The Spirit of Silence

Chapter 4

June 17th, 2028

It's been seven years since I saw my mom and dad. Seven years since I last saw Emmett. He's 13 now – a teenager. I wonder if he plays sports or an instrument. Is he happy? I wonder if he thinks of me like I think of him. Are they looking for me? Do they miss me? I wonder what I would be doing if I were at home right now. I would be in high school, I guess. Dating boys, going to parties and football games. Am I supposed to miss it? The would have and should have been's? Maybe I would if not for Liam and Zan. They make every day here so much easier. I may be trapped, but if not for this place I wouldn't have ever met them – and that is almost unimaginable. I'm sure Liam knows how I feel about him by now, but he's too kind to ever say anything. I think he's about to wake up so I should probably finish writing for now.

Until later,

Hazel

I closed my journal, tucking it under the thin mattress below me. The light shining through the single window in our room reminded me that our daily routine is about to begin. Liam began to stir in the bed on the other side of the room, so I slid deeper under the covers and pretended to be asleep. I had a silly fear that he would think I spend my mornings watching him sleep or something.

"Hazel," he whispered. "It's time to wake up."

Stretching my arms, I yawned. "I'm up, I'm up."

For the last seven years, this is how just about every day began.

We had school in the morning. Simple Maths, English, Reading, Writing, Science, and History. Zan always taught us History, excitedly sharing wild stories of the civil rights movement and the fall of the UN. I never knew how much of it was true, but I had little choice but to believe him. Zan was like our older brother of sorts. He told us stories about the outside, snuck us treats, and shared secrets with us that probably could have had him fired. That's how we knew there were other kids in the building – ones we would never have the chance to meet.

Then, every night, we went to labs. There were no clocks in any of the rooms, but I'm pretty sure we spent at least a few hours in that room each evening. First, they drew blood. Sometimes they took bone marrow. But it seemed like every single night they were injecting us with something brand new. Something that would, sometimes, make us violently ill. Sometimes it would make our skin ice cold or burning hot for days on end. It was always something.

I never understood why they were injecting us. They needed our blood for the cure – and they had it – seven years' worth of it. So what else were they trying to get from us?

One night, Liam and I sat on my bed, watching a movie on an old DVD player from 20 years ago. I could tell he was distracted though and I desperately wanted to know what was on his mind.

"Liam?" I whispered, closing the DVD player.

"Mhmm" he mumbled, eyes snapping to meet mine.

"What are you thinking?"

He smiled ever so slightly, eyes resting on this hands in his lap. "You know, I love how easily you can read me."

My heart raced.

"Seven years locked in the same room together will do that, you know." I raised my eyebrow at him.

He smirked, rolling his eyes and running his hands down the length of his worn khaki's to his knees.

"I'm thinking of, well, everything, I guess. How long we're going to be here for, why we're still here, if –." He stopped and began fiddling with his thumbs.