This Isn't What I Signed Up For

The clock on the cracked wall of Elijah’s cousin’s apartment read 11:47 p.m. He sat on the sagging couch, scrolling aimlessly on a borrowed laptop, the blue light carving shadows under his eyes. Johannesburg’s skyline blinked through the window, a city that felt both too big and too small for his dreams. At 24, Elijah had a communications degree, a battered Nikon camera, and a growing sense that his life was slipping through his fingers like sand. He was tired of crashing with his cousin, tired of the same instant noodles, tired of promises that led nowhere.

Then he saw it. An ad, tucked between job listings for call centers and delivery drivers.

Make a difference. Be the spark the world needs. 10,000 rand per week. Housing and meals provided. Adventure guaranteed.

The words hit him like a jolt. He imagined himself somewhere vast, meaningful—capturing moments with his camera, changing lives, being someone. He clicked the link, filled out a form with his name, age, and a brief paragraph about his passion for photography and storytelling. The next morning, his phone buzzed.

“Are you ready to change the world?” The voice was smooth, confident, like a radio host selling hope.

Elijah hesitated. “What’s the job, exactly?”

“You’ll learn when you arrive. We’re looking for commitment, not curiosity.”

He should’ve known.

The shuttle ride was long, the windows tinted so dark Elijah couldn’t see the landscape. He sat among thirty other recruits, their faces a mix of nervous excitement and guarded hope. Some were younger, fresh out of school; others were older, with tired eyes and stories they didn’t share. The driver, a silent man with a shaved head, said nothing as the vehicle climbed winding roads into the Drakensberg Mountains.

When they arrived, the facility was nothing like Elijah had imagined. It wasn’t a gleaming campus or a rustic retreat. It was a fortress—concrete walls half-hidden by pines, a gate that clanged shut behind them. Inside, the air smelled of disinfectant and damp stone. The recruits were led to a cavernous hall where a woman stood waiting.

Her name was Seraphine. She was tall, her dark hair pulled into a tight bun, her military boots polished to a sheen. Her lipstick was blood-red, unwavering even as she spoke with the intensity of a preacher. “You are here because you believe the world can be better,” she said, her voice filling the room. “We don’t use the internet. We don’t watch the news. We become the news. You’ll be trained. Tested. And then deployed.”

The recruits clapped. Elijah clapped too, swept up in the energy, the promise. He felt like he was part of something bigger, something that could rewrite his story.

The first week was grueling but exhilarating. They woke before dawn, forbidden from speaking until the sun rose. They learned survival skills—how to build a fire, purify water, navigate by stars. There were philosophy sessions, cryptic lectures about “breaking the chains of society” and “reclaiming your primal self.” No phones, no clocks, no contact with the outside world. Seraphine called it “detoxing from distraction.” Elijah, who’d spent years glued to screens, found it strangely freeing.

They were housed in spartan dorms, six to a room, with thin mattresses and metal lockers. Elijah bunked with Avi, a wiry 22-year-old with a quick laugh and a habit of whistling old jazz tunes. Avi was from Durban, a former engineering student who’d dropped out after his father died. He carried a small tin of mints, offering them to anyone who looked stressed. “Keeps the bad vibes away,” he’d say, winking.

By week two, the cracks began to show. The “team-building exercises” grew brutal—crawling through mud under barbed wire, hiking blindfolded for hours, plunging into ice-cold pools until their teeth chattered. Seraphine watched, her expression unreadable, as instructors barked orders. Elijah pushed through, telling himself it was worth it. He still believed in the mission, even if he didn’t fully understand it.

But Avi was different. He asked questions. Too many. “Why can’t we call home?” he’d say during meals. “What’s the point of all this silence?” The instructors ignored him, but Elijah noticed their glances, sharp and fleeting.

Then Avi was gone.

It happened overnight. Elijah and Avi had played cards by flashlight, laughing over a rigged game of rummy. The next morning, Avi’s bed was stripped, his locker empty. Elijah asked an instructor, a broad-shouldered man named Klaus, what happened.

“He washed out,” Klaus said, his tone flat. “Lacked commitment.”

Elijah frowned. “Avi was the fastest runner here.”

Klaus’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t question what you don’t understand.”

That night, whispers spread through the dorms. Someone claimed they’d seen a duffel bag by the perimeter fence, half-buried in leaves. Another recruit swore they’d heard shouting in the woods, cut off by a sharp crack. Elijah lay awake, staring at the ceiling, his stomach twisting. He told himself it was nothing. People dropped out. It happened.

But the motto changed. The next day, Seraphine gathered them in the mess hall and unveiled a new slogan, painted in bold black letters across the wall: Obedience is liberation. She smiled as she explained it, her voice honeyed but firm. “Freedom comes from surrender. Trust the process, and you’ll find your purpose.”

Elijah clapped, but his hands felt heavy.

By week five, the compound felt like a pressure cooker. Recruits moved with mechanical precision, their eyes down, their voices low. Questions were met with silence or punishment—extra laps, skipped meals, hours of standing in the rain. When people disappeared, no one asked why. Beds were stripped, names erased. Elijah learned to keep his bunk neat, his thoughts neater.

He missed his camera. He’d brought it, hoping to document the journey, but it was confiscated on arrival. “No distractions,” Seraphine had said. Now, he saw the world through a different lens—one tinted with doubt. He noticed things: the locked doors in the east wing, the cameras blinking in corners, the way Seraphine’s smile never reached her eyes.

Then came the knife.

