Survival

Skyrah

I wake up in the hospital. Sterile white walls surround me. Hospitals are just there for incidents like this, we don't get sick. I look around, my blonde hair clings to my face, slick with sweat. I'm wearing a loose grey hospital gown that reaches my knees, it's like a big t-shirt really. I touch my face, the cut is no longer there, however there is a bandage on my leg, that cut was deeper. I swing my legs over the side and find some fresh clothes in the small dresser, I change and pull my damp hair into a high ponytail. I open the glass door and peer out either side of the door, I see a few doctors at the end of the hallway, so I go the other way. I keep walking, I walk past a few rooms, then I notice, they are all occupied. In one of the rooms lays a girl that looks about thirteen. She has pale skin, her eyes look dead, vacant of any life, her arms lay limply by her sides, a bag full of an orange liquid is connected to her through a tube. Her head turns to face the door, where I'm standing, her eyes go wide and she lifts her arms and throws them, motioning to go, suddenly an alarm goes off and her head falls down and doctors rush down the hall, one of them shouts out and I run. My leg throbs every time it hits the ground, I pant as I turn around a corner and I bump into my mother.

"Skyrah, you can't leave yet" she says monotonously.

"I can do what I want" I say angrily and push past her, she grabs onto my arm, her fingernails digging into my skin.

"Skyrah, you will do what I say, I am your mother" she says bitterly.

"No mom, I'm going home, these people are sick, people are getting sick mom, this isn't right, we need to do something" I say panicking, thinking back to the girls face. Our genetic codes beat illness, we don't die from illness like that girl just did. Then I make the connection, Catori was sick, that's why she was so pale.

"Skyrah, it's imperative that you tell me what you saw" she says dragging me into a small room.

"I saw a little girl, she had this orange liquid being put into her, and she saw me, and she died mom" I say as tears spill over my eyelids.

"I'll be right back, I need to fetch something" she says and dashes out of the room. I make sure she's gone and I run, I don't stop until I reach Emory's house.

****

I knock on the door and he opens, I just run into his arms and cry, he closes the door and pulls me off to his bedroom.

"Hey, it's okay Skye" he says rubbing my back.

"No Em, it's not, people are dying, in hospitals, like since when do we get sick?" I ask getting up, I start to pace his room.

"Something's happening to me Emory, I can feel it" I say pulling my hair from the hair tie.

"What do you mean?" he says his voice confused.

"I started wondering what the outside looked like, I didn't obey my mother, I've started questioning everything I've ever known, I killed someone, well that might be two people now" I say bending, my hands on my knees as I force myself to breathe steadily. 

"I-wait, two people?" he asks looking up in horror, I tell him about the little girl and he stands up and wraps his arms around me.

"Emory, no one can find out, that I'm Defective" I say weakly.

"You're not Defective Skye, I think you might be Insurgent" he says looking into my eyes.

"I don't even know what that is" I say my voice wobbly.

"It means you don't follow the rules, that you question things and you see the truth when nobody else does, you could change the world Skyrah, people that are Insurgent have the ability to fight, but the government doesn't like that" he says stroking my hair.