The Pandorian Experiment

Nightmares and Pendalins

My parents are frantically burning their research. The research they have spent years on. I walk into the chaos, confused by my parents' urgency. My mom sees me standing in the doorway confused and scared. She walks towards me, crouching to speak to me, for I am only 9 years old. "We're going to be taken now by some bad men. You need to hide or they will take you too," My eyes widen in fear. I realize my mother sees the fear in my eyes from the way hers well with tears. "Please Avarice, you must be strong for us," She places a kiss on my cheek and starts to try to place me in the crate labeled recycling beside our trash can.

"Mama what about Spence?" I cry out running out of her arms grabbing our black kitten Spence.

"He can stay with you but he mustn't speak."

"He won't mama, I swear." I climb into the crate tears streaming down my face as my mother kisses the top of my head before she closes it. I peak out through the little crack in between the lid and the crate. A loud thud rang out as the men mama was talking about earlier kicked in the door. I wanted to scream as they grabbed roughly onto my parents, I almost did but beside me, I felt Spence lay his paw on me

"Shh be silent small one, I heard once dreadful luck come in threes, do not scream for I would rather us not be two and three," Spence whispers. My mouth closes as I swallow the scream that was bubbling up in my throat.

"I've always heard there was a child they kept hidden," One of the bad men says to the other.

"Honestly? Did you believe those rumors? I didn't take you as the type to believe in fairy tales."

"No, I swear, Mr. O'Conelly said he saw it one day."

"Yeah and I saw a dog talking, don't be stupid only cats talk, just like Mr. O'Conelly only lies." I let out a little sob before I can stop it.

"What was that?"

"I don't know it came from over here." I hear the steps get louder as they near the crate. I tremble in fear as the lid opens.

Suddenly I jolt out of bed screaming. As I start to calm down I take in my surroundings. I'm in my room. I'm fine. It was just the nightmare again. Or I guess memory because the only part that didn't happen was the government officials or bad men as I called them when I was younger, didn't discover me. I glance at the clock beside my bed it reads 7 o'clock. I throw my greasy black curls up into a ponytail. Three hours is enough sleep I need to get back to work. "Avarice, you need to take care of yourself," Spence grumbles at me as I type away at my computer reviewing the information I already know, it's all it seems I can find so far. Anwir needs to get back to me on what he's found. What good is a double agent if he never tells you anything you didn't already obtain? "You only had three hours of sleep and now you're skipping breakfast. When was the last time you showered? You smell terrible. Plus you must get out of bed on the same side that you get in or you will have atrocious luck," He scolds me pacing back and forth on the console in front of me. I smell myself and pull back in disgust.

"Shush Spence, that's unimportant," I say continuing to type away trying to hack into the Pandorian government system again. The last time I hacked in I only received some information before they kicked me off, and since have modified the password. My phone vibrates and I glance down hoping it's Anwir but it's just my phone telling me it's about to die. If it was anything other than those two I'd be confused considering I only talk to Spence and Anwir. No one else even realizes I exist. If I need something from outside I disguise myself. It's then I see the pain the government has caused the people of Pandora. Spence never saw it, so when Anwir was sent to come exile me because of hacking into the government system but instead revealed he saw the pain too I felt relieved. He asked to join me and has worked with me since. I used to think sometimes when Spence expressed I just had a hero complex or I was just filled with anger from my parent's execution that maybe he was right. Anwir helped me realize that I am angry about my parent's execution, but I'm not doing it for that reason. I'm doing it because the people from my city need me. I can't just leave them to suffer. I need to save them.

A loud bang rings out around the room. "Finally you're here," I say as I turn around to see Anwir standing in the middle of the big lab I live in. His long blue hair falling around his face. My front door isn't actually a door. It's a hole in my ceiling, I live underground. He moves his long hair out of his eyes.

"So I am."

"I thought we agreed that you text me before coming over so I don't have a heart attack thinking it's someone else."

"Your house is literally inside a cave and you have to find the hole on the floor that blends in, I think you're good."

"Why are you here? I assume it's not to just come see me."

"I found out that the government is building monsters. They're monsters that could tear apart an entire city named Pendilans. I don't know much about the monsters themselves, just that the Pandorian government is building them. You don't think..?" Anwir asks with scared eyes

"That they plan on releasing them into the city? Probably. We know that there is another city. Maybe they're just tired of this one and ready for a new start. But I won't let that happen we have good people in this city. Good people, who deserve to live. Did the plans say when they plan to do it ?"

"Yeah, four days. What are we going to do then?"

"We're going to have to sneak in tonight."