Social Experiment

A Message for Mikayla (Terrance)

"Blind?" Westin repeats, "but how are you... you know... seeing?"

"Says They, ISOSE, that is, fixed it for him." I answer my brother. Brother. I still can't believe he of all people... Brother!

"That's why I have glasses," Ozzie thinks aloud, "everyone else they could fix bad eyes to be perfect, so they fixed blind eyes to be bad."

West takes the book, reading it. "We shouldn't show this to anyone. Not even their own chapters. In fact, I won't give anyone the answer to the riddle."

"You must be warming up to me, if you trust me with the code over precious Hailey." I tease.

He glares at me. "I didn't tell you the code, either of you. Not the real one, anyway."

"I would expect nothing more," I mutter, "When are you going to learn to trust people?"

"When people become trustworthy beings."

"Who was the code, West? We should all three know. We won't tell anyone, I swear." Ozzie promises.

"If either of you tell anyone..."

"I don't plan to," I assure him, "It doesn't help and people might only lose hope."

He sighs. "Xavier."

"Flip to his page!" I order.

West gives me a suspicious glance, but Ozzie nods his head, so he flips to the table of contents, then to Xavier's chapter.

"Does it say why he's Their favorite? What was his life like before this?"

"He.. he didn't have a life."

"Come on, West. We have a right to know, too." Ozzie grumbles.

"No, I mean he really didn't have a life."

I try to decipher this odd code Westin seems to be using, but then it clicks. "You don't mean that...?"

He hands me the book. "Xavier was dead."

My breathing quickens upon reading the words. "How is this even possible!?"

Ozzie answers in a shaky voice. "They fixed my... my eyes. Maybe they... fixed his... problem, too."

"Oz, this isn't a bad math grade we're talking about! His "problem" was that he was dead! Never to come back to life, never to walk the earth again! How do you just "fix" that!?"

"I don't know! If They can cure blindness, why can't They cure death?"

"Are you even hearing yourself? "Curing death", like it's a disease! What exactly-?"

"Shut up!" West barks, "Both of you! We're not going to read the rest if we're going to argue about every single one."

"This doesn't strike you as odd?" I question, "A man being raised from the dead?"

"People are, "raised from the dead" as you put it, all the time. CPR has brought many back." Ozzie points out.

"No, this definitely wasn't CPR," West clarifies, turning to the journal, "his parents volunteered him for the experiment two days after he was dead."

"How could parents do something like that?" I wonder aloud.

West answers this somewhat hypothetical question. "Because ISOSE promised that they could bring back their son. In exchange, he'd have to participate in this experiment. I'm guessing They didn't give a lot of details."