The Animal Inside

Chapter Thirty: Men in Black, Girls in White and the Man in the Grey Suit

I woke up in a white room. White walls, white ceiling, and white light everywhere that seemed to originate from nowhere. I lay on a small mattress in the corner of the room. The metal springs in the white bed frame creaked as I sat up. My head throbbed, threatening to split open. I put my feet on the cold, white tiles, and took in the room. There were three white walls. On the back wall was a bed, and a small, white curtain, concealing whatever was behind it. I opened the curtain, discovering a toilet and basin. Closing the curtain, I continued my survey of the room. The fourth wall was glass. Looking through the glass wall, I saw a room that was exactly the same as mine across from me. This room was empty, but the unmade bed told me someone lived there.

I looked down at myself, noticing for the first time that I wasn’t wearing the same clothes I was when I fell asleep. I was wearing... you guessed it, white. A smooth white dress fell from my body, reaching to my knees. I shuddered to think how I came to be in this dress. Suddenly, a thought hit me. Where was I? How did I get here? My brain was still fuzzy from sleep. Then I remembered; the helicopter, the men, fainting. I ran to the glass, pounding on it.

“Someone help me!” I screamed. “I don’t belong here!” I continued yelling and screaming, but no one came. No one helped me. Eventually, I wore myself out and slumped to the floor. Tears of frustration began to fall, but I wiped them away. Where I was, there were bound to be people watching, even if I couldn’t see them. I would not give them the satisfaction of seeing me cry.

I sat with my back against the wall, staring out the glass. As my eyelids started to droop, there was a commotion outside. Three figures approached the room across from mine. Two of them were tall, muscular looking men dressed in black. The other was a small figure, dressed in white, like me. I couldn’t see person in white clearly; the goons were in the way. One man swiped a card at a sensor, and a door in the glass slid open. They threw the small figure into the room, and walked off, paying me no attention. Finally, I was able to get a good look at the person in white.

The person in white was a girl with dark hair and pale skin. She was wearing the same dress as I was. The girl just lay there for a couple for minutes. I thought she was unconscious until she pulled herself up to her feet. Once she was on her feet, she walked shakily towards her bed. She sat on her bed, and finally I saw her face for the first time

“Noa?” I whispered. It was definitely her. Her blue eyes were sullen, and she was thinner than she was last time I saw her. Her eyes caught mine, and her jaw dropped in surprised. Her mouth moved, but I couldn’t hear her.

What was she doing here? What was I doing here? Where is here? All these questions flew through my mind in the space of a second. But I didn’t have time to think about these things, as a man in black, similar to the men who deposited Noa in her room, arrived outside my room. A door appeared in the glass, and it slid open. The man walked into the room.

“Come with me,” he said. I stood up and followed him out of the room. Another man was waiting beside my room. He walked in front of me, while the other man walked behind me. We walked down the white tiled corridor. The walls on both sides were lined with glass walls. Most rooms contained a person. Boys and girls, ranging in age from about eight to late teens. It was then that I realised they weren’t rooms; they were holding cells. I was being held captive in the heart of the World Supers Unit; I was being held for Integration experiments. My breath quickened and so did my heartbeat. Every person I saw was weak, thin and looked sickly. They were being experimented on, and I had a feeling I was the next victim.

Although I seemed to be in a prison, the guards let me walk without handcuffs. It seemed to be freedom, but the way the guards kept their hands on the guns holstered to their belts told a different story. They led me into another white room, this one filled with all manner of scientific machines. There was no one there, apart from us. It kind of reminded me of Drew’s lab back at the Academia.