Legend

Part 1

I wake to the unrelenting glare of florescent lights. I quickly shut my eyes again, when I feel a hard tap on my shoulder. This time, I know to ease my eyes open slowly, only to see a somewhat familiar face hovering inches above me.
"Charlotte!" she screams.
Ow. I give her a shut-up-or-else glare, and she finally realizes that she was way too loud. "Oops, sorry," she apologizes hastily, "I'm Peyton. Remember me?"
That triggers a memory in my mind. She's in my grade, and is really annoying. She is incredibly outspoken, and honest to a fault. In eighth grade, she did that stupid "Save the Playground" project. We were in eighth grade, for goodness sakes. We didn't need a playground anymore. Even though I had shut my eyes again, she kept on talking a mile a minute.
"We need to get you out of here, and fast. I'm not entirely sure why they've kept you in here so long, but I know that it can't be good. So let's get going!" she says this with gusto and importance.
"Why am I here in the first place?" I groan, still not adjusting to the lights and the still-loud volume of Peyton's voice.
"What? You don't know why you're here? Um, okay then. Long story short, Legend kind of started to try and invade the city hall. But, you stopped them! Anyway, you were tripped towards the end, You hit your head on the floor and was knocked out. Now, you have a somewhat severe concussion. Oh, and this all happened over a week ago. This is the fourth time you've woken up, but usually they release patients after the second time they've woken up for the most part, or when they are mostly back to normal, " she rambles on, Wait. I stopped Legend. No, no, no, no, no. This is not happening. Please say this is a dream and I'll wake up again soon.

Unfortunately, it's not a dream. It takes Peyton a solid 10 minutes to persuade me out of the hospital bed, and now we're running down the hallway of the hospital.
"Too... fast..." I wheeze. Normally, I'm a good runner, but right now, I'm in no state to do anything involving my heart rate going above 70. Sprinting down the hall really doesn't help my condition.
"You can keep up!" Peyton yells over her shoulder. Ugh, no I can't. That's why I asked her to slow down in the first place. After a couple hundred more yards, which feel like miles, we reach the exit.
"Now, you can't go back into the real world wearing that," Peyton concludes. I look down at the drab hospital gown and silently agree. Peyton swings a drawstring bag off of her shoulder and pull out a pair of leggings and a Park Hills Basketball hoodie. Perfect. I hunt down a bathroom to change in, then jog back to the exit, where Peyton waits, looking impatient.
"What took you so long?" she scolds me immediately.
"I wasn't even gone for that long!" I argue. "Also, do you happen to have an extra pair of shoes for me?"
"Shoot! That's what I forgot. I knew I was forgetting something. Sorry. I guess we can stop at a store on the way."
"On the way to what?" I question, immediately suspicious.
"Legend, duh," she replies.
"No, no, no, no, no.Not happening. Do you actually know how dangerous they are? They are 100x stronger than any regular human!"
"How do you know that?" Peyton accuses,
"Um I think I read it in a book somewhere! Yeah, a book," I stumble over my reply. Why do I have to be such a terrible liar?
"Are you a part of Legend?" Peyton questions, astonished.
"No"
"Yes"
"No!"
"You are aren't you? Wow, I never would've guessed. You, of all people? Legend is the root of all evil! You seemed so nice and pure! How could a good girl like you be a part of something so bad?" She turns on her heel and treks away, shaking her head. Honestly, I feel terrible. I never wanted to be a part of Legend. I was forced to, born into it. I would never reveal my deepest secret, though. Good thing it's already six feet under.

*****

"I know it may look bad, but it's not what it seems. I...I...I never wanted it to be like this. There was a reason that I never told anyone. I didn't want this to happen. I'm so sorry, Peyton. I'd be willing to go back to Legend with you if you really want to. I don't know that we can fix this, but I'm going to try very hard." I press the red hang up button on my phone, staring at the screen for a couple seconds before closing the phone app. I open up my Messages to see a spam from my best friend, Jess.
October 12 3:16 PM WHERE R U
October 12 3:48 PM R U OK
October 12 7:32 PM CHARLOTTEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
October 12 8:14 PM I NEED TO KNOW IF U R OK
October 12 10:42 PM OMG CHARLOTTE IM SO SCARED WHERE R U
October 13 1:22 AM OMG CHARLOTTE I HEARD WHAT HAPPENED
October 13 11:37 AM K im coming to the hospital in like 10 minutes
October 13 2:18 PM Wow Char i went to the hospital im so sorry i didnt rlly hear what happened ugh im so sorry wake up soon plz
October 14 9:27 PM How r u doing
October 15 3:56 PM School sucks w/o u :(
October 18 7:13 PM youve woken up a few times but idek im so scared
And then the latest one, from earlier this morning:
October 21 9:32 AM WHY ARENT U AT THE HOSPITAL
People know that I'm out of the hospital? I'm in so much trouble... How does everyone know? Did somebody go to the hospital and see I'm not there or... PEYTON. I quickly open up Instagram, and there, at the top of my feed, is a picture of me. The caption says, "Guys Charlotte isn't in the hospital anymore. She got out, and nobody knows where she is. If you see anything, please comment below." I keep scrolling, seeing that there have been 52 comments. I quickly scroll through them all, but they mostly say thing like "WHAT!" or "OMG". I HATE Peyton. Why did she have to let everyone know, but yet not blaming herself?

"PEYTON, OPEN UP RIGHT NOW," I yell, pounding on Peyton's front door, "I KNOW YOU'RE IN THERE." It turns out that my mom is in a book club with Peyton's mom, She knew where Peyton lived, since she's been over there a few times for book club. My mom was super happy to see me, but I had to go fast.
"What do you want?" asks Peyton, just opening the door slightly. I pull up her post from earlier.
"WHAT IS THIS?" I scream at her.
"What? I never posted that. I promise, you were even there. That was before I left. I left at 12:30, and this was posted at 9:30.
"But that isn't possible. Who else could've done this?" I question, truly shocked.
"I must've been hacked. Let me go upstairs and get my phone quick. Stay here and I'll be right back." I impatiently tap my foot, waiting for her to come back.As she comes down the stairs again, she has a shocked expression on her face.
"Charlotte, my account says I didn't post that. I can't find it anywhere"
    "But that's not possible. I mean, it probably is, but it would take some seriously good hackers to do that," I reason. We both realize it at the exact same time. Legend. They were the ones who did this. They knew that I was out.