Love me, Love me

•~22~•

A/N: Elena/Cyan's POV. This one felt short to me but it's actually kind of long 🤷‍♀️
Anyway, here you go :)

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Everyone had gone absolutely and irrevocably insane.

Gregory had begun preparing the others for this "war" he'd been pushing. I didn't argue that it was time to go back but the violence was unnecessary. Did I know what would happen to us if we all showed up back on the space shuttle empty handed? No, I didn't. Did that scare the hell out of me? Yes, it did. But I was one of the only ones who questioned Gregory's self-proclaimed bulletproof "war" plan.

We'd been divided again. The ones who supported Gregory in his endeavors: Zach, Nathan, Delilah, Juniper, and Mateo. And the ones who thought it was idiotic to charge in there with homemade weapons: Anya, Arthur, Georgia, and myself. Forget the Brawn and Brains, now we were the war mongers and the peacekeepers. I won't lie, I was disappointed at how many of my acquaintances were ignorant.

After a day of them prancing around with their weapons and egos, I was turning us around. I hated to say it but I was starting to feel the craving again. My stomach was turning with anxiety as I longed for something to make me forget all this shit. I tried to push it aside, rubbing my eyes and focussing on steering. The thought popped into my head that there might be some meds in the storage area with all those boxes.

"No, stop it," I whispered to myself, dropping my head into my hands as I stared at the dash. "You remember what happened last time. You can't scare Nathan like that again."

"You thinking about me?"

I jumped in my seat, standing and turning to find a grinning Nathan in the doorway. I took a few steps forward as I tried to smile. "Hey, Nathan."

"Hi, sweetheart," he said, walking toward me and kissing my cheek as he sat in one of the chairs in front of the control panels.

I should tell him now, I thought to myself, nodding as I did.

Don't be an idiot, another voice said, a crueler voice. If you tell him, he'll lock you up in Medbay like it's a goddamn psych ward-

"Hey," Nathan said, spinning the chair around so he could look at me with a concerned expression. "Are you alright, El?"

"Yeah," I said, feeling my eyes go back down to a normal size. "Yeah, I'm fine. This whole war thing is just really freaking me out, that's all."

"Oh, El," he said, standing and touching my arms as he looked me in the eyes. "Everything's going to be just fine. You'll see."

•>•>•<•<•

They told me to come to this building but I couldn't be sure if this was right. It was technically just a mountain with what looked like a random metal door. The Uber I came in drove off and I was left staring at the strange scene. I couldn't believe this was my life and I was in front of a mountain with a secret door in it. These are only things that mad scientists have.

The door opened while I was standing there staring, a creaky metal sound grating my ears. Then Connie walked out and strolled toward me, wearing a grim smile and a black sunhat with her classic black suit. She still had on those high heels even though the terrain was less than smooth and the air held a chill. I watched as she stopped in front of me and extended her hand as if she had never met me before.

I took it nonetheless, glancing around at the forest surroundings. "Where exactly are we?"

"Doesn't matter, Ellie," she said, waving a hand as she smiled genuinely now. "We are going to be having so much fun, you have no idea."

I didn't ask any questions, following her forward as she stepped through the door and smirked back at me. Once I was inside, I took a sharp intake of breath. I was standing on a metal railed balcony that looked out over an enormous room with walls made of rock. There was a lab on the ground floor where people were working, unbothered by my entrance. There were staircases on either side of the balcony and Connie took the left one. I tried to pick my jaw up off the ground, scrambling after her as she led me downward.

"We call this place the Lab. That is obviously self explanatory," she said, stopping as we reached the bottom. She turned to look at me with a smile. "There are hallways leading through the mountain to a room we've set up for you. We'll teach you how to navigate here, how to make patches for broken suits, and many other things. You can go examine your room now, if you like. Does that sound like a plan?"

"Yeah," I said, eyes wandering the ceiling as I saw potlights drilled into the rock that illuminated the area.

"One more thing, Ellie," she said, snapping my attention back to her with my new and only nickname. "There are no painkillers on the ship."

•>•>•<•<•

I was there for about three weeks but it wasn't necessary to keep me that long. I'd learned how to navigate after just a week which surprised the scientists very much. No, I stayed for one particular reason and one reason only. I was utterly and totally afraid. I was afraid of going into space, I was afraid of venturing someplace new, I was afraid this wouldn't play out like I needed it to. But I was mostly afraid of going up into space with no pills to keep me sane. Which I was right to worry about.

My hand was placed heavily on the wall as I used it to keep my entire body upright. If I hadn't caught myself on the wall, I would've been on the floor and I wasn't sure if I would stand again. There was one idea that was keeping me up which was the thought of the storage room. I had to get there and see if I could find any pills to take. I needed them more than ever right now.

So, I let my legs stumble down the hall and toward the direction where I thought Storage was. Surprisingly, I was right about the placement and found the tower of boxes right in front of me. I didn't remember them being that tall before. Maybe I was only hallucinating but they seemed impossibly enormous. I tried to forget it, placing my foot unstably on the bottom box. Somehow, I managed to pull myself up and reach the top. I pulled down the box on the top which was smaller than I thought. I pulled the lid off the top and found little bottles of pills.

I felt something I'd never felt before; a little giggle erupting from my throat. I ignored the new discovery, taking out one of the orange bottles and taking the white top off. The pills inside were a greyish blue kind of colour. I placed the lid back on the box and put it back on the pile, shrugging as I popped one of the pills into my mouth and swallowedwithout water. I'd gotten pretty good at doing that after taking so many at home.

My brain decided to do something funny just then, and not in the sense that I wanted from it. I wanted relief and a kind of... floating sensation. This was a pressing on my chess and a tickling in my head. It felt like someone was trying to hold my brain in their delicate hands. Then I felt the pressing on my chest turn to a push. The force sent me falling backward and onto the floor with a thud.

To my surprise, I didn't feel any kind of pain. It more felt like my body was numbing as the tickling spread over my skin. It was moving in waves over my arms, then my lips, then my feet. And once it reached my eyes, they shut tight and remained that way for a while. I remember waking up but I don't remember the in between part. I'm sure someone else will be able to tell you that story, they made sure I remembered it.

WORD COUNT: 1383

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