Tunnel Vision

Chapter 10- Tear Down

Rowan woke up the next morning to a full view of Gray's relaxed, peaceful face. She listened to the sound of his steady breathing as she watched him.
All he wants to do is learn.
Eyes fluttering open, Gray woke up and looked at Rowan. There was something she hadn't noticed before about his eyes. There was a small ring of gold around his pupils, fading into the grey-blue of the rest of his iris. She could tell there was a new fire burning inside him even with his simple greeting.
"Hey," he said.
"Hey," Rowan replied. "How are you?"
"I feel great. Why can I see you? Isn't it supposed to be pitch black? This is a basement, you know." Rowan sat up and looked around, Gray doing the same. All the candles were out, but there seemed to be light coming from somewhere.
"There!" Gray said as he pointed to a small shaft of light coming from the opposite wall, weaving its way through mounds of furniture, paintings, and books. "Daylight."
Gray changed his clothes and was wearing his suit again. It felt different wearing it now than it had felt wearing it yesterday. It was uncomfortable, itchy, and the collar of his shirt was much too stiff. Despite this, he and Rowan were able to move everything out of the way so they could access what they soon found out was a secret wooden door and the light they saw had traveled under it to reach their eyes. Gray kicked the door down to reveal a small passageway, dappled daylight coming from the other side. He began to walk towards the light, thinking of everything Rowan and he had shared together last night. He thought of what she had said about society and the walls it had built up around him, providing him only with tunnel vision. There in that moment, he vowed to tear those walls down.
Thick brown shrubbery covered the exit to the secret tunnel. Gray and Rowan weaved their bodies through and had a few scratches when they got out, but other than that they were unharmed. Rowan sighed as she looked around to see a waist-high stone wall and several dead bushes and trees with bare branches that rattled like dry bones in the breeze. The air smelled of rotting leaves.
"Where are we?" she asked.
"The grounds," Gray responded.
"This would be great garden space," Rowan said. "You could fix it up nicely with some birdfeeders and a fountain."
Gray nodded. It would be quite nice.
Rowan went straight upstairs to Gray's bedroom after they went inside to get the branches out of her hair while Gray sprinted to the principal's office: he was late for work.
"I'm here, Principal Brown!" Gray panted as he shoved the door open and shut it quickly behind him. The principal looked up at him, his face blank, eyes clouded. Was this how Gray had looked just yesterday?
"You're late," he muttered. Only now did Gray realize how deep and monotone his voice was.
"I know," Gray replied. "It's a rather long story, though."
"Story?" the principal said questioningly. Gray felt a drop of sweat travel down the back of his neck.
"As in a reasonable excuse because of a troublesome circumstance," he responded. The principal just kept looking at him with his icy face. "I wanted to talk to you about something."
*****
Rowan walked down the hall in a happy bounce. She was so thrilled that she was beginning to unleash the potential in Gray. Pretty soon, maybe the world would change along with him. Suddenly, a loud squeak resounded throughout the vacant hall. Rowan stopped in her tracks. The squeaking grew louder and then a robot, one that was similar to the Po-1 that had brought her here, rounded the corner. It had the letters "TSWT" painted on its chest.
It must be a robot from the lab where Dr. Simon works.
"Hello," she said. How the hell am I supposed to talk to a robot?
She did not have to think of anything else to say, though, because before she could even think to move, the robot had sped over and hit her like a bolt of lightning, there in the blink of an eye. Everything went black as she heard a loud crash and the robot's final words: "Kill, kill, kill."