Fifteen year old Luke turned his back to the shower and watched the four boys enter the communal shower room. It was difficult, but he resisted the urge to hide his groin with his hands. He knew he had to show no fear, but that was harder to actually do, now that moment was eventually upon him. This had been brewing for a few days now, gently simmering away within the plain utilitarian white walls. He was under no illusions. This was a fight he was not going to win. No-where near. Winning wasn’t the point though. It was how he reacted to the pressure. How he performed. There were only the five of them in the shower room, but the result would be carefully noted by everyone in the cell block.

Casually, he reached back and pressed in the lever of the soap dispenser, feeling the cool liquid pool into his hand. The four boys spread out and Luke stepped to the side, out of the shower stream, and slowly spread the liquid soap over his torso with his hands.

Luke smirked with a humour he absolutely did not feel. “Where’s your fucking tools?...”

“Huh?” One of the boys asked as the shower behind Luke cut off on its timer. Luke didn’t re-start it.

Seriously? “Never mind.” Luke balled his fists and crouched slightly. He was going to get a kicking, but he sure as fuck was going to give as good as he got. The fear within was subsiding, overtaken by a surge of adrenaline. He had made his decision and his body reacted accordingly. Fuck it. Thumbs in the eyes. Make the fuckers scream.

The pipes behind rattled in sympathy to the rising tension in the showers. Even the floor seemed to be vibrating in anticipation. Luke had no desire to be ‘The Daddy’, but equally, he had no desire to be at the bottom of the proverbial borstal food chain.

Two of the boys were starting to look nervous, probably seeing and reading- correctly- the intent in Luke’s eyes. Luke himself was just a few synapses away from shitting himself in terror. If you were going to shit yourself, then the showers was probably the best place for it, part of his mind casually remarked into the terror pervading his head. The shower room was vibrating madly and the pipes screaming out in barely restrained pressure.

“Well come on then you fuckers. What are you waiting for, Christmas?” Luke gritted his teeth, angled his body slightly in an attempt to give his balls some protection. The boys finally started to move closer and Luke inhaled, ready to scream out all his fear and give free reign to terror driven violence.

Luke released all inhibition and surrendered himself to the inevitable.

And woke up.

Someone, or something had taken a shit in his mouth. He collected a ball of fluid in his mouth and spat it out on to the floor between his feet. Which was no longer white tiled but some sort of dark grey metal panelling. His head was throbbing, his thoughts confused. Was he in a prison transport van, on his way to hospital? The ball of spit landed between two strappy sandaled feet that didn’t belong to any male ankle that Luke had ever seen. The two feminine ankles were manacled to clamps on the floor that didn’t allow any movement of the ankle or it’s attached leg.

What the fuck is it with that fucking noise! Luke’s vision started to sharpen from the blur of sleep. Slender ankle led on to equally slender leg and thigh and then on to a black dress. There was so much going on, with sound smell and sight that his brain was taking none of it in. The black dress, at least, Luke thought it was black. It was hard to tell in the strange dim red light that was permeating everything, terminated in a glowering face of a girl of around mid-teen age who looked like she was chewing on a mouthful of wasps. That was even more confusing. They didn’t transport young offenders of different sexes in the same transport. Her face was heavily made up, which along with the dress, looked more like she was about to go on an night out on the town rather than ... Luke looked right.

Crammed tightly together, a row of boys sat next to her, about seventeen of them at Luke’s, slightly fuzzy count. The end of the row terminated with the floor rising at an angle to the roof, which itself was hemispherical, as though they were in a tunnel, or a tube train or something. Opposite the row of teenage boys, was another row of seated figures, male.

Luke leaned forward, though he couldn’t lean too far forward as his hands were manacled above his head, and followed the line of sitting boys back to himself. The boy to his right was awake and staring down at the lap of someone opposite, a slight smile on his lips. Most of the other boys, pretty much all of them in fact, were asleep. Luke looked left.

