The Lost Ones

5 - Lela

The sun fell over the leafless trees that littered the orange horizon. I lay on a spare mattress, watching the moon rise into the sky. It was strange: in the middle of nowhere you could see everything, but at the same time you could see nothing. Glittering stars dotted the night sky like holes on carbon paper.

"Hey, Lela. You awake?" I heard a small voice whisper to me in the darkness. I turned to see Peri smiling at me. "I can't sleep either."

"I just.... too much has happened." I shake my head. Peri pats my arm comfortingly.

"I understand. It was the same way when I escaped the hospital." I can see her tensing and even with the little moonlight the pours in through the windows, I can see a single tear roll down her cheek.

"What were you doing there?" I ask, hoping that I wouldn't upset her too much. I didn't like remembering the hospital.

"I was treated in my mother's womb with medicine that they hoped would make me immune. It saved my life - but ended my mum's. I was tested on to create treatment for those with the disease, but when I was nine, I saw them. Out of the window. Gemma was my age then, she was twelve, but she was still amazing. She ran into the hospital and launched an attack with the others; they hadn't started the different groups back then, there weren't enough resources. So I ran with them, and I came here." She gives me a watery smile.

"Sounds like my story." I say, still not smiling. I think of Adrian, and there's a guilty pang in my chest.

"We all have them. Stories, I mean. They don't end, they just carry on without us. In the end, it's all the same one story, just from different points of view." Peri whispers. 

I look at her; it hurts me to think how a twelve year old girl could know so much hurt, and so much sadness. It hurts me to think that she could say something so profound, but just carry on with the way life is. You'd think that humanity would have progressed with age, but no, nothing has changed from the 'dark days' that they talked about in the schoolbooks. 

Nothing. Nothing at all. It just made all the anger and bitterness from the last ten years flow out like a waterfall. I got up and walked out with one last smile at Peri. My footsteps tap down the corridors, making hardly any sound at all. The world is silent now. Moonlight streams in through the glass panes, making shapes on the floor. A bird flies underneath my feet, I pass over gnarled trees. 

"Lela?" A voice calls out behind me. I turn around to see Gemma. Does nobody sleep here?

"Don't worry, just go back to sleep." I just want her to leave, but she's not having it. She walks up to me.

"Look, don't worry about your friend. He isn't going to die," She looks gentler when she sees me wince at her words. "We're going to get him out of there. He's going to be safe, okay? You'd better get some sleep if you're going to start working in the morning."

I watch her disappear down the stairs, into the darkness. Before I go to follow her into the girls' dormitory, I watch out of the window. I can see some lights in the far distance. Is it the hospital? Does Adrian know that I'm thinking of him? I hope so. I hope he's okay. 

I try to remain as quiet as possible as I tiptoe back into the dormitory. Everyone is fast asleep, I notice, even Peri and Gemma. I lie back on the uncomfortable mattress, and succumb to sleep.

I didn't sleep for a week after the first test. I had endless nightmares: being killed, Adrian being killed.... it was utter torture. I saw the faces of the hospital staff floating in my mind; their blank, expressionless faces were like a never-ending list. I couldn't remember anything about my past, maybe the trauma had lead me to forget it all. Adrian never really talked about life before the hospital either. Though, after all, we were too young to understand half of what was going on. Marie came and went out of the white room that we never left. She told us things, but we could never really understand why we were the ones going through all of this. She gave us the same answer to every question that we asked: this is all for the greater good.