Subject 116

12

Hallie and I finished up our talk, and left the room to see Lydia by herself, Monica nowhere in sight. Hallie was the first to move quickly, and got down to the child's level before speaking to her, to give a sense of equality. "Lydia, where's Monica?" she asked frantically.

She looked in the direction of the door behind her to the right. "She's in the bathroom. She didn't look too good when she left." Hallie turned in the same direction, and fell back into uneasiness, even though I thought she had settled. But that wasn't the thing concerning her. Peyton was still nowhere in sight. I knew sessions went overtime a lot, but Peyton was always done on time, every day. He seemed like the kind of guy to hold his doctor back, and ask as many questions as possible, even if they were unnecessary. But it made sense that he wanted to finish up at the minimum time as well, he was very impatient in some cases.

"Peyton's not with her, is he?" Hallie asked one more time, just to be sure she wasn't overthinking. Lydia shook her head. "No. She's upset he isn't back yet."

Speaking of disasters, I couldn't help but notice Doctor Brahms standing in the hallway, holding her clipboard as usual, ready to take me back to the pod. Hallie spotted her too, and whipped her head around back at me with wide eyes. She was terrified something horrible was going to happen, and I couldn't really blame her. But I didn't think anything was going to happen to me, at least not today.

She mouthed to me "Don't go." I could almost hear her pleading. I kept a straight face so Doctor Brahms wouldn't have any suspicions, because if she did, Hallie would be the one in trouble, not me. I wanted to say something back, but couldn't let her catch me in the act. So, I acted normally.

"Sorry, I'll be gone for a bit. I'll be back soon." I started to walk away from her, and jumped when I felt her grab me by the wrist. Trying to be subtle, I looked down, and she had gone from scared to serious so quickly.

"You get yourself out if anything happens. Or shout for help, we'll all hear you." she mumbled just enough so that I could hear her, and thankfully, I was blocking Doctor Brahms' view of her, so she couldn't lip read. I nodded slightly, and she let go.

Doctor Brahms looked as collected as ever, almost too much. "You ready?"

"Yes." I urged to turn back to look at Hallie one more time, but I didn't. Something was telling me that this was the last time I would see her. Thankfully it wasn't, but after everything she told me, it was crossing my mind.

We started walking towards the submersion room, like we did every day, but it felt so different now that I had a new perspective on what they were trying to do with me. I had always agreed with everything the doctors told me, because I really didn't have a choice in the matter most of the time. Hallie had done the same, but she wasn't so submissive when they weren't around. She had a mind of her own. I did not. We were so different, yet we got along very well. I don't think that was normal in most cases.

She was able to express her thoughts so easily, and I found them all fascinating, even if I didn't believe it all. Though, I think I was starting to. She had better instincts than I did, there were very few things that truly scared me. The idea that the staff were the ones behind my memory loss was entirely possible, I just wasn't going to give into that theory so easily. I needed solid evidence, not just feelings, because I was awful with those. There must be something that could lead me down the right path to figuring things out, I just needed to stop following the same routine every day. Going to the roof with the others was certainly a good first step, now I just needed to be rebellious like that more often. I wanted to break off of this consistent schedule, but I also didn't want to. I didn't know what would happen to me, or more importantly, everyone else, if I were to act up and get caught. Any kind of therapy they planned to use on people who were overactive, it couldn't be worse than what I had gone through, surely. Otherwise that would just be inhumane.