Run

Chapter 8

Two months. 

It's been two months since I discovered that I was diagnosed with a strange disease called Mortirus.

It's been two months since they started doing tests on me.

It's been two months since I discovered that this place wasn't a hospital.

It's been two months since I heard that conversation, where they were defiantly talking about me.

Two. Months.

These were the thoughts that filled my head as I walked back to my room after dinner. It was mid-March. The weather was getting warmer, the days were longer and each test was getting more and more horrendous.

One test involved an obstacle course. Except it wasn't ordinary. If anything here was ordinary, then it would be a miracle. The track was littered with broken glass and we had to complete the course barefoot. There was a bridge that was half broken and the track burst into flames in random places. It was getting harder to believe that this place was trying to come up with a cure for something. It was more like they were trying to kill us.

But when I put the information from that conversation in the scenario, then things started to make a bit more sense. Just a bit.

If they did do some experiment on us when we were younger and changed us, then we could possibly be able to do these challenges.

But then, the changes would have to be extreme. And very non-human.

I opened the door to my room with my ID card. The smell of lemon detergent filled my nose, hinting that the cleaning crew was here. I plopped down on the bed and looked up at the ceiling. 

I have to find out what's going on here. I thought.

So far, I haven't mentioned the conversation I heard to anyone. I know Aidan said I could trust him, but I still wasn't able to tell him.

I headache started forming in the right side of my head. Please don't let this be another one. I thought.

Even since the testing began, I started getting horrible headaches. They started of small but then started growing painful, like someone was compressing my brain. It felt like people were in my mind, trying to get private information out of it.

I actually wouldn't be surprised if these people here are doing this to me.

The headache grew painful. I sandwiched my head between my pillow and the mattress, blocking out any sound that might make this more painful.

Breathe Lauren. I told myself. It's gonna go away.

And it did. The pain started fading.

And then images filled my mind.

Pictures of a group of friends, talking, playing, joking around. Pictures of doctors, nurses, surgeons. A body limp on a table. At first the images didn't make sense. But then my mind flashed back to before the testing, just a few weeks after I awoke from the coma.

The dreams. Ones that I somehow forgot. They came rushing back to me like a wave.

Since we don't exactly have a full scan of her abilities and how they have functioned over the years, she will be in a coma for about a year. Then, we will be able to run tests and do a full body scan on her. When she wakes up, we'll tell her that she has been diagnosed with an illness called Mortirus, the made up disease we have come up with, and tell her she is unable to go back to her home or else she will harm her loved ones. She will stay here until she can fully control her abilities. Then starts the testing.

My breaths became heavier, more forced. The disease was fake. I thought. But I knew that already. Dr. Walker confirmed it.

Since we don't exactly have a full scan of her abilities and how they have functioned over the years, she will be in a coma for about a year. Then, we will be able to run tests and do a full body scan on her.

She will stay here until she can fully control her abilities. Then starts the testing.

Abilities. Powers. Something that is defiantly inhumane.

I let everything settle in my mind. "I need more information." I muttered to myself.

I heard a light knock on the door. "Come in!"

Aidan's head poked through the doorway. "Hi!" He saw me on the floor. "Are you okay?"

"Hi Aidan." I stood up. "I'm fine. What are you doing here?"

He walked into the room. "Can't I just drop by and say 'hi'?"

I shrugged. "You could but I just saw you at dinner."

"Oh yeah." He said. "I was just thinking."

"About what?"

"About you." He said.

"Okay..." I said, unsure what else to say.

"By the look on your face, I think I know what you are think but it's not that." He said quickly. "It's just..."

"What?" I asked impatiently.

"A lot of things things have changed around here. Right after you arrived." He said. "I was just wondering if you knew something about why we are here and why strange things are happening to us."

"How am I supposed to know anything. I told you, I don't remember anything." I said.

"Really?" He asked. "Because I feel like there is something about you that I don't know."

I looked straight into his dark brown eyes. Could I really trust him? I asked myself.

I took a deep breath. "Actually, there is something that came back to me."

I told him what I've learned since coming here. Starting with the conversation I had with Tyson and Alyssa, to the dream with the two voices leading up to the conversation I heard, about the experiment and operation. The only part I left out was hearing his name in the first dream I had. Anyway, it might not be him.

"I think they did something to us." I concluded. "I think we are lab rats in this experiment."

Silence hovered in the room for a while. But then, "I think you're onto something." Aidan finally said. "Maybe if I tell the others about this-"

"No!" I said, maybe a bit too loudly. "This is going to be kept between the two of us."

"But if-"

"No. You have to promise not to tell anyone." I said simply.

Our eyes met. "I promise." He said. "But what now?"

"We get more information." I stated "Meet me here at ten."

"But that's against the rules." He said.

"We aren't going to break the rules. Just bend them." I smiled. "If people didn't bend the rules, we wouldn't have come this far in society."