𝐇𝐀𝐋𝐅 𝐀 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐓 - 𝘋𝘌𝘈𝘛𝘏 𝘊𝘜𝘙𝘌

19 ~ annabelle

Lottie

Peering into the small frosted window, I saw with satisfaction that the lab was empty. Every scientist had turned in for the night, and the lights and equipment had been shut off. Glancing around the hallway, I made sure nobody was watching before I lifted the stolen key card to the sensor and opened the door after it flashed green.

I moved quickly; I didn't have much time. But I had an idea, and if it worked, there was a major decision I needed to make. I would rather not make it surrounded by WICKED employees.

The plasma created by our subject's brain activity was stored in an incubator in the corner. It was what the WICKED scientists used to try to find a cure to the Flare. As soon as it trickled in from the subjects, they were all over it, putting it under microscopes and testing it with Flare virus cells, seeing if it would destroy it.

Year after year they did this. They'd done it when I first arrived here to work when I was a child, and they had done it long before as well. The whole reason why they were so fixated on the plasma was because it produced more effects than the other things that were tested.

They were trying to perfect the use of the plasma they gained from the subjects by putting them through mentally challenging events, which I thought was inhumane. It was my friends who were in that Maze, and I wanted to get them out as quickly as possible.

Which was why I was rummaging through drawers in the empty lab at midnight, checking the door every few seconds to see if anyone was coming in. I opened the incubator with the same stolen key card and immediately a hazy blue glow was cast onto my face. Inside were about fifty test tubes, all filled with a clear liquid. They were labelled: A15, A5, A7... It was the plasma of Group A, the males. Group B's incubator was in a different lab, which I planned to investigate another night.

In another high-security incubator were samples of the Flare virus. I took some out and laid my necessary tools next to a microscope. Next, I needed something WICKED had tried before, just not in the way I was about to try it.

The subject's blood was kept in bags in one of the cupboards. On the bags, the subject's name, group, number, and blood type was printed in fine text. I pulled a sheet of clear stickers out of my pocket – one of the perks of being one of WICKED's geniuses was that there was a lot of labeling to be done. A lot of clear stickers.

Carefully, I used a sterile needle to poke a miniscule hole in a few of the bags. I held a different vial up to each one to catch the trickle of blood, and when I had enough, I sealed the bag again with a sticker, leaving it looking just as I had found it.

I only took blood from the bags I knew were most likely going to work. WICKED had certain subjects they had their eye on; the ones whose plasma had the most effects on the virus. I used a pipette to take some of the plasma and mixed it with the correlating subject's blood. My idea was this: if something that came from the mind could have the effects it did, what would happen if it was mixed with the power of something from the heart?

I used the new solution of plasma and blood on the Flare virus, peered through the microscope, and... nothing. Nothing new, anyway. It acted as it did if it was just plasma. I grunted in frustration, but didn't let the failure stop me. I continued the procedure with the next subject. And the next. And the next... nothing.

This had to be it, though! It was a feeling. A feeling that what I was doing was right. I was just missing something... I reached my hand to the back of the plasma incubator and felt around, and that's when I realized that I missed a few vials. I yanked them out and looked at the labels; A2, A15, and A24. I recognized the labels, although they weren't used much. It was Thomas, me, and Annabelle. The adults at WICKED only ever called us our names, as the labels were only meant for the subjects in the Maze, but I knew the three of us still had them. I wasn't aware that WICKED had taken plasma from us.