The Plague of the Immune

Chapter 6

Lydia:

Lunch came along quickly, I'd been looking forward to it all day. Callie was waiting by the door when I rushed in with a hug already coming. We held eachother for as long as I knew we could and I looked her in the eye. Her brown eyes were lighter then I remembered and I knew her hair had grown out of its shoulder length, now half an arm away from her elbow. Her bangs were almost completely covering those brown eyes of light. Though smile was smaller, not the cheerleader, quirky grin anymore.

"Lydia! I watched you while you slept everyday. You don't understand what it was like to see your best friend unconscious for two whole months!" I looked her in the eye as we walked towards the line. The boy with the messy raven black hair didn't even acknowledge Michael, and neither did he. Weird. "Expessially when the last time I saw you... You had..." Her words faded so I gripped her arm tighter and gave a understanding smile.

"Callie, I'm fine. We made it through together." I said softly. We ate out lunch talking more than I had at Breakfest. I earned a few surprised faces from Michael and the raven haired boy, who's name was Jaxon. He and Michael didn't speak for more than a sentence, so I caught up with Callie about how she'd been cooping. By the end, we were laughing, unafraid and with real joy.

"I will see you tonight." Callie said in farewell. I waved and walked to my next class with Michael, he still didn't speak. So I didn't either, I played the nerdy girl for the rest of the classes.

The last class rolled on by. It was my favorite besides Med class. This was fighting class, we didn't do much but sort between which weapon was which. Next week we'd be using them, I couldn't wait. Michael and I were arriving at our rooms in the evening.

"We have thirty minutes before we need to go help for dinner." His first words to me since before lunch. I nodded. We were arriving early at our room because of it. As we were entering in our hallway, Michael shoved me past it and then pulled me against the wall. His arm pinned me and just as I went to say something, a scream sounded from our hallway.

Following the shrill, thrashing and a call for more guards sounded. I glimpsed behind the corner to three guards taking a boy from his cell. The boy was taller than the guards by a long shot and almost got past them, until they injected him with a syringe. The boy wasn't unconscious, he was just... Weaker. The guards got him shackled against his will in no time and they took him down the hall, his screams stopped suddenly. I turned forward again, to face Michael, did this happen often?

Michael was pale and his eyes were so wide, I thought I saw white all the way around them (I guess that answered my question). Even when the boy was out of sight, he continued to stare at where the boy'd been moments before. He continued to pin me to the wall, an arm at my throat and a foot holding the chain from rattling. I nudged him with my knee and he looked at me with glazed eyes, like he saw right through me.

"Umm." He realized what I was trying to tell him and let go, muttering a 'sorry' and walked past our room. I followed behind in small shuffles to keep from rattling the chains too much. I could never sneak up on anyone with these things, I guess another reason why I needed them on. Did they really think I was going to cause that much trouble? They were smart to think so.

He looked down the corridor they had gone, it was a dead end. I saw a camera in the other direction of the hall. So I grabbed Michael by the collar of his shirt before he could step forward into the camera's view.

"Number one rule of observing." I whispered. "Look for cameras. Number two, have a plan. And number three, stay quiet." He nodded and looked in the other direction to the camera.

"I didn't see that." He looked around and so did I, I looked behind us down the hallway, a camera was on that far wall, watching us.

"Crap." I muttered. "We need to go to our room, now." He noticed the camera and we went into our little room. He collapsed on his bed and I stood by the door.

"Why did they take him?" I asked. Michael continued to look at the ceiling.

"I don't know." He closed his eyes for a long moment. "Maybe he did something, you saw how big he was compared to the guards."

"But they took him from his room, what could he have done in there..." I wondered. "And where was his partner? Did they take her too?"

"Why was he in the room?" Completely ignoring my other questions. "Only we have kitchen duty in this hall tonight." He sat up. "Unless he was sneaking around." I nodded in agreement. I looked out the door, the hall still empty, like nothing even happened.

"How many halls are there? Like this one." I asked.

"Twenty, each has six rooms, a boy and a girl in each." He paused for a moment. "240 teens in this entire compound." He said softly. I looked at the end of the hall and sure enough there was a number.

"We're in hallway 20." The two digits were in bold at the end of each side of our hallway.

"This is the hallway in the outer most regions. I saw a map of this place, it's a circle. In the dead center is the place where the leaders and head doctors live. The hallways are then in rows, the left side of the hallway is facing the center." He stood up thinking hard.

"So it looks like a flower then." He looked as if to say really? I pursed my lips and looked out the door again. "Wait, but if they were taking him to the right side of the hallway, doesn't that mean there were taking him out of here completely." He seemed to realize that too.

"But where did they go in the first place, it's a dead end." He reasoned.

"Unless its not, what if we need a key card for it. Like what if the hallway is cloaked to keep us out." I suggested. He nodded.

"That could be it. A secret passage." Just then, teens came from around the corner from class.

"I'll ask my friends what they think." I took a step towards the door. He shook his head.

"Best to keep this to a minimum." He said lost in thought. He looked like he was brainstorming, I've seen that expression plenty of times before in the mirror and my close friends.

"I guess its kitchen duty time." That came out rather horsely. The door swung open for us automatically, I took a step out then turned to Michael who was in the same spot.

"It is, and I have a plan." He stood up with that simple phrase and we walked out off the room.