We All Fall Down

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     Once the doctor put the chip inside of Marcus the same male doctor takes us to a long hallway with large cells in it, one of them empty for us. He motions for us to enter, and we do, looking around at the other cells that contain a single person in each of them.

      "Hi," someone says from the cell across from us. "Did you survive a big test?" the female voice asks.

      "Yea, did you?" I ask her.

      "Yea, twenty of us and I watched them all die. I'm guessing the same thing happened to you," she says and walks up to the bars, allowing me to see her.

      She has a black bob for hair and is wearing a cleaner version of what Marcus and I are wearing; the same white collared shirt, blue jeans, and black sneakers.

      "What's your name?" she asks Marcus and I.

      "I'm Aria, and this is Marcus," I say, deciding if I should trust her or not in my head. "What's your name?"

      "Well, when my friends were still alive they called my Tara," she says. Tara looks tough, as if since she lost all of her friends, and has never known any real family, nothing can faze her, like she won't let anyone get close enough to her to hurt her if something were to happen to them. "You know, you two look like crap," she says and laughs, "Too bad they don't let us take showers, that's too much of a luxury for us test subjects. They put us through all of this and then they can't even give us anything as simple as a shower," she says to us.

      "Did you get branded too?" Marcus asks her.

      "Yea, I've been here for a couple of months, tried to escape eight times with one other subject, and they punished us by killing them and making me pull the trigger," she says casually.

      "Yea, well we are going to escape, you can come with us if you want," I say to her. "As a matter of fact, why don't we try to escape right now," I say and look at Marcus. "Ready?"

      "Yea," Marcus says and pulls something out of his pocket; a hairpin.

      "When did you get that?" I ask him, and he smiles.

      "The person who strapped me to that chair was a female, and they had a lot of these in their hair, and when one fell out I grabbed it," he says and smiles at me.

      "Wow, well if you are both willing to risk your lives to escape then I have to see this. I'm in," she says and smiles.

      Marcus takes the hairpin and slips his hand through two of the bars close to the lock area. He puts the hairpin in and jiggles it around until we hear the click of it unlocking.

      I push the door and it slides open, allowing us to walk out.

      Across from us Tara is standing by her lock, smiling, making it easy for us to tell that she is getting excited. "Come on, they have surveillance all over the place, they probably already sent some people here, and if they find us then someone is going to die," she says as Marcus opens her door.

      Marcus, Tara, and I run out of the hallway to find six people standing there, dressed in black padding, like the FBI would wear. In their hands they are holding large gun like things, except with a blue spherical ball hovering above it, an electric laser charger.

      "Get back in the cell or we will shoot you, and I don't think this will feel too good," one of them says, although I am not sure who, as they are all wearing masks.

      "No," I say to them, "I'd rather get shot with that thing then go back there," I continue.

      "Fine, have it your way," the same voice says and they all get ready to shoot.

      "Duck!" I scream as they shoot, letting out a stream of blue light, a static sound following it. We all jump up and start running towards them, each of us in charge of taking down two of them.

      Tara and Marcus are faster than I am, so they reach them first, tackling their two, wrestling with them. The two that are left stand there looking at them, then turn to me, charging their lasers. I try and duck, but am too late, the laser hits my in the chest, and at first I feel no pain, and then it comes all at once.

      The pain feels like a thousand volts of electricity hitting me all at once, and when I try to move I realize that I can't. Stun lasers. I look up and see the two men standing over me, the lasers still pointed at me. I can't go back. I think and close my eyes, waiting for them to drag me back to my cell-or worse.

      I hear shouting and screams, followed by the sounds of the lasers going off, and then open my eyes again and see Tara and Marcus standing over me instead of the two men.

      "Let's get out of here," Marcus says before I pass out, getting a break from the pain that I just experienced.