The Wires{Got The Best of Him}

Locks

 After they cleaned up the glass from the mirror, they started to carve the soap bars. The glass they didn't use was in a pile in the corner so no one hurt themselves on it. They had never carved anything before, and were as bad as to be expected.

"Ouch!" Aaron looked up from his now haphazardly shaped soap bar. Josh was bleeding. He had cut himself with the glass.

"Are you serious? You've managed to not cut yourself this entire time, but you do now."

Josh laughed sheepishly and walked over to the bathroom. Apparently there were bandages in there, somewhere Aaron didn't see. Probably another one of those camo doors, he thought. He tried to refocus on his terrible carving, but couldn't for some reason. He hadn't been there a day, yet he already wanted to leave. It's not like there was much compelling him to stay. He tested the doors earlier and found that they weren't even locked. What was the point of putting them in here if they could escape so easily?

Josh returned from the bathroom only to find Aaron staring down his soap bar. He hadn't even noticed Josh reenter the room. "Umm, Earth to Aaron?"

Aaron jumped up and turned around to face Josh. "Oh, it's just you."

"Were you expecting someone else?"

"No, I was just thinking about something."

"Like what?"

There was a brief period of silence."Have you ever thought about escaping?"

That sad look was there again."Of course. Everyone has."

"So why not try? It's not like they're attempting to keep us in."

"It's just..."

"What? What's keeping you from doing it? Is something here? Did they do something to you?"

"No! I..." Josh was doing his best to avoid Aaron's gaze.

"What?"

"What about the people on the outside? Sure, we could probably make an escape plan, and if we were fast enough we would escape, but we're still sick. All of us. Believe it or not, there's nothing out there for us. At the very best, we'll infect our loved ones. Plus they closed the borders. We can't leave the country. And why would we? We'd only spread the disease. It's just better for us to stay here."

"But it's not our fault we're this way!"

"You need to face the facts Aaron. Not only would they catch us because we can't leave the country, we wouldn't be doing any good leaving."

"What are you trying to say?"

"It'd be better for everyone if we died here."

"How can you say that? What about everyone else?"

"What about them? We both know that the Wills are infected too. They came to see me at the hospital, remember? They're in this place just like we are."

"You can't be serious."

"I'm perfectly serious." He looked up from the ground. "Get a grip. Do you know how long I've been in here? Alone? I know how you feel. I want to go outside too, but we can't be selfish like that. Going outside isn't going to fix anything. It's not gonna cure us, it's not gonna make this entire thing disappear."

The silence that followed was deafening. "...I guess now I know why they don't put locks on the doors."

The next morning was quiet. Someone opened the door to place two food trays on the ground and then left. Josh walked over to the trays and picked one up. Aaron didn't react to the bowl of cereal on the tray, but Josh placed it in front of him anyway. "You better eat. The next meal isn't until noon, and who knows what time it is. Must be pretty early though, considering we were awake when they brought the trays." Aaron looked up at him, then down out at the bowl of cereal. It was a bowl of something orange and brown. Or was that yellow? He couldn't really tell.

"Reese's Puffs. It's pretty good. They serve different cereal everyday."

Aaron picked up the cereal bowl. They ate in silence. The tension could be cut with a knife. "Hey look, I'm sorry about my outburst yesterday. It's just you bringing it up made me remember how much I hate this place. You know, being surrounded by nothing but gray walls and silence is very emotionally taxing."

"...How did you stand it?"

"Well, I simply thought of the outside. Ironic, right? The thought that we could all just go outside and have a small party or something, forget that we're all sick, was my little ray of light."

"Oh." And they kept eating.

Ah, the infamous '99% dialogue' chapter. We all knew it was coming folks.

My eyes burn and I'm pretty sure there's a bug in my room. One more chapter left to upload today. Pray for me.

Oh, yeah, don't forget to tell me if I make any grammar mistakes.