Operation Adelynn

Chapter Three

Everything is dark and cold. I wake up inside the metal tube and hurriedly open the door. I walk out of the tube and look around. Everything is coated in a layer of dust. It looks as though nobody has been in here for years. In a few minutes, all of us have woken up from the chambers.

 As soon as I see Olivia, I rush to give her a hug. Luna and Aurelia join into the hug as well. When we release from our embrace, I notice that the other three people who rebelled are starting to panic. They're about our age, around sixteen or so. "Hey," I say. "I'm Adelynn. This is Luna, Olivia and Aurelia." Olivia reassures them. "We're going to get out of here, okay?"

There's one boy and two other girls. The boy introduces them. "I'm Dylan. This is Piper," He gestures at a girl with dark skin and braids. "And Elliana, my girlfriend." Elliana is petite, with blonde hair a few shades lighter than my own. "Let's find an exit," I say. We comb the dark room for a way out. "Over here," Luna says.

I come over to where she's standing. Everyone else comes to stand behind me. Luna moves out of the way so I can see. She's found a door. I attempt to twist it. "It's locked." I inform the others. "Does anyone have something on them that might unlock it?" Piper asks. I check the pockets of my jeans. All I have is washi tape and a dime.

 "Aha!" Olivia exclaims. I watch her take out a bobby pin from her pristine dark brown hair. She shuffles toward the door, and puts the pin in the lock. It unclicks. Relief floods through me. She opens the door, and light pours into the lab room. We walk out. We've been trapped in a small shed-sized lab at the edge of town. Somehow, the world looks so different than it did yesterday. The sky looks as though it's had decades of air pollution, and there are plumes of smoke rising, probably from a fuel industry. Everything looks grimy and dull, and I don't see many trees. The ones I do see are barely surviving. "Where do we go now?" Aurelia asks. Where do we go? The world looks different, so we need to be prepared. I say the first thing that comes to my mind: "We're going to the library," I look up the directions on my phone, since I haven't been there for a while. I think the chamber had an effect on my phone, because today's date reads July 15, 2103, but yesterday was June 12, 2023.