thought we
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: were crazy until one officer examined Matthias and saw his
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: missing arm and surgical scars, and his expression changed from
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: skeptical to horrified. They took us to Millbrook Hospital. and
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: I remember the emergency room erupting into controlled chaos as
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: doctors realized they were treating children who'd undergone multiple organ
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: harvesting procedures without proper medical care. Detective Wallace interviewed me
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: in my hospital room, and I told him everything about
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: the compound and Father Silas and the 20 years of
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: trafficking children for their organs, and he listened with his
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: jaw getting tighter and tighter, and when I finished, he
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: made one phone call that brought the FBI and state
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: police and every news outlet within 200 miles to our
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: small town. They raided the compound that same evening, and
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: what they found made national headlines for months. because it
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: wasn't just organ trafficking, it was systematic exploitation of vulnerable
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: children on a scale that shocked even seasoned investigators who
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: thought they'd seen everything. They found 43 children in various
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: states of surgical recovery locked in those underground cells, and
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: evidence of over 200 children who'd passed through the facility
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: in the past two decades, most of whom had died
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: during procedures or from post-surgical complications. They found financial records
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: showing Father Silas had made over $ 30 million selling organs
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: to wealthy patients who asked no questions about where young,
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: healthy transplant tissue came from, and they found a network
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: of corrupt doctors and social workers and judges who who'd
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: helped him maintain the operation for two decades. Father Silas
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: tried to run when he saw the police coming, but
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: they caught him at the compound's gate, and the footage
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: of him being handcuffed while screaming about religious persecution became
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: the most viral video of that year. Mother Deborah survived
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: her head injury but had permanent brain damage and spent
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: the trial drooling and unable to remember why she'd spent
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: 15 years preparing children to have their organs removed, and
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: the prosecutor said that was probably a mercy. The trial
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: took three years because the case was so complex with
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: so many victims and so many defendants, and I testified
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: for four days straight, describing everything I'd seen and experienced—
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: and the jury looked physically ill by the time I finished.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: Mathias testified from a wheelchair because his body never recovered
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: from the multiple harvest procedures, and halfway through his testimony,
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: three jurors started crying and had to be excused and
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: replaced with alternates. The defense tried to argue that Father
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: Silas genuinely believed he was serving a higher purpose, and
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: that the children had been willing participants in a religious calling,
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: but that argument fell apart when they played recordings of
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: children screaming during procedures. and when they showed photos of
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: the cells and the surgical instruments and the financial records
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: proving this was about money, not faith. Father Silas got
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: 12 consecutive life sentences without possibility of parole, and the
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: judge said he was a monster who'd hidden behind religion
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: to justify crimes against children that defied human understanding, and
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: when they let him away in chains, he was still
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: insisting he'd saved lives by providing organs to people who
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: needed them, as if that somehow justified killing and torturing children.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: I lived with the Harpers after the trial, a foster
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: family who were patient and kind and gave me space
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: to heal at my own pace, and Mrs. Harper taught
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: me what real religion looked like. faith that uplifted instead
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: of exploited, and Mr. Harper helped me understand that not
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: all father figures use their power to hurt people. Mathias
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: lived with a medical foster family because he needed constant care,
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: but we video chatted every week and slowly he started
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: to believe he might have a future beyond being a donor.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: Some of the other survivors weren't as lucky Iris never
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: mentally recovered and lives in a psychiatric facility where she
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: draws pictures of the red door and the cells and
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: Thomas moved across the country and changed his name and
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: told me he never wanted to think about the compound
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: again as long as he lived. Detective Wallace stayed in
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: touch and would send me news clippings when other religious
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: compounds got shut down for similar crimes, and he'd always
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: write the same thing at the bottom of the message
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: another monster caught because you were brave enough to speak up,
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: and I'd cry every time because being brave shouldn't have
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: been necessary. Children should have been protected long before it
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: came to us saving ourselves. The compound was demolished and
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: turned into a memorial garden where 200 trees were planted,
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: one for each child who'd passed through Father Silas's harvest operation,
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: and on the anniversary of our escape I go there
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: with the other survivors who can bear to remember— and
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: we stand among those trees and we whisper the names
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: of the ones who didn't make it out. Sometimes I
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: still wake up smelling chemicals and feeling hands measuring my
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: arms and legs, and I have to remind myself that
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: I'm 32 years old now, living in my own apartment
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: with a job and friends, and a life that Father
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: Silas tried to steal from me, but didn't succeed. the
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: scars on my arms from where mother deborah marked me
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: for harvest have faded but they're still visible if you
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: know where to look and sometimes strangers ask about them
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: and i tell them the truth because silence is what
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: allows monsters like father silas to operate for 20 years
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: without being caught we weren't sent to paradise we were
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: being prepared for slaughter And the only transcendence that happened
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: was when we transcended our fear long enough to run
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: toward freedom instead of accepting the lies we'd been fed
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: our entire lives. And that's the real miracle. Not divine intervention,
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: but human courage in the face of absolute horror. Thanks
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: for hanging out till the end. If you want more stories,
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: make sure to subscribe and leave your take below.