The Boy I Met On the Roof

The Colony

The door falls shut behind him with a heavy thud, sending cold air rushing toward him. The bright lights from before are gone, replaced by a lingering near darkness, light only coming from the dying displays of all kinds of medical and electronic machinery. The air is filled with the heavy smell of dust and decay and Dustin has to actively breathe through his mouth to avoid the odor. There is a faint buzzing coming from somewhere, either from insects or the electronics, seeming louder than it should be due to the otherwise silent stretches of what appears to be an endless maze of hallways.
Either that or he was right about developing a tinnitus. Taking a hesitant step forward he looks around himself, the plastic chip still in hand; logically he knows that if he wants to, he could turn around and find another way out, but they know he's escaped and unlike the guards, their bullets don't seem to be rubber. Or at least that's what he's been told when he asked why the guards outside the school gates had guns.

Dustin knows from the "stay out" sign that he is not alone and even while trying to wrack his brain for possible answers for what could be with him he doesn't find anything plausible. Maybe the thing he got injected with makes someone aggressive as the disease progresses, but that doesn't explain why they couldn't just shoot it down as they would have him. Perhaps their subjects had revolted but then again, they would have been outnumbered by the staff. It just doesn't make any sense.
Pushing a hand through his hair, he steps forward, determined to find a way out.
Rebecca and he had gathered enough evidence to at least convince the authorities to investigate the school and there was no way they wouldn't find the large underground experimental facility.
He just has to find a way out before he dies to whatever they gave him. As of right now, he doesn't feel deathly sick, more just like he had the flu, but there's no way to tell how aggressively it progresses, so he could have weeks to months left Somehow, he doesn't feel afraid; he hadn't clung to live like others have ever.
Maybe he just learned early on that he doesn't mean much in the bigger picture, with billions of other people existing and most of them being more important than he is. Dustin is just some kid without that much to speak for him; his grades aren't that good, he doesn't have any special talents, and he isn't extraordinarily kind or good-hearted.
Dustin just is; he exists among a sea of other people, and realistically, if he did die, no one would go as far as batting their eyelashes.

Maybe Rebecca would be a bit disappointed, and maybe Noah would shed a tear or two, but he never brought anything to the table, he just dishevelled their working duo by making it a trio.
There's nothing scary about death to him; even if hell does exist, he would gladly go. What kind of all-loving god would willingly send people to suffer for eternity for not obeying his every whim? God just sounds like a narcissist to him. And if hell doesn't exist he would just cease to exist, like an endless dreamless slumber; nothing, forever. Sounds preferable to his life, if he's being honest.

Wandering through the dark hallways, Dustin doesn't find much; a rat here, a colony of cockroaches there, and a couple of abandoned, empty cells. Nothing he can use for anything, and with the pain of his wounds catching up, he is desperate to find at least some bottled water. Sighing, he slides down a wall; the blood from the wound on his head and his arm dries and sticks to his skin uncomfortably, pulling on the fine hairs that cover his entire body.
His head had gotten worse in the last couple of hours, mind swimming, thoughts never staying for more than a couple of seconds before being replaced, fast-paced but dragging through his head at a snail's pace.
The pain had gotten worse as well, if he didn't know any better he would say that he could feel his skull cracking against the pressure. He is tired, losing function of his limbs, moving rapidly but uncoordinated, muscles twitching randomly while his hands shake uncontrollably.
At least he isn't cold anymore.

Dustin's eyes shut for what couldn't have been more than a minute before he's awoken by a rustling near him; flinching, he shoots up, eyes searching frantically for the source. As his chest falls and rises rapidly his gaze lands on a girl, no older than fourteen at most; her strawberry blonde hair is tangled and she's dressed in an oversized, dirty white t-shirt, covering her from the shoulders to the middle of her thighs. She snarls at him, covering like a feral animal, lips pulled up to bare her crooked teeth, cheeks covered in dozens of holes, some large enough for him to see her gums and molars trough.
A rotten, decaying smell comes from her, either from whatever is making her face deteriorate or from her poor hygiene.
For what feels like forever they look at each other, neither daring to move nor speak until she finally stands, spine cracking as she straightens up, revealing that she has at least twenty centimetres on him in height. Her deep brown eyes scan him up and down, pupils the size of pins despite that constant darkness.