The boy to his left was also awake and looking down at the lap of the person opposite. The line of sitting figures extended on down, well over twenty kids each side and at least one more girl that Luke could make out. He looked over his shoulder and there was a row of kids along his back with another row facing them.

The fuzziness in his head was dissipating. Slowly, but it was dissipating. It wasn’t a train, or bus, like he had originally thought. It was a plane. A military one judging by the colour and utilitarian nature. Not that he could be certain, as he had never been on a military plane, or in fact, any plane.

Some of the sleepers were awakening. Their drowsiness and his own experience, implying that their ‘sleep’ was not of their own choosing. Some of the faces he knew from Youth Custody Centre Wetherby. Some of the other boys were wearing tops with the logos of other young offenders institutes. So it IS a prison transport then. Albeit an unusual one. Were they sending them further afield, like Scotland?

Someone threw up. Someone swore at the puker, possibly they had been splashed with vomit.

Luke’s shoulders were starting to protest. Being sat with your ankles secured to the floor shoulder width apart with your wrists bound above your head was not comfortable at all. Neither was the seat he was sat on. He slumped back and looked right then back left. The two boys sat either side of him were still staring at something opposite and Luke followed their gaze down.

He hadn’t noticed when he had first looked due to his confusion and blurred vision, that the girl opposites position- which they all shared-, meant that the short hem of her black dress had ridden high up her thighs and her bound hands ensured that she couldn’t pull it down. Her forcibly splayed ankles ensured that the crotch of her red lacy panties were visible to Luke and the boys either side. The girl must have been all too aware of her predicament, which explained her exceptionally pissed off expression. Idly, Luke wondered if her panties were really red, or if they were actually white and that it was the red ambient illumination that was making them look red. The lace front teased a darker strip in the middle.

Ashamed that he was looking at what was obviously the dark tinge of pubic hair through lace, he looked away from the girl, too embarrassed to meet her gaze. A few more passengers had woken up or were in the process of awaking. A figure appeared at the end of the row, what Luke now reckoned to be the ‘front’ of the aircraft. The figure was dressed in an all in one jumpsuit. It was hard to tell in the red light what colour the jumpsuit was, but appeared to be green, or at least, army greenish. The figure was calmly, unhurriedly, buckling straps round the shoulders of the kids as he- and given the size and build Luke was certain it was a he - moved down the row. The man wore an olive motorbike type helmet, the visor of which was retracted up over the helmet. There was something slim sticking out over his mouth and it took a moment for Luke to realise that it was a microphone.

There were voices now. Boys asking the man what was going on, where were they, where were they going? He ignored them all as he went about his task of buckling the boys into their seats. Weren’t you supposed to be buckled in BEFORE the plane took off? It seemed to Luke that rules were being broken. A lot of rules. On the man came, dispassionately buckling in the passengers, as though he had done so hundreds of times before. He probably had.

A buzz of excitement shot through Luke. He had never flown anywhere before. Granted, he would have preferred to have lost his aviation virginity in better circumstances, but “Beggars can’t be choosers.” As his late grandfather was want to say.

“Fucking peado cunt!”

Luke leaned as far forward as his wrist restraints allowed. The man was buckling in a boy who was awake.

“Kiddy fiddling gay fucker who can’t pull a bird so he has to get his rocks off with boys...” The man ignored him, finished one strap, moved onto the second. “I bet your daddy fucked you up the arse when you were little...” Still the man made no reply, seemingly unconcerned about the taunts. The boy howked up a large quantity of phlegm from his throat and spat it at the man, which stuck to the man’s breast. The man looked down at the lump of phlegm and then at the boy. Luke expected the man to simply return the gesture via a punch to the face. But he surprised Luke and probably the boy, by simply undoing the straps that he had just done up and moving on to the next boy. “Yeah, you fucking pussy...” The boy trailed off as it was becoming apparent that the man was not going to rise to the taunts and that his attempts to elicit a response were not going to make him look tough and were in fact, having the opposite effect.

