Hall 17

49 : Tired

August 31st

Pepper carefully sat down, grabbing the seatbelt and crossing it over her chest. She set down her notepad and pencil in her lap, letting herself get comfortable. Tissues sat down in the seat beside her.

When was the last time she'd been in a car, outside of the one that took her to the hospital? Hell, when was the last time any of them had been in a car? It was always the small details like that that became glaringly obvious when you looked closer.

"Are Trophy and Soap coming with?" Tissues asked as he adjusted his seat belt buckle. His voice had begun to fade back to its same nasally self, though it was barely noticeable with how little it had changed.

"Not yet. Just because the hospital began allowing visitors doesn't mean they're safe to leave, neither of them can even walk at the moment." OJ informed him from the driver's seat. "Trophy should hopefully get better, the weird rust he had shouldn't have gotten past his handles. Unfortunately, I can't say the same for Soap."

He twisted the keys, starting the engine as the car came to life. And yet it still felt so lifeless with lack of noise outside of the slight revving the vehicle made. They backed out of the parking lot and onto the road, the monotone voice of the GPS filling the silence that surrounded them.

"Well," Lightbulb spoke up from the front seat, "Did the doctors say you guys need anything else? I don't want any of us to be sent back because the wounds reopened or something dumb."

"Eh, nothing much. Just keeping myself bandaged, making sure nothing gets infected." Tissues responded, already sounding half asleep.

"Alright, and that's the same with you Pepper?"

Pepper reached for her pencil, but upon realizing Lightbulb was looking back at her for a response, she decided to just nod instead. "Alright! It's pretty lucky we all managed to leave without anything debilitating."

"That's because she didn't want it to be anything debilitating." OJ grumbled, turning the wheel.

She blinked, taken slightly off guard. "What do you mean?"

"I mean what I said. You saw the files, you saw the way she treated all of us. We weren't supposed to get hurt, we were supposed to be subjects. Actually, it's not even that we were supposed to be, it's that we WERE. And in a sense, we still are!" The car began to swerve slightly as it shifted lanes. OJ didn't seem to notice, or care for that matter.

"We're lab rats, the goal isn't to harm us, it's to test stuff out and see if it works. If it does, then hooray. If it doesn't, then oh well. I don't know where you've all been for the past four months to miss that part of the equation, but there's your answer."

If the first thing hadn't taken Lightbulb off guard, then that part definitely did. There was a good five second pause before anybody spoke up again. "OJ, we're not... She's gone now, it's not like we're still down there. I get this is probably stressful but maybe we should try to relax for a moment? She's dead, there's no need to worry about it."

"What if she's not gone though?" He argued. Although his eyes were fixated on the road, the fury bubbling up in them was clearly directed to the girl beside him. "She's a scientist, an inventor. She was the one who shut down the Respawn Center in the first place, you expect me to believe she did that without a plan? For all we know, she's still-"

"Can we please go FIVE MINUTES without arguing? I just want to get to the hotel already." Tissues complained. Surprisingly enough, OJ immediately complied, even if it was reluctantly.

"He's right, he and Pepper just got out. Can we wait until we get back to the houses to talk about this?" Lightbulb asked, her voice surprisingly quiet.