Speechless

Chapter Twelve

It was a short walk to the front doors of the Sanctuary since everyone parked in this skinny path on the left of the building. We walked around to the front and opened up the doors. The doors were wooden with many locks and Dylan opened it with various different keys he had on his belt loops. When we all walked inside with Dylan leading us, Jason and myself behind him side by side and the rest of the group behind us, we saw this sign hovering above us by ropes and the sign had a big 40 on it. At the top it said, "Days it Took to Find the Cure." "What's that?" I ask Dylan, pointing to the sign as we slowly walk past it.

"That's the sign to show how long it took us to find the cure. Well, once we find it, that is. Every time someone thinks of taking time off of this project, we show that person the sign and tell them, "today could be the day we fix this. But if you take off now, it won't.'" I nod and realize that's actually a pretty decent idea. Then I think, it's really been forty days since this thing happened? I never would have guessed it's been that long. As we continue walking I see that the floors are a shiny white tile and there's also white walls. Almost like an asylum, except for the sign. The lights even give off a really white glow from the ceiling. This is an enclosed hall with the front door behind us, the pearly white walls to the side of us, and another wooden door in front of us. This one has many locks, but not quite as many as the front. Dylan unlocks the second door and we walk through that one and in the same order. When we emerge from the hallway we see a room ahead of us, walls made with glass so we are able to see two people working in that room with computers and notepads and desks and many other things you would find in a lab somewhere. They have computers. Computers. They both wave and look back down at their work. "Those are some of our cure workers. They're some of our best, truly. But that room is our data lab. We do no experiments or testing in that room, but we do do analysis on our data and take a deeper look. We mainly sort through and take in what we have tested," Dylan explains.

"So where do you do your testing?" I ask.

"We will get to that later," Dylan explains. We then make the decision to turn right from the option of going right or left. There's various wooden doors and various halls we walk past; I'm curious why Dylan doesn't show us these things. Maybe he doesn't trust us, but I can't blame him. I don't really trust him or his group either. Some things are better kept hidden until the right moment to show it to others has arrived, and this is not exactly that moment. But this place looks like a maze in my eyes, different halls and doors we don't even explore. I don't know how I plan on finding my way back. We suddenly stop in the middle of the long corridor we've been going through for a while now. I almost run into Dylan, but Jason grabs ahold of my arm to steady me. Dylan turns and faces us, "Would you two like to meet Dr.Reynolds and Libby?" He asks. I nod and Jason replies,

"Yes, sir," so Dylan turns and knocks on the door directly to his right.

"Who is it?" I hear from behind the door. It's a soft, gentle voice. The one belonging to a young girl. Maybe a little older than myself.

"Dylan," Dylan replies. "I found the trespassers and one of the two is the one,"

"I don't know what you're talking about, Dylan," I hear from a different voice. This one belonging to an older man. Not too old, maybe forty or fifty. His voice wasn't deep nor squeaky. Also wasn't scratchy nor totally clear. "What does the one mean?"

"I mean," Dylan starts, confused on how to phrase this. "The Gift. she's here,"

Then, silence.

"Please bring her in," I hear the man say. Dylan grabs the door handle and opens the door. Inside the room is a black circular rug, twelve chairs surrounding that rug, and a tall lamp in the corner. There's two people in the room, not including Dylan, Jason, myself, and the five others, who are both sitting across from one another on a chair. The man has his back turned to me, so I only see his brown hair, his yellow T-shirt, his jeans, and his tennis shoes. But not his face. While the girl is facing me with long blonde hair, blue eyes, blue long sleeve sweater, black skinny jeans, and white flats. She's actually not my age, probably twenty or twenty two. She's really quite pretty, she has a gentle look to her. "Can you leave us, Dylan? Only for a moment, you can wait outside the door," asks the man. Dylan nods and walks out, closing the door quietly behind him. Then, it was the man, the girl, Jason, and I. At first there was silence, then the girl spoke up,