Luke watched the man move down the aisle. A look over his shoulder revealed another man doing the same behind in the other aisle. The boy next to Luke was strapped into the seat then the man turned to the girl.

“Look, can you pull my dress down please?” The girl asked.

Luke couldn’t see much other than the back of the man and the fact his head bent over as he looked down. The man paused for a moment, then reached up into the ceiling somewhere and did something or pressed something, Luke couldn’t quite see or make out what. There was a barely audible click over the sound of the aircraft and the girls ankles were released. She quickly closed her knees and Luke watched the muscles in her arms flex as she lifted herself up off the seat. The man’s arms moved and then he turned around and started buckling Luke into his seat. The man looked to be in his early twenties, clean shaven. There were unit badges on his overalls but Luke didn’t know anything about the military to know what they were or meant.

“Where are we going?” Luke asked. “Scotland?”. The man said nothing. “Can you tell us anything?”. Nothing. “Is there a toilet stop? I really, really need a piss. What about food?”

Apparently not, as the man moved on to the next child. Luke looked back at the girl. Her legs hadn’t been restrained again, her legs now firmly closed together and the hem of her dress had been pulled back down, though that hadn’t been far given the length of her dress in the first place, her underwear now hidden from view.

Luke turned his attention back to the man. A wire strop ran from his belt up to a wire rope running the length of the ceiling. Luke wondered at the point of that, it wasn’t as if he was going to fall any distance in the cramped fuselage. Luke stopped watching the man, as watching him strap kids into their seats got boring fast. He looked back down on the floor. A pool of liquid was slowly spreading out from underneath him. The continued pressure in his bladder informing him that he was not to blame for the puddle, though he was sorely tempted to add to it. It flowed around his trainers towards the girl, who moved her feet out of the way. A luxury denied to Luke with his ankles still bound. The look on the girl’s face turned from its scowl of anger to one of disgust.

Almost all of the kids in Luke’s aisle had woken up now and were becoming more vocal in their displeasure. The two men had now reached the end of the two aisles and the one in the aisle behind Luke started making his way back up to the front. The man in their aisle seemed to be content just to stand there at the back, paying the human cargo no heed. The pressure in Luke’s bladder was now starting to become a problem and the continual vibrations through the seat were not helping matters any. Had it been a boy in the seat opposite, he would have just let his bladder go. But he couldn’t with a girl watching. He gritted his teeth.

There was movement towards the back and Luke looked right. The man had his finger against something and there was a new sound fighting to be heard above the drone of the engines. A faint horizontal strip of light, appeared at the top of the slope and it grew wider. Not bright light. A murky dark light of either late evening or early morning. The gap continued to grow and the air started to move in the fuselage. The fabric of the airman’s one piece jumpsuit started to ripple in invisible air currents. Luke looked around. Everyone that was awake was looking towards the opening rear, the bottom half turning out to be some type of ramp, which made sense to Luke now that he thought about it. There was a clunk, felt more than heard as the door come ramp opened fully.

The boys between the opening door and Luke were all straining forward to look past the boys doing the same in front of them, so he couldn’t see much, just snippets of what looked like sky and water? The engine noise increased along with the elevation of the plane’s nose, which resulted in the view out the back of the plane being filled with water. A boy at the back of the plane, probably one with a ringside view out the back screamed, and screamed loudly. The man looked round, a smile wide across his face, the first emotion Luke had seen on his face. The wire strop attaching the man to the roof rail made sense now.

The plane gently banked to the right and a forested island appeared in the limited gaps Luke could see through the press of peering heads. It was strangely exhilarating. It wasn’t a big island, at least it didn’t appear big to Luke, but then he was high up in the air and things tended to look smaller the higher you got. He remembered back to a school trip he had gone on once to London. They had taken a trip on the London eye and he could see so much and everything had looked so small then as well. Like those pictures he had also seen taken from the top of the BT Tower. That had been in the days before he been expelled from school. There was one solitary peak in the middle of the island, which wasn’t so much a circle as a slash in the water of the surrounding sea. There didn’t appear to be any other land mass in sight. Geography was definitely not Luke’s strong point, but he was pretty damn sure that wasn’t Scotland down there, nor Ireland. Couldn’t you see Ireland from England?

