White Walls

5

On the first day without a real agenda, Lorna awoke lost on the matter on what to busy herself with for the day. She woke up at her usual time, because her body had familiarized itself with being conscious at that time. But she hadn't actually moved herself from her sleeping position for precisely, if she had counted correctly, thirteen minutes. While Lorna stared up at the ceiling and thought of nothing in peculiar, her ears were subjected to Raiden's slightly audible snoring. She turned to face his bed and surveyed him.

'...You don't seem like a person.' He said. Her dark brows furrowed. She couldn't think of herself as otherwise. Lorna wasn't an animal, nor has she ever thought she was alien. The girl knew she was inconvenienced with an 'unfortunate' disparity and suffered from a severe case of nonconformity, that was a fact she couldn't ignore. Nonetheless, the extent to which he referred was irrational to her. She lacked the ability to not seem like a person, she was a person, simply put. The female was full of questions she desired to have relevant answers to. In Lorna's thought process, she failed to notice that Raiden had actually woken up and was returning her stare with the same silent curiosity. He saw an unreasonable need to interpret the girl's thoughts. And so he asked.

"What's the matter?" Lorna slightly jolted at the sudden noise, which Raiden saw. His lips curved upward into a small smile. It seems he disrupted the brown eyed girl's cogitation. She sat up and allowed her legs over the edge of the bed seamlessly, her posture was completely upright, he noted, like she had been conditioned to a process, disallowed the free movement and understanding she deserved. The minute detail induced his consistent abhorrence for these unethical scientists.

"I wish to know what you meant." It seemed more like an order than a request.

"In respects to what, precisely?"

"The last thing you uttered before I retired." She articulated. "'You don't seem like a person.' You said."

He stared at her and decided to grasp this chance in order to decipher her mentality.

"When I said that you weren't a person?" He had asked for the insurance of accuracy.

"That is not what you said." She stated for the matter of fact. "What you said was that I didn't seem like a person."

Raiden paused, had it mattered? He thought the slight difference trivial. He pondered on the notion in permitted silence. She had to have interpreted it in a more literal way. The dark skinned lad found humor in the girl's correct misunderstanding of his words then chose to hear her thoughts on the matter.

"What do you think of it?" He asked, obviously inquisitive.

"I think you're mistaken." She said bluntly. "It is so painfully obvious that I am a person that there was never a need for me to say so."

Lorna paused briefly to observe Raiden. He sat in a respectful silence, smiling with his mesmerizing azure orbs, waiting for her to continue the discussion of her findings. She pulled her gaze away from his eyes, realizing that she was about to lose her train of thought to them.

"And because of this, I perceived that there was either some underlying meaning to this statement or you hadn't the understanding of what a person is or looks like. Perhaps you lack the definition of the word 'person.'"

The female was physically disturbed at the sound of his boisterous laughter. Luckily, her slightly surprised face and small recoil went unnoticed by him by her observation. As her expression and movement settled, her confusion arose. Lorna was sure she had said nothing humorous. Lorna chose to wait on his eventual explanation, hoping to be enlightened on the matter of his inconclusive entertainment then retreated into further silent observation. Her eyes noted the way his right hand gripped his left pectoral as if trying to stop his erratic heart from bursting out of his chest and the small tears that developed in his eyes as he leaned his head, his left eye teared up more than the right, it seemed. Peculiar.