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Chapter 10

"Someone's coming. Look busy." Danielle whispers. We all turn our head and meddle with the random items on the shelf.

"Idiot, he's walking right towards us. It's Kevin." Reina hits Danielle's arm.

"Ow! You didn't have to hit me." She hits her back.

"If that were Kevin he would have done a peace sign by now." I whisper to them.

"Peace sign!"

"Peace sign!" They both put one up at the man. He stops in front of them and lets out a long sigh.

"The people they let work here." He mumbles before brushing passed them.

"Told you isn't wasn't Kevin." Danielle sits on the floor and crosses her arms.

"I was just making sure." Reina sits on the opposite side. If these two could stop arguing, the silence would be amazing. Another person walks over, but puts up a peace sign. Finally he's back.

"We have to leave now because I stole this file and I think they're onto me." He starts to speed walking and we follow along. This is not the time to be stealing things that'll get us caught. We turn a few corners and see the exit ahead. Right before Kevin opens the door someone grabs his hand.

"Where are you all going?" He asks in a deep, scary voice.

"To go do groceries." Reina speaks up. The guy takes a step back.

"Proceed." He nods. We all walk out with relieved laughs, but it all comes to a halt. This place is in ruins. I look around the see the buildings all in debris. There were broken down cars that looked like they crashed all down the road. Vultures flew circles before diving into what's left of the buildings. The sky looked brown and foggy.

"I-I thought you said all the rich people live here." I whisper to Kevin.

"They live there." He points in the distance at a tall wall. Life must be great there. I can't believe this is reality.

"Reina, where are you going?" Danielle asks her.

"Going home!" She shouts while walking backwards, then turns back around. Well we can't just stand here. Might as well follow her.

And so we did. It felt like a mile or two, but we eventually arrived to a house. It was still in bad condition, but better than what we saw along the way. The other didn't even look like houses. Reina looks down at her house mat that says "Mi Casa, Su Casa" then opens the door.

It goes with a long creeeaaak. We followed her inside. All the furniture looked worned down with a thick layer of dust. Reina took a step and the floor board broke under her. She pulled her foot out and mindlessly shook the wood off.

"You guys can sit down." She takes off her helmet and so do we. We sit on her couch and Danielle on her arm chair. "It's good," She struggles to pull the lever on the side. A foot rest pops up with a rusty screech. "to be home." She leans back and puts her feet up. Danielle started to fall asleep, and Kevin was looking through the file.

"Are we safe here?" I ask.

"I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. I've never made it this far. They always catch me on my doorstep." She closes her eyes.

"What are we going to do?" She shrugs.

"Let's just live in the moment."

"Live in the moment? What about food? We have no money, no clothes, nothing. What if they do another search and take us back?" I start to panic, wondering if living my life in my coma would have been better. She shrugs again.

"I found something." Kevin announces. "The solution in the dose makes a new breed of cancerous cells. It's common and normal for p53, a tumor-supressor cell, to stop cell division once a cell is damaged. The cancer is so widespread, it stops cell division all over your body, which is why you stop processing." He explains.

"Stop processing as in stop growing." Danielle blurts out. She's awake.

"Yep. We're still eighteen." Kevin tells me. "In more rare cases, oncogenes start cell division, this is unregulated. This would cause your body to continue its processes which is why some people wake up."

"Yay for oncogenes." Reina throws a fist up.

"Memory varies along people for unknown reasons. The scientists, a.k.a. the blue suits are still trying to figure it out. A theory is that someone may be halfway immune to the effect, so they gain half their memory, more or less. On the other side, now it's no longer called reproduction, but breeding since it's so carefully selected. Due to the already overpopulation crisis, there's rules set for how many children each family can have. You are allowed to purchase extra children if desired." He reads.

"I don't know if I want to stay here." Danielle says quietly. It then becomes silent.

"I don't like being restricted." Reina breaks the silence. "We came all this way, and you guys are having thoughts on going back. We're not going back to that mental jail cell."

"So you rather be in this fucked up world?" Danielle raises her voice a little.

"Just because the world is like this doesn't mean we have to. What do you even have to go back to, except fake paradise?" Reina argues back.

"I have a house that isn't half destroyed. I have a soft bed and soft furniture. I have lights for crying out loud. I have food and clothes. None of which you have here. We can all find our parents and families there anyway. So going back would be the best for all of us."

"For all of you. You really think you know everything, don't you? Well you don't. My real family is dead. Why would I want to go back to my fake one? Living and knowing that they'll never meet the expectations. But you," Reina stands up and inches towards Danielle. "you don't remember. You live the best life out here of forgetting what you had before. You think this is better, but I can tell you damn well it's not. I wish I could live your life," She looks down. "where I don't remember." Reina walks through the hallway leaving us in silence once again.

Slowly, but frankly, the memories come back to me. Soon I find myself living the life of Reina. I remember.