It was week six, and the recruits were led to a dimly lit chamber deep within the compound. The air was thick with the smell of earth and blood. At the center stood a goat, tethered to a post, its eyes wide and glassy. Seraphine stood beside it, holding a blade that gleamed under the flickering lights.

“Today, we test your resolve,” she said. “Words are cheap. Action is truth. To change the world, you must be willing to sacrifice.”

She handed the knife to the first recruit, a quiet girl named Thandi. “Kill it.”

Thandi froze, her hands trembling. The goat bleated, a low, desperate sound. Thandi dropped the knife and vomited. An instructor dragged her away.

One by one, recruits stepped forward. Some complied, their faces blank as they slit the goat’s throat. Others refused, their voices breaking. Elijah’s turn came. He took the knife, its weight cold in his palm. The goat stared at him, and he saw his own fear reflected in its eyes.

“This isn’t what I signed up for,” he whispered, stepping back.

Seraphine’s gaze pinned him. “Then why are you here?”

“To make a difference.”

“Exactly. And change requires sacrifice. Do you want the old you or the new world?”

He dropped the knife. Six others did the same.

They were marched to the “reflection chambers”—cramped, windowless cells that reeked of mold and rust. Elijah’s cell was barely wide enough to lie down. A single lightbulb flickered overhead, buzzing like a trapped insect. Meals came through a slot: stale bread, watery soup. He was given a stack of recycled paper and a pencil, told to write confessions. What are your weaknesses? Why do you resist?

At night, the silence was worse than the cold. Then came the cries—human, unmistakable, echoing through the vents. Elijah pressed his ear to the wall, trying to make sense of them. Was it Thandi? Another recruit? He didn’t know.

On the fifth day, a voice broke the monotony.

“You awake?”

Elijah froze. The voice was low, female, coming through the wall. “Who’s there?”

“Name’s Nia. You new?”

“I refused the goat.”

She chuckled, a dry sound. “That’ll do it.”

They talked through the wall, their voices muffled but urgent. Nia was 27, a former journalist from Cape Town. She’d joined The Program after her sister, a recruit, vanished the previous year. “I thought I could find her,” Nia said. “Instead, I found this.”

“What is this place?” Elijah asked.

“They don’t want thinkers. They want soldiers. Blind, loyal, ready to do whatever they’re told.”

“For what?”

“I don’t know yet. But it’s bigger than us.”

They whispered for days, piecing together fragments. Nia had seen things: coded files in an instructor’s office, a map with marked locations across the continent, a room filled with crates labeled “supplies.” She’d been caught snooping, which landed her in solitary.

One night, she said, “Do you want to get out?”

“Yes.”

“Then listen. Tomorrow, after dinner, pretend you’re sick. Choke, clutch your throat, make it convincing. When they open the door, I’ll handle the rest.”

Elijah’s heart pounded. “How?”

“Trust me. I’ve been planning this for weeks.”

The next evening, he forced down the gray slop they called dinner, his hands shaking. When the guard passed his cell, he collapsed, gagging, clawing at his throat. The slot slid open, then the door. A guard stepped in, a burly man with a shaved head.

A flash of movement. Nia, in the doorway, swung a metal tray. The guard crumpled.

“Move!” she hissed.

They ran, Nia leading the way through a maze of tunnels. She’d memorized the layout, following red pipes that snaked along the walls. Alarms blared, red lights pulsing. They dodged locked doors, ducked into shadows when footsteps echoed. Nia was relentless, her breath steady despite the pace.

“They think obedience is liberation,” she said, panting as they climbed a stairwell. “But they forget resistance is evolution.”

At the end of a corridor was a rusted hatch. They pushed, muscles burning, until it gave way. Moonlight spilled through, cold and sharp. They climbed out, the forest swallowing them.

They ran for hours, branches tearing at their clothes, their lungs screaming. When their legs gave out, they collapsed in a clearing, the stars bright above. At dawn, they found a dirt road. A truck rumbled into view, its brakes screeching.

“You two okay?” The driver was an older man, his face creased with concern.

“Long story,” Elijah said. “Can you take us to the nearest town?”

The driver nodded. As they drove, Elijah looked back. The compound was gone, hidden by the hills. He exhaled, his breath shaky.

“This isn’t what I signed up for,” he said.

Nia smiled, her face streaked with dirt. “No. But maybe it’s what we needed to wake up.”

The aftermath was chaos. Elijah and Nia reached a small town, where they contacted a journalist Nia knew from her old life. They told their story, every detail: the ad, the training, the goat, the cells. The journalist dug deeper, uncovering whistleblowers who’d escaped The Program years earlier. Six months later, a news exposé broke, detailing the group’s operations: a cult-like organization masquerading as a social movement, recruiting vulnerable young people, brainwashing them for unknown ends. Some speculated it was tied to private militias; others pointed to political agendas. The truth remained murky, but the compound was raided, and Seraphine and her inner circle were arrested.

Elijah returned to Johannesburg, his camera in hand. He started photographing again, but his lens had changed. He captured the city’s underbelly—street kids, abandoned buildings, the faces of people who’d been forgotten. His first gallery show, What I Didn’t Sign Up For, was raw and unflinching. Each photo was a question, a warning. The show sold out, and Elijah used the money to rent a small studio.

Nia kept digging, chasing leads about her sister. She wrote articles, spoke at conferences, became a voice for those who’d been silenced. She and Elijah stayed in touch, their bond forged in the tunnels.

Sometimes, at night, Elijah would wake, his heart racing, the smell of mold in his nose. He’d grab his camera, step onto the balcony, and shoot the skyline until the panic faded. The city was still grey, still heavy, but it was his. And he was no longer the boy who’d clicked an ad, chasing a spark.