The plane was still climbing as the island slid into the distance, and then out of Luke’s limited view as the plane continued its gentle turn. It had been a pretty cool thing to see, Luke had to admit, and it had taken his attention briefly away from his full bladder, which was now clamouring for his attention again. There was nothing for it, he was just going to have to swallow his pride and piss himself. At least you haven’t shit yourself like the screamer probably has.

The screamer who was still screaming.

Luke expected the man to close the door now the island was passed, but he seemed content to just stand there. The plane which had been banking right, gently levelled out, then started banking left. Luke didn’t know anything about aviation, and flying, but weren’t they turning enough to end up going back the way they had come? The man moved to a bank of controls at the door.

Ahh, now he is shutting it.

The manacles at his feet suddenly released and everyone in his visual range with the exception of the girl looked down. Luke stretched out his legs and then brought his feet back and closed his thighs, wondering if it was still dark enough to hide the resultant darkness in his crotch if he pissed himself. His restrained arms jolted and then he was physically lifted from his seat.

“What the fuck!” Something was pulling down on his shoulders. Wasn’t he strapped into his seat? He looked around in mounting terror. Everyone was standing, the girl opposite on her tip toes and looking far from pleased about it. The girl had a backpack on her back, as did those on either side of her. It didn’t take a genius to work out that he had the same pack on his back. The plane levelled out again.

The man had a wide smile on his face now. That fucking doesn’t look good... thought Luke. With one hand, the man stabbed at a button, the other hand he lifted and started a slow wave of goodbye. There was jolt and Luke was dragged towards the rear of the plane. There was more than one person screaming. There was a lot of people screaming.

It wasn’t a slow drag and it was all Luke could do to keep on his feet. He looked around panicked. Amazingly, a few were still asleep, a boy two along from Luke was actually snoring as he was dragged along.

The rear was approaching really fast. Surely not! “No fucking way!!!!” The girl opposite him was screaming now. Wildly flailing bodies were suddenly alone in the vast expanse of open air in front of him. Luke came to the end of the row of seats that they had all been sat upon, the four lines of restrained children were drawn into the middle of the aircraft by the rails above. The rails their hands were still shackled too. Something, more likely somebody banged into his backpack. The man was opposite him now, still smiling, still waving slowly. One of the boys that had been sitting opposite Luke, twisted and tried to lash out at the man with a foot, but the distance was just a little too far for his foot to connect.

And then Luke was free, his hands released from their confinement. He was also released from the plane.

He was falling, the passage of air making his eyes water and forcing him to squint.

“WAKE UP! FUCKING WAKE UP!!!” He screamed into the rushing air. He didn’t wake up. The crotch of his trousers darkening as his muscles released in terror. The Island lay spread out below, the plane already a distant spec heading towards the horizon. For the strangest of moments it was as if he just hung there, suspended above the island, then the wind caught his arm and flung it out, spinning him round so that he was on his back, still falling. Kids were above him. Falling. Like him. A couple were spinning in a fast mad tumble. One kid didn’t have a backpack. It was the one that had spat at the man.

With difficulty, Luke managed to turn himself back round so he could see the island again. An island that didn’t look as far away as it had a few seconds ago. A large circle of man-made material appeared below, then another, and then another.

Parachutes, the backpacks are fucking parachutes!!! Luke desperately looked down his front for something to pull. There it was, a red ring. He hooked a thumb through it and was about to pull then paused. The girl was falling near to him, limbs flailing, mouth open in a scream, not that Luke could hear it. The hem of her black dress had risen up to her chest. Had it not been for the straps of her parachute, it would probably have been torn off completely. In the weak light, her pants were indeed red. And were thong backed.

