Part Two
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Another memory floated past him, small and weak. He lunged at it, grabbing on.
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The needle slides into my arm, and I sigh, looking up at the tall scientist. He is taller than me by a lot, I don't know how much, but I have to crane my neck to get a good look at him from my seat on the table in the too white room. He draws the needle out. It has something red in it, it swirls gently. I stare at it, transfixed for a moment before I realized it's my own blood.
He sees me pale, and ruffles my lanky brown hair up. "It's alright, Cassen," he says, and his voice is full of enough conviction that I relax. "Your mother will be in in a few moments." I smile back at him, sliding from the table to the floor, even though it is a very big drop.
The scientist crosses the room and ducks through a door, leaving me alone. I wouldn't mind if it wasn't in this creepy room. I look around it while I wait for Mother to come. The walls are white, the single chair is white, even though it's metal. The cover on the table is white, and the wheeled legs its on are silver. The ceiling is white. I don't like white. If you get dirt on white they can tell, and I always get dirt on everything even though the compound is kept clean. I don't like how much I stick out inside the room, in my brown clothing that hides dirt so well. I don't like anything about this room, actually, and being alone in it least of all.
I head for the door I came in through, quietly going out into a hall that is equally empty and equally white. Someday, Mother says, I will live somewhere without white walls, and I will have lots of friends and I will do a great many things that all sound so tedious. She knows I have friends here. There's Lan, and Marik and Tommen. But I also have enemies, too. One of the boys who lives here, one of the ones who's older than me, likes to steal from my plate at dinner, and tease me about the color of my eyes.
Lan says they're cool though, and I shouldn't care what other people say, so I try.
Footsteps catch my attention, and I press back into a corner. Much good it will do me against the stupid white walls. My hands leave little prints on them, they'll know who's they are, and I'll get in trouble. I wipe at them with the edge of my sleeve, glancing up as someone comes around the corner ahead, moving stealthily down the hall.
"Lan!" I jump forward, fingerprints on the wall all but forgotten. He gives me a wolfish grin.
"Cas."
I come to his side, looking up at him. He's half a foot taller and a few years older than me, but he's still the best friend I've ever had. Not that I've had a lot, living here. He grins again, and tousles my hair. "Come, on." He grabs me by the shoulder, tugging me along. "It's time for dinner, your mom sent me."
"I thought she was coming," I protest, trying to wriggle free.
"She was, but then she couldn't, so she sent me." His voice is very matter-of-fact, and I don't really have any choice but to follow him.
He leads me through the twisting corridors to the mess hall. There's already boys filling it. There's about twelve of us, most are my age, but there's a few older than Lan. Somewhere in the compound there's girls, too, but I've only caught a glimpse of them once, or twice ever.
Lan pulls me to a table, looking around with a frown for our absent mothers. "They'll be here," he says, voice firm. He makes me sit, then leaves to get our food trays, coming back in a few minutes.
I eat. Mother doesn't come. She's almost always here, she never just leaves without telling me. I look up from my food, shooting a glance at Lan. He looks worried till he sees me watching, then he grins. "Eat up." He isn't eating though, he's staring at the doors to the mess hall, waiting. I take another bite.
Red lights flash on, painting the white walls in the new color. A moment later, a siren goes off, long and whining.
I leap from the table, looking around. It's an evacuation. Red means to evacuate.
Lan grabs my arm suddenly, spinning me around. The room is full of shouting and confusion, but he moves us through it, dodging among the limbs of the crowd. He shoves me out into one of the halls, then pulls me along behind him, shutting the door.
"We're going to find your mom," he says.
He drags me through the halls, all of them glowing with the flash of red lights. It makes my eyes hurt, but I say nothing.
Along the edges of the hall, the color swims, and all at the ceiling. I stare at it as we walk. The air smells wrong. It burns my throat, and stings my eyes. I tug in Lan's sleeve.
"What is that."
He looks at it, paling a little in the red light. "Smoke, keep moving."
"Smoke?" Something was on fire. I'd seen fires on TV, but I'd never smelled smoke before. It made me want to turn around and hide.
Lan opens a door, it's the one that leads to the stairs. Smoke pours out and he stumbles back a step, couching. I cough. I cough till it hurts.
"Come on, put your sleeve over your mouth. It's coming from above, and we're going down, we'll be fine." He tugs me along into the smoky stairwell. I cough some more, trotting after him.
The smoke thins as we go down, and my eyes stop stinging as much. Finally, Lan comes to the door that leads to the level my mom's room is on. He touches the doorknob carefully, then pulls it open.
Smoke fills the corridor before us, and he stops in place, staring at it. I swallow, looking past his arm. The corner of the hall is glowing orange, and flickering out of sync with the rest of the lights.
Fire.
I hug closer to Lan. He moves cautiously down the hall, staying low and close to the walls. "We have to go down again."He reaches for the door to the next stairwell and something crashes beyond it. He jumps back and nearly knocks me over. Flames lick up around the door, crackling.
I clutch at Lan's shirt, tugging him back.
Someone screams from another of the rooms. It's not my mother's room, but I know her voice.
I whirl, sprinting towards it. The ceiling groans, and a piece falls near me. I scream, leaping away from it. The fire jumps up, flowing along the floor of the hall. Tongues of it hit my back and--
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The memory shattered around him, and he fell into the waiting black.
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Well, that was a wild ride, wasn't it XD?
YOU ARE READING
An Assassin In Time
Science Fiction(ON HOLD) If time couldn't hold you, what would you do? Castian was born inside a Field, outside of time. He has no timeline. He belongs nowhere, and anywhere. The Field he was in was destroyed when he was young, and he and four other children...
