The Lab

Chapter 7

I lay on the floor gasping for air, the wind knocked out of me. I grip my shoulder shaking uncontrollably. I hear someone shout my name from behind me and I look up seeing its Erin. She has a worried look on her face. Oh god my shoulder. Never in my life had I felt something hurt this bad. I pant trying to sit up. I look forward seeing the guard walking towards us cautiously. Suddenly he falls to the ground and starts screaming. I look and see Kitsune on top of him. I look away his scream sounding... gurgly now. Then, silence.

I pant, wincing, trying to sit up a bit. I try to cover my nose with my other hand, the smell of blood sickening. I stare at Kitsune who's standing over her kill. She turns her head towards us and I hear Erin gasp. Kitsune had blood all across her mouth making me shiver. She licks her lips and says, "Erin, help Lucy up. I'm gonna go take care of any more obstacles up ahead and then we bust out of this place," she says turning around and running through the double doors. Erin offers me her hand and I grab it with my good arm. I wince and try to hold back a scream as she helps me up. I pant heavily, feeling extremely weak. I lean against her for support and she puts her arm around me to keep me up.

We speed walk through the halls looking around cautiously. I squeeze my shoulder tightly but I can still feel blood trickling down my arm. I look behind us seeing I was leaving a trail of blood as we went. I suddenly heard a girl scream and barks from up ahead. I wince wondering how Kitsune could stand doing that stuff. I hear Erin sniffle and I look seeing she's crying.

"Erin," I say. She looks over at me her eyes worried and sad. "It'll be okay. I'm gonna be okay and we're gonna get out of here." She sniffs and nods her head quickly. I squint up ahead seeing Kitsune battling someone. Her ears were laid back and she was bearing her teeth. I watch her attack the victim quickly causing them to fall in screams.

We inch closer and closer and I notice a door. The main doors. I let go of Erin and start to run knowing I'm going to regret this later. "Start running Erin! Were almost there!" I yell back at her. I pant heavily so close to the doors. I glance down and see the female guard, the one that dragged me to the room upstairs, lying on the floor. Her eyes were lifeless and she had a massive slash in her chest bleeding heavily. I look away and keep running. Kitsune stood there at the main doors waiting for us. She ran through and I squint the sun extremely bright.

I run through the doors Erin right behind me. I squint slowly adjusting to the light. I look around seeing the labs vehicles parked across the blacktop. I hear footsteps coming from our left and I start running the opposite direction. Kitsune leads the way turning towards the main gate which was closed. Damnit. Kitsune turned human in mid-run and raced up to what looked like a keypad next to huge gate doors. She slammed her fist against it causing lights to flash. The doors squeaked and groaned as they slide to the sides slowly.

I kept running but was I getting tired quickly. I yelled running straight through the doors as fast as I could. I looked at the land that I never thought would be so beautiful. The mountains laid around us in this massive clearing. Small clumps of trees were scattered in some places. I continued running not stopping until we were far away. I suddenly tripped and collapsed on the ground beyond weak. I heard a muffled shout in the distance. I closed my eyes slowly and blacked out.

***

My eyes snap open and I take in a deep breath. I look in front of me seeing a small fire. "Ah," I said gripping my shoulder. I take my hand off it realizing a huge white bandage on it. I look up seeing the night sky. I smiled seeing the gorgeous twinkling stars painted across the sky.

"How you feeling," I hear a voice say recognizing it as Kitsunes. I turn my head to her seeing her walk over to me sitting down beside me. She had cleaned the blood off her mouth but not her clothes. I shrugged immediately regretting that. "The bullet luckily didn't get caught in your shoulder, just grazed the top. I snatched those bandages off a guard if you were wondering." I nodded in response.

"So what's our plan?" I ask her, hypnotized by the fire. "About Erin? And finding where Ivan might be." I continue looking at Kitsune. Kitsune shrugs looking up at the sky. "Where is Erin and how the heck did we get here?" I ask.

"Well, Erin's asleep over there," she says pointing. "You however blacked out from blood loss. Erin and I had to carry you the rest of the way. We then set up camp here and we fixed you up. You better get some rest though cause you lost a lot of blood."

"Thanks Kitsune. I don't know what I'd do without you." I said looking up at the sky with her. The stars twinkled and danced around the moon. I listened to the fire pop and crackle as it ate away at the wood. I listened to the night animals sing their sweet melodies in the night. I breathed in through my nose deeply smelling the crisp mountain air. I slowly felt my eyes shut finally feeling at peace. I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep not realizing that I had been crying.

The next morning I woke up to smell of something cooking. My eyes snapped open to find Kitsune roasting a rabbit she had caught. She was the master at survival skills I tell ya. If it wasn't for her I wouldn't have learned many things. How to start a fire from scratch, how to track animals, how to cook over a fire, and how to tell what time of the year it was. I've tried to ask her how she knows all this but she always responds with, "That's not important Lucy."

I get to my feet wincing. "Looks good," I said licking my lips. I was starving. I heard a yawn and I turned my head to find Erin waking up. She blinks and looks around sleepily.

"Morning sleepy head," I say looking over at her. "Kitsune caught us breakfast." Her eyes snap open realizing what's going on.

"Lucy! Your okay!" she says getting to her feet quickly. I nod in response. "Come on, we gotta eat quickly and get moving." I say walking over to Kitsune.

"Get moving?" she asks confused. "Yup, we gotta get you back to the town. Then we gotta go find Ivan." I respond.

"I'm not gonna leave you guys," she said simply. "After seeing all that there's no way I can go back to society now." She says standing her ground. Kitsune and I look at each other.

"Lucy, come here," she says gesturing me to follow her. We step away from Erin a bit and Kitsune says to me, "Lucy, what do you think we should do. There's no way she'd last that long out here anyway. She'll just slow us down."

I sigh and rub the back of my neck thinking. Erin was going through exactly what I went through. I wanted to go home so bad but I knew deep down I no longer could. "I agree with what your saying Kitsune but if she goes back she'll never be the same. Besides, the Labbies might even try to track her down and take her back because of what she knows." I say.

Kitsune sighs and appears to be thinking about this in her head. "Okay, she can stay I guess." We both walk back over to the fire and I say, "Okay Erin, I guess your staying with us. Are you sure you really want to do this? I mean, won't your family be worried about you?" I ask. She shook her head her face suddenly turning grim. "No, I don't want to see my father again." She said walking over to the campfire. I decided I wasn't going to ask about her father.