Luke had no idea why, but he removed his thumb from the ring. Couldn’t you control the direction of your fall with your arms and body? He was sure he had seen it in countless action movies. He gave it a go and found that if he positioned his limbs just so, he could indeed move closer to her. He collided with her with surprising force. “Ooof!” The girl clung onto him, absolute terror in her eyes. He wondered if he looked the same to her. He pulled down the flapping hem of her dress that was obstructing his access to her chest straps as a knee collided with his balls “FUCK!!!” Luke doubted it was intentional, both their limbs were pretty much flailing about. There was the ring on her harness. He grabbed it and pulled.

The girl disappeared as he was torn violently from her terrified grip. Luke watched her disappear with an unexpected degree of fascination before reality asserted itself and pointed out his own precarious position. He turned his head back towards the island, which was horrifically close and getting closer at a horrendous rate. He pulled his own ring and his head snapped painfully forward as something hauled him bodily back by the shoulders. The wind whipping past his face slowed and he found it easier to take a breath. He shot past a boy drifting lazily under his own deployed chute. Luke looked between his feet and saw that he was heading straight for another parachute.

“Shit, shit shit shit ... How the fuck do you steer...” He looked frantically above and spotted two handles. He grabbed one and pulled and he slowly drifted in that direction. “Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck...” His descent was slowing all the time, but he was still gaining on the chute below him. Slowly, oh so slowly, he drifted aside. He was going to make it! By fuck he was going to make it! His ankles passed the edge of the circular chute as he continued to drift aside. Luke slid by the material and looked down on a boy who had no idea Luke was so close. The boy must have caught sight of Luke’s descending feet out the corner of his eye as his head jerked up.

Luke breathed out his cheeks in relief at a disaster barely diverted and smiled at the boy, who smiled back “Hi!” Luke shouted over. The boy opened his mouth to say something in return when something fast ploughed into the boys canopy, which collapsed and just like that, he was gone. Luke had a brief glimpse of legs thrashing in the canopy before it closed around the figure and both boys plummeted towards the ground.

“FUCK!” Luke shouted into the wind as he looked up at his own canopy in fear. Another figure shot past. He felt his bowels loosen in a way that they had up till now so far refused to do. Another screaming figure shot past. The surrounding sky seemed to full of plummeting figures.

Screaming, the parachute-less boy shot past. I bet he’s wishing he hadn’t spat at that air man now! Luke thought to himself as he looked below, desperately trying to ignore the forms shooting by, or the terminal effect that one of them hitting his chute would have. He was drifting above the water, which he didn’t think was a good idea. Luke steered himself back towards the island. White splashes below marked where tumbling forms hit the water. Some landed on the short beach, others into the tree canopy. Luke wondered if you could survive from a fall of that height from a plane. Some chutes were falling in the water, some on land. Luke was coming in fast, faster than most of the other parachuting kids due to his late chute deployment.

It looked like he was going to land on the beach. What had they said at gym class in school about landing from height? Bend the knees and roll forward to lose momentum along the ground rather than into it? Well, he was about to find out. The sand raced towards him and his feet touched down and he bent his knees as his left ankle twinged and he threw himself forward into a roll that might have been more successful if the pack on his back hadn’t arrested the roll. “Ooff...” Luke stared up into the sky at the chutes slowly descending. Those kids that hadn’t deployed theirs had already made landfall, one way or another.

A screaming boy gently splashed down in the water, his chute slowly landing on top and around him. The boy started thrashing about in the water, slowly cocooning himself. “Shit.” Luke released the buckles of his chute and climbed to his feet and hobbled into the water till he was chest deep. At least this will hide my piss stains ... Gripping the edge of the envelope he dragged the drowning boy back onto the shore. The lad wasn’t the only one in difficulty and Luke managed to pull a further two out onto land.