Lies & Harmony Trilogy

Chapter Five: Remembrance (Part 2)

They’ve left me here.

     Eagan and Jakob have left me alone in this room. They have contacted the people that I’ve escaped. I’m going back to them because I was idiotic enough to walk into another sector, knowing that it wasn’t the way home. I was stupid enough to listen to Mallory and stop by her house.

     I could have been back in the eleventh sector now. I could have been boarding the boat to whatever place that my hospital is located on. All I know is that it is a journey of a thousand steps from here to the hospital. If anything, I took the wrong turn and ended up even further away from my destination in the first place.

     There are no windows in the room so I hoped that Eagan would leave the door unlocked but no such luck. When they left, I heard a click that did much to remind me of Ana locking my room.

     I’ve never thought much about it until now. Even though I wanted to leave the hospital before, I never felt the need or urge to get out of there. I was right where I belonged, and I did not care if she locked the door or not. I know that I could have escaped through the window if I wanted since it was large enough to fit a body, but I never did. They all trusted me enough not to climb out of there. That’s why I was granted that room in the first place.

     Now that there’s a lock between me and the pathway to escape, I feel so contained and small. I feel like I was bird snatched from the sky and contained in a small bottle that constricted with each passing second, and the more I think about it, the more the panic grow, beating against the walls of my rib cage and demanding to be freed.

     Now that escape is something that I truly want, I wonder about the lock in the hospital. The lock is never left unlocked. I’ve never thought much of it until now. If I did, I always came to the conclusion that it was used because the nurses didn’t need us sleepwalking or wandering around blindly and causing trouble for the night-watchers.

     The nurses and doctors couldn’t have known intruders would have come through the window, could they? In my room, it used to be used a spare room and the nurses and doctors would always be present with the patient. Another boy wanted that room too, but it was given to me. I don’t remember exactly why they gave it to me instead, but it might have had something to do with him. Like the girl who rarely attended class, his wrist band declared him to be MAJOR.

     Now that I think about it, I wonder if the lock really is there to keep us from wandering around and causing trouble. They picked the ones that they know would only leave the hospital through the front doors for rooms with windows. The lock is there for another reason.

     Suddenly, it hits me, and I push the thought away the moment it enters my mind, but it still infiltrates my thoughts and poisons them.

     The locks are there to make sure that we don’t escape.

After standing up and sitting down on the chair for about the hundredth time, I hear another click, and I nearly jump from my seat.

     Someone unlocked the door.

     I stand there in the middle of the room with only my heartbeat to keep me company. I’m holding my breath, and I don’t even know why. The air around me feels still and stagnant and almost waiting to burst into life. Then there are tender footsteps upon the ground, and I hear the creaks from the floorboard that is a dead giveaway. Then the creaks grow smaller, and I feel like I can breathe again.

     I begin to feel aware of myself standing there in the middle of the room like I haven’t just been given a chance at escape. I can feel the tips of my finger tingling all the way down my toes. I take a breath in and then exhale and place one foot in front of the other. Then I do it again and again until I’m right in front of the grey door, and I place my hand on the dull, round knob.