Chapter 31
Tears start to flow from my eyes when I see how horrible the underground laboratory looks. Most of the computers are broken, others are swinging like monkeys in the jungle with flickering lights, on and off. The vials and other medical apparatuses are broken and the debris are all strayed in the floors. Someone must have found out about Professor Wood’s secret, not to mention illegal experiment and broke in. I also see bloods splash all around the floors and walls. It looks like a murder scene from a movie. “Professor?” I whisper, shaking, afraid.
All I hear are small grunts. I walk closer to where the grunts are coming with nothing but a broken computer screen, ready to smash when someone tries to hurt me. The grunts becomes louder and louder and my heart beats faster too. I can’t help but feel terrible.
I try to back down when I see two wide blue eyes staring coldly at me in the dark, just in the corner of a reconstructed cell. But involuntarily, my hands lower my guards and stupidly move closer to the cell. I see a one of a kind beast.
It’s funny how he has the same eye colour as my brother’s…. and lip colour. He also have weird nose just like James, except James’s has longer beak like nose. An unexplainable feeling strike my heart. The more I stare at this beast the weirder I feel. It’s like I’ve known him for years. My heart beats faster and faster as I try to recall my brother’s face and how similar they are - the eyes, lips and nose. No, it can’t be. My hands start to swell, with courage, I say his name “James”. The beast who is looking down the looking at my feet, immediately lifts its head up and meet my eyes like his trying to say ‘what?’ the way my brother would say. I cover my mouth with my swelling hands and begin to sob really hard. My knees fall apart and the next thing I know I’m sitting in a blood full floor.
Professor Wood comes limping and bleeding as well and say, “Come on out Keesha, your bathing in blood!”
“Is this him?” I ask him the moment I got out of the bloody cage, ignoring the big beast. “Tell me!” I shout at the lame Professor without respect in my tone. I guess this isn’t the best time for respect. “He knows me, right?” I ask desperately.
He nods at me. “I made all necessary experiments and operations to preserve his humanity. I even stole a formulated mind-setter from Erda to reprogram his memory.” He stops, assuring that I’m following his explanations. “The only person he knows is you and me.”
“Why did you do that?”
“If he knows everyone he loves, it would kill him to realize that he’s different. He’d rather be alone than to feel how different he is now, than to fear that he’ll hurt the people he loves. He remembers their faces, their names but not their entire relationship with him.”
It’s like knowing but not really knowing. Professor Wood even explain that James will only follow my orders, just in case Kentron finds him out and use him.
I feel terribly bad for James. I snatch his memory – to love, to be loved. I even forbid him from making his choices.
Am I wrong? Is it my fault that I selfishly want him alive?
