Lunar Virus ✔️

Chapter Twelve: Elodie

"It didn't work."

"It didn't work," Sheila repeats desolately. All three of us, Elie, Sheila, and I, sit together in a contemplative silence in the middle of my room floor.

"You know what this means, right?" questions Elie, gaze lifting.

Both Sheila and I turn to Elie, feeling more than a little uneasy. Elie . . . he had a look. A very, very specific look that only surfaced when he had ideas. And these were not just any ideas. They were crazy ideas. A corner of his lips would quirk up, he would tilt his face towards us, and peer at us with gunmetal blue eyes from under his lashes. It's almost as if he knew how much convincing it would take us to go through with it, if we weren't desperate. Desperation, he knew, would ultimately be what made us follow through with his insane ideas.

Sheila takes it upon herself to indulge the energized Elie, who is positively glowing with excitement. "No, Elie. I don't know what 'this' means. Care to share?"

Elie's smirk widens and he immediately straightens from where he's sprawled on the floor, "First off, that rhymes. So, congratulations. And second, I think we should do something drastic." Ah crap, he's going to make us work for this answer, isn't he?

"Get to the point," Sheila snaps.

"Well, we've already tried just flatout ditching. But every time we're not there on time, they send people to come and get us and implement consequences. Like giving us gloopy porridge for lunch." Ugh, the porridge. While it seems like an innocent enough punishment, it was absolute torture. Everyone else had gotten pizza and chicken wings, while we were forced to eat porridge. Bad porridge. It had settled in out stomachs like cement, and we'd been sick for the whole of next week. I bet it wasn't even porridge. It was probably cement. Bad cement.

We only have two days until the forest simulation that is supposed to activate the virus in us. It would be the Final Simulation. We have to get out of here fast, but if I'm being frank, neither of us have any freaking clue on how to escape. It's not like we're hardened, experienced criminals. And we can't just run away from home so that we can escape the facility. It seems like Elie's plan is our only hope. It is probably a very pathetic hope.

Elie continues, "We have to something drastic--"

"You already said that, just get to the point!" Sheila growls.

"We're going to prank the staff." He slaps the floor for emphasis and leans back smugly, as if he'd come up with some kind of ground breaking idea.

Leaning forwards, Sheila says, "Read my lips. They say NO WAY IN HELL."

"Woah, language. Are you afraid to get caught? Because that's kinda the point."

After some sputtering, Sheila rebutts, "If ditching didn't work, pranking won't work either."

He gets The Look again. Damn it, Sheila. You've stimulated the production of another one of his idiotic brain childs.

"We aren't just going to prank them," he begins softly, "We're going to sabotage them! Something disruptive. Something darn-freaking-amazing. Something that'll get rid of the staff for sometime, so that we can tell all the kids about the danger they face if we stay here. We'll end with a big finale prank--something that will hopefully postpone the Final Simulation so we can buy ourselves more time to escape. Something that will knock their socks off."

"Oh, shit . . . are you suggesting--"

"Yes. Yes I am."

***

    So, we found out the the mentors just don't give a shit today. Either that, or they're stupid. There's no other way to put it. All three of us asked to leave to go to the bathroom during one of the torturous mandatory workouts, and the person in charge doesn't even blink an eye. He just nodded and waved us away. He doesn't even notice when we took our backpacks with us.