Chasing Chances // Minho

New Friends

WICKED Facility
Undisclosed Location
February 16th, 221

I nervously kicked my legs as I sat in my desk. I had heard my doctor tell my teacher today that they had brought in a kid. A girl. She had arrived with the help of some teenagers. They didn't say what happened to the older kids but they did have the girl here in the facility somewhere. I don't know if I was meant to hear it or if Dr. Alvarez was just trying to pass information along to my science teacher Mr. Morris but I heard anyways and I wanted to meet her.

"Mallory please pay attention." Mr. Morris said sharply. I stared up at him meekly and tried to still my nervous legs but it didn't work. My bundled nerves caused me to bounce my leg up and down as his lesson droned on and on about chemicals and atoms and how I was one day going to have to create some chemically engineered wonders for WICKED. All of this information passed over my head though. In one ear and out the other as people say.

When his lesson had finally finished, I bounced out of my chair and headed for the hall as Mr. Morris grumbled under his breath about how ungrateful I was and what I pain I was to teach. It's nothing I hadn't heard before so I didn't really care much. I only had one more lesson before I was allowed some free time in my room. Sometimes, if I'm bored enough and if the WICKED staff will let me, I can sit in on their testing sessions and watch them stir vials and mix blood and put slides under microscopes. Learning about this stuff isn't that fun but watching it happen kind of is, for me anyways.

But today, I was going to lie to them. I would tell them that that's what I wanted to do, when in actuality I wouldn't go to the lab at all. I would go find this girl. There are only so many living quarters in this building and I know where all of them are, I have lived here all of my life after all. Though, five years of life isn't much. I was going to run up and down these halls until I found her. I would even call out to her if I had to. I had to see if someone else was actually here. Was there another kid on the premise? And what did it mean for me? For the both of us?

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I had gone through three floors and fifty-five individual rooms and still nothing. To be quite honest, I was tempted to even sneak into some of the staff rooms to see if they were hiding her away somewhere. I had to have heard correctly. I had to. They were trying to be really quiet but I have pretty good hearing. I know I heard Dr. Alvarez mention another girl. I couldn't have just imagined it all right?

As I closed the door to another empty room, I realize that I could've heard wrong. I could've heard what I wanted to hear. I was, only five after all and I wanted so desperately to play with someone, to have friends, that everything I heard could've just been my imagination running wild. Either way, I had to figure out quickly if I should keep looking or just give up.

I was four when I realized that there are cameras in every room, every hallway, every lab and medical bay of WICKED. I should've figured it out sooner but give me a break, I was four. I was smart but not that smart and you can't even see the cameras unless you know what you're looking for. There's always a slight discoloration in the ceiling, a slightly curved surface in an otherwise smooth ceiling. It's so slight that most people miss it.

The only reason I figured it out was because, every time I ran away from lessons and every time I tried to hide from the WICKED staff, they always, always found me. No matter how well I thought I had hidden myself, no matter how easily I dodged them or escaped their grasp, they would always catch me. There really is no escaping WICKED when they have eyes everywhere.

I was actually kind of surprised nobody had raised the alarm about my disappearance yet. Surely someone had noticed. Where they not sending anyone because there actually wasn't a girl? Because I wasn't close to her yet? Would they sick the WICKED Guard on me once I came within a hundred feet of this other kid? I wasn't sure.