The Golgotha Initiative

Chapter 10: Maria

I am going to go crazy from the pain. Something's wrong with my skin, my lungs- thousands of blisters popping all at once, millions of tiny cigarette burns. I bite my lip to keep from crying out and agony seeps through my mouth.

I scream.

"So you are alive. We wondered."

Dimly, there's a voice, and then an answer- "Don't tease her. Maria?"

"Ave?"

I keep screaming, everything else completely still so that the burning doesn't spread, but it's already everywhere, everywhere, everywhere.

"Sedate her."

"Hold on, Maria-" Somewhere above my elbow, my skin tears like tissue paper. I yell out, louder, for something to stop this

This

"For why don't you talk?"

I have purple hair. It flops in front of my face and around my shoulders. I'm not wearing a shirt, and I'm too young for a bra.

A breeze ruffles my violet bangs and sends a tickle up my back. I'm standing in a doorway. Outside I can hear shouting- "tu no puedes-" "who SAID?" "watch my back handspring!"

I can't see the owners of the voices. I can't turn and look.

"It's rude not to talk." I take a step forward. My feet are as naked as my torso, and they whisper against the wood floor. "Answer me!"

He shrugs. This dark-skinned boy blends with the room's shadows, blinks with black eyes. He ignores me, and I hate that.

I stomp my foot and shout his name. What do I say? I can't hear my own voice. Just the wind, and calling children.

"My cartwheels are better-"

"I can do eighteen push ups."

"Can not."

Children. I know they're children, like me. Who are they? What is this boy's name?

I think, if I could remember his name, I would know everything in the world.

I don't scream this time. The pain comes in waves, so I can ride it out. Keep breathing. Control my movements.

A skinny boy changes the drip on my IV. I ask him where I am, but someone screams from another room and the skinny boy runs off. Later, a dark-skinned man brings me water and asks what I remember.

"Your mom. Where am I?"

"You've never met my mother."

"It was a joke, Baahir," sighs a tired man from the hallway. "Let her go back to sleep."

"No! I don't want-"

Want

Want

"This is how you throw a knife."

We stand on rocks. Salt spray flings against my shins, blows at my sweatshirt. I clench the hilt of a throwing knife and shoot it toward a black head. He reaches up to catch it, and blood dribbles onto the rocks at his feet.

Everytime I call out they sedate me. This time, instead of yelling, I get up.

It takes hours. My hands burn when I press them into the blankets, my back shouts as it bends, my feet steam against the floor. I don't yell, but I pass out before I'm all the way out of bed.

When I wake up I've slumped onto my cot. The cool railing at the edge of it soothes my hands and I'm able to push myself onto steaming, crying feet. The air feels good against the rest of my skin, and the soles of my feet are tough. I can handle it.

This room is a cement chamber, very large and very empty, plain and unappealing. The doorless opening shows a circular main room with matchingly absent decór. There's a conference table here with maps spread out and sheets of scribbled-on notebook paper. A few canvas backpacks lean against the walls, medical supplies and packaged food sitting on top.

There's one door, deadbolted, made of metal, to my left, and cement arches frequent the rest of the wall space. I hear low voices in one and cross to it.

"Do it."

"I- we don't have to, not yet-"

"Hush. Maria?"

"Hello." I step in. The tall dark man is Baahir. The skinny boy is Kyle. The other man- I know the other man-

"You're walking?" Kyle asks. He appears astonished.

"Put this on." The man hands me a slip.

"Hai, Sensei." The words fire from my lips.

"Sensei?" Baahir echoes. "You remember Justin?"

I stare at him. Then pull the slip on. It's soft and cool, like the damp air.

"Jamari sent me to the island."

"Yes," Sensei says. "She tried to kill you."

"She needs me."

"She hates you. It's not your fault. Jamari wants to kill all of Compass' experiments, including the children."

"There was a vial," I remember. "I stole the vial. And that boy was holding it-"

"The vial was a poison," Baahir explains. "Similar to mustard gas."

I have no idea what mustard gas is, so I ignore it. There is a cot in here, with a boy sweating beneath the steady drip of an IV. His hair is dark. I know his voice.

"Te quiero, Eric. Por favor, tú no puedes morir."

"You remember?" Sensei asks. The room inhales and forgets to breathe out again. I brush the boy's hair with my fingertips.

"This is Eric. I want him to be okay."

Exhaling room. Sensei stays still behind me. I am with this boy and he is grinning and a television blares and my staff whacks his shins.

"You were the only ones to survive," Baahir says. Someone shushes him but he keeps talking. "Everyone on the island died except you."

I am not interested in death or islands. This boy smells like sweat and bubble gum. His tongue flicks out and licks my nose.

"You were unconscious for six weeks. After that we kept you sedated for another two. The gas in the vial penetrated each of your pores, your throat, your lungs. It attacks the nervous system, so most people are killed by the pain. The rest die because vital organs can't communicate with the brain. Lungs don't work. You should have suffocated."

"Why didn't I?" I ask because he wants me to, not because I care. This boy loves horchata.

"Steroids have built your immune system up over the past decade. You, and the others, had a unique reaction. Your skin blistered which blocked enough of the gas so that you lived. Kyle realized what Jamari was planning, contacted Justin and myself, and we were able to bring the three of you here."

"The three of us?"

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Hey guys! Sorry I haven't updated in a while. I'll try to add more frequently in the future.

I'm thinking of writing a bonus chapter to expand on some of Jamari', Justin', and Baahir's background. Good idea or bad idea? If it's a good idea, who's point of view should I write it in?