The Voices Within Me

15

I found my way to the room they kept Maria in easily. One floor down from my room. End of the hallway. Last door on the left. Third bed, also on the left. I only saw one person on the way down, a very familiar looking girl with carrot-colored hair, but Kaylin turned the other way just before she saw me, walking as if she was in a dream.

Maria was still under the drugs. Her black hair was fanned across her pillow like a dark cloud and her pale limbs were covered with faded bruises. A black eye was drawn on the back of her right hand and on the backs of the hands of every other Experiment. I forgot to ask Sam about what the eye represented. There was only one change to when I had seen her earlier that day: her eyes were open.

I never understood the meaning in eyes until I arrived at the hospital. Eyes held the emotions, words and stories of people.

There was a boy I met on my first day. He was around thirteen years old and had eyes that were gray like a stormy sky. They held anger and sorrow and a furious passion. I always wondered what he had been threw that put those emotions in his eyes. A girl named Catherine, my first roommate, had pale blue eyes. They were sad eyes, anxious eyes, scared eyes.

Maria's eyes were like nothing I had ever seen before.

At first, I presumed that she would look exactly like me from the scar on her face to the color of her eyes. These eyes were nothing like my own slate colored ones. They were gray though, dashed with violet flecks that reminded me of purple stars in a gray sky. I stood for a few moments, admiring the uniqueness of the colors, wondering what stories they could hold, until I heard an impatient cough.

Don't look at him, Laure.

Slowly and reluctantly, I turned, ignoring the voices warning again.

It was a man. He definitely looked trustworthy with his rounded figure and short white beard and half moon spectacles perched on his nose but I knew better. His red checked flannel shirt and brown corduroy trousers were nothing like the clothing I had seen anyone wear around the usurped Government quarters. The Stolen all wore plain black clothing, only their physical colorings hinting at where they belonged. I wasn't Stolen but I would fit in with the soldiers. The Unstolen, the Safe, all wore regular clothing. I knew that this man was guaranteed to be from another place.

He paused in the space between the beds at the end of the room, even though he was looking at an Experiment behind me. Again, I wanted to talk to him. I wanted to know exactly who he was and what he wanted. It wasn't everyday that you discovered your older brother was in charge of an army of demons and possessed children. I knew that I had nothing to lose. No family, no friends, no one.

''Hello,'' I whispered to the man, refusing to let any emotion creep onto my face. Maria still lay with unblinking, blank eyes.

The strange man, the demon man, stepped out from between the beds and took a few steps back so he was nearer to a door. I knew that he had heard my whisper and no instincts had to tell me that.

''You know that I'm Laure. I still don't know what your name is.''

A brief smile appeared on his face but he didn't answer me. Instead, he glanced at me and smiled fully before raising his hand towards me, each second of the gesture made slow and deliberate.

My vision blurred, now not telling me that I hadn't slept for enough hours. I was tempted to lay down on an empty bed and let him creep into my sleeping mind.

Don't sleep, Laure. Get out...

Get out...

Out...

His grip on my mind was too strong. Instead of resisting, I curled up on the floor beside Maria's bed and did everything but get out.