Dystopia

Chapter 17

After speaking to Ikay, Eric's morale dipped. He was afraid he was making empty promises. No, they weren't empty. He had every intention to go through with this. Whether he succeeded or not, was yet to be determined.

Eric decided to try to reach Mathew. He would be an essential part to his plan of rebellion if he convinced him. He typed into the computer the code of the Governing Elite and hid his trace with Mathew's Master Code. Everyone in the Isolone had a unique code to be found in the system, Eric was able to hack his way into the records and retrieve them. He typed in Mathew's unique code, 4578-MRGE.

He brought down the firewalls and security walls and started to strengthen his signal. The transmission wavered and buzzed as it had trouble coming through.

"Come on, come on..." Eric muttered as he adjusted the signal.

The transmission was finally strong, but Eric was astounded by what he found. He was starting to doubt he typed in Mathew's code correctly.

The only visible thing was a white room. The walls were padded in white cushions, exactly the same as the floor. The room was empty for a few seconds, but then Eric saw a door open and a man carrying another one walking in. A hooded black figure with a mask swarmed in with ominous grace after them.

"What is this place?" Eric whispered.

"He's so fragile. He won't last more than a week here." The man spoke to the hooded man. 

He left the body on the ground of the white room and left. Eric tilted his head in curiosity. Why did Mathew's code take him here? And what was that place?

Eric continued watching. Was that person dead? But something looked oddly familiar about that blond hair. Something Eric couldn't put his finger on.

The only thing Eric could think of that would be this place was an insane option. But what if it was?

The person on the ground stirred and groaned. He lifted his top body and rested his weight on his arms. He coughed and breathed deeply. Then all of a sudden, he sat up in a hurry, still facing away from Eric. A pause followed, then the boy screamed in agony and Eric jumped from his seat. He held his head in between his palms and pressed on it with too much force. Eric thought he would crush his own head with the amount of force he was using.

"Stop it! Shut the thing off! Why do you keep doing this to me!" The boy screamed loudly. He then went to the wall and punched it hard enough to make an echo. "Let me out of here! I've told you I'm not crazy! You have to let me out of here! Andrew stabbed me first! He wanted to kill me! I didn't mean to kill him! Your godforsaken therapy doesn't work!!"

The boy stood and turned around and Eric clasped a hand to his mouth and gasped.

"M-Mathew?" Eric breathed as his shock spread through his body.

Mathew was inside the White Wings Psychiatric Hospital.

"Mathew! Mathew what's wrong!" Eric shouted, worried Mathew might be hurt.

He kept screaming and hitting the wall, and Eric continued to call for him.

"Mathew! Mathew!" Eric yelled.

Mathew stopped and turned around.

"Eric?" Mathew breathed, unable to see him. "No no no, I'm hearing things! He's not here, not here!"

"No, Mathew it's me! I'm not a product of imagination!"

"Get out of my head! Get out of my head!"

Mathew began hitting his head against the wall with force. Minutes later, two guards appeared to pull him apart, but Mathew resisted and punched one of them. The other guard punched Mathew in the stomach and Mathew coughed and dropped to the ground.

"No! No don't hurt him!" Eric screamed and the other guard turned around.

"Who's there?!" He demanded and Eric cut the transmission off.

He was panting hard and stood up from his chair. They were hurting Mathew, he had to go rescue him. Tears of fear spilt from his eyes and he felt he was in a panic attack.

"Eric?! Eric?! What was all that screaming?!" Eric's mother pounded on the locked door of Eric's room. "Open the door!"

"Leave me alone! Go away!" Eric shouted back as he cried.

His overwhelming panic and concern for Mathew drowned out his mother's calls and muffled the pounding on the door. Why was Mathew in the White Wings? He saw him a few days ago. 

I'm missing something. What am I missing? Think, Eric, think!

Eric forced his brain to remember anything out of the ordinary of the day he saw Mathew. 

"The bandages!" Eric whispered. "Mathew had bandages. Why?"

He recalled what Mathew had screamed earlier: 'Andrew stabbed me first! He wanted to kill me! I didn't mean to kill him!'

"It can't be." Eric breathed.