Thirteen

6

WARNING‼️
SOME VEIWERS MAY FIND THE FOLLOWING SCENES DISTURBING
VEIWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED!

Pumped Up kicks by Foster The People

I've never heard gunshots before.
Until now.

Grace pulls me out into the hallway to get a look at what's happening.
All I see is brunette boy running towards us with a keycard in his hand. The guard doesn't bother to run after him. He doesn't need to. He only needs to line up his gun with brunnette boy's head.

Bang.

Blood splatters over Grace and I. His body collapses onto the floor infront of us, his brains painting the walls. Red liquid starts to ooze out from his now lifeless body.
I forget how to breathe.
My thoughts race through my mind, each more alarming than the last-

That could of easily been me.

And it all happened so quickly.
Grace crouches down next to the body, careful not to touch the pool of blood that's growing. Brunnette boy's hand slowly unclenches around the keycard. Her eyes wonder over to it, obviously tempted to take it from his cold hand.

"I wonder what went through his head in his final moments..." She says, tilting her head, a smirk crawling across her face.

"Probably a bullet." She adds, and laughs. She laughs in a situation like this. She must be loony. However I realise this may be a regular occurrence in a place like this. The idea sends shivers down my spine.
My stomach churns and a bitter taste starts to rise in my throat.
"Hey, are you okay?" She stands up and grabs my shoulders, forcing me to look at her.
"You don't look too good..."
I try to say something, anything, but nothing will come out of my mouth. My body feels paralysed.
Frozen.
"Ginge, you look like you're gonna be sick."
I try to swallow the lump in my throat, but it won't go away. I feel myself being pulled along by my hand, but I'm not entirely sure because everything feels so distant and unreal.

The moment keeps replaying in my head over and over again, terrified of how easily the bullet sliced through his head.
I try to come back to reality, and realise Grace has taken me to a toilet.

I double over, my body instinctively attempting to expel the intensity of the panic. Grace holds my hair and rubs my back while the distress and anxiety over the past couple of days comes back to bite me in the form of sick. I've shoved all the stress down for too long, and this is my punishment.
I slouch against the cubicle wall, gasping for breath, my throat stinging.
The room spins as I struggle to regain control, leaving my body feeling shaken up and drained.
Grace sits against the opposite wall.

As she's trying to wipe the blood off her face, she says, "He's lucky in a way. Practically the only way to get out of this shit hole."
I've suddenly gone numb.
No words come out of my mouth. We fall into an uncomfortable silence for a few minutes, and it's torture.
When Grace speaks, her voice is low and quiet.

"What are you here for?"
I shrug. "I don't know. He won't tell me shit."
"That's tough."
Vlad's choice of words still makes the gears and cogs turn in my head.
"But he said he wasn't 'allowed' to tell me... so surely that means there is someone above him making the decisions." I think out loud.
"Yeah. You didn't know? These people called 'sponsors' pay them to run these tests. Filthy rich people. Horrible people." She shakes her head as she speaks.

This new information makes something clicks in my mind.
The voices I heard last night.
Vlad must've been talking to his sponsor.
About me.
"Oh." Is all I say.
It actually means my soul has just been ripped into a million pieces. Someone is paying to have me as a lab rat. A fucking science experiment to be poked and prodded. I wonder how much I'm worth.

"Well, feel lucky anyway. Vlad is arguably one of the nicest scientists here."
"Biggest understatement of the year." I say flatly. "If you think he's nice- who do you have?"
She hesitates before answering, as through she's scared to say the name.
"Smith."
My heart breaks for her. I met Smith for no longer than five minutes and she was horrible. I can't imagine what she goes through.
"Shit. I'm sorry. I met her briefly and she was disgusting-"
"Well, can't do anything about it so..." Her voice trails off as she stands up. She holds her blood-stained hanads out to me. I refuse her offer to help me up.
"No. I don't want to."
"You can't stay in here forever. And look at the state of us- you've been sick for Christ's sake. I'm sure Vlad will help you."
I groan.
My stomach churns with dread.
"Come on, I'm sure it won't be that bad..." She takes my shaky hands and pulls me up, wiping my face with the blood free corner of her sleeve. She then unlocks the cubicle door and walks out into the hallway, holding my hand.

But as soon as we turn the corner, I realise we're where it happened.
His body is now gone, but his pool of blood is still remains. The new memory now engraved into my brain, something that will never leave me until the day that I die.
Grace pulls me along harder.

"Come on. He had it coming to him."

A/N
272 VEIWS?! THIS IS MAD THANK YOU SO MUCH 😭🫶 SORRY FOR THE LATE CHAPTER I HOPE YOUR CHRISTMASES WERE AMAZING‼️🕸❤️