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Day Fifty-One (pt. 2) - Elyse

"Hey!"

One of the techs is standing in the gap between the machine and the chair. I turn my head. Our eyes meet. He stares at me, wide-eyed and slack jawed. Then the situation escalates. The tech yells, shouts that I am free. In the moment it takes to rip the discs off my skin, the machine letting off a loud beeeeep, the Warden who was on my left is already only steps away from me.

I head through the gap where the tech is. He backs away, his hands raised in defense. I ignore him, duck around the chair and stop at the table of tools. There is not enough time for me to be picky. I grab the first thing I see. A scalpel. The Warden who was by the door is now moving towards me. The Warden on the right runs towards the door where Sheila is standing.

The first Warden to reach me is the one from the door. He is short, but stocky with big arms and buggy eyes. He notices the scalpel in my hand and reaches for something on his belt. I do not think. I just act. I lunge towards the Warden, the scalpel out in front of me. He had not been expecting me to move first, so I catch him off guard.

The scalpel sticks and I release the handle. The Warden grunts, his fingers wrapping around the handle where it protrudes from his chest. It is not enough to take him down, but enough to distract him long enough for me to grab something from his belt. It is a black rectangle with two prongs sticking out of the end of it. The same thing they used on Jet.

I press it against his neck and press the trigger.

His body jolts and then he falls to the floor, his fingers twitching where they are still wrapped around the scalpel.

The second Warden grabs me from behind. I thrash in his grip, swinging my arms and legs in hopes of hitting him. My elbow knocks the side of his head and his grip loosens just enough for me to slide out. I bolt towards the table, grab blindly for another weapon. He yanks me back just as my fingers wrap around cool metal.

I take whatever I have grabbed and swing it at him. It is the long needle that Dr. Hendry had used to test my ability to feel physical stimuli. Only now it is stuck in the Warden, just above his collarbone, near his shoulder. He is too occupied with trying to stop the bleeding from the wound to keep me from getting away from him.

At the table once more, I search it for something else to use. The familiar clack-clack of Dr. Hendry's shoes fills the air in the room. He holds a syringe in his hand. The one full of sedative. I slide underneath the table just as he reaches it. Before he has a chance to come after me, I reach out and grab one of his ankles.

He is not as steady on his feet as he could be. It is too easy to yank him off balance. He falls backwards, his head hitting the tiles with a sickening crack. I try not to think about what that might mean. The techs leave out the door behind the chair just as I crawl out from under the table.

The Warden who was with Sheila has disappeared, probably to go get more help. It is just me and her now. My eyes drop to Dr. Hendry's body, where a small trickle of blood has begun to pool near his ear. The syringe is still in his hand, intact. I grab it on my way past him, set my sights on Sheila.

"Now, Elyse, think about what you are doing." She reaches into her pocket, digs around in there for something. "What do you expect to accomplish by doing this? More Wardens will be here soon, so you won't be able to just waltz out of here."

I do not respond to her. I just keep moving towards her. She pulls a keycard from her pocket and quickly moves to swipe it across the scanner. There is a beeping noise and the light above the door flashes red. She swipes it again and again and again. The light stays a steady red. I thrust the syringe towards her once I am close enough, but she evades it easily.

"Did you think that you would be able to just knock me out and go?"

I try again. She sidesteps just in time for the needle to miss her skin.

"Is this because of Jet?"

I clench my teeth and move towards her. She backs up, never taking her eyes off of me.

"Even if you get rid of me, there are the Wardens outside of that door, Elyse. How do you expect to get past all of them by yourself?"

"Do not worry about me, Sheila." I take a final step towards her, she takes her final step backwards, right into the corner of the room. If I am not mistaken, she looks afraid. Just a little, in the way her eyes dart around the room and refuse to look at the syringe in my hand.

Sheila tries to duck out of the way again, but I ball my free hand into a fist and land a blow against her jaw. While she presses her hand to her face, I plunge the needle into the side of her neck and say, "I will not be by myself."

Her eyelids flutter as she tries to fight off the sedative, but her body slumps against the wall soon after and I am already at the door. The keycard she was using lies on the floor. I grab it and swipe it across the scanner slowly. A second passes by and the light above the door shines green. I let out a breath and push the door open.

The hallway outside looks similar to the room in the sense that it also has white walls and white floors and bright lights. It is also eerily empty. The only sounds are my shoes squeaking on the tile and my breath coming out in shaky puffs. There is only one door in this hallway. It does not have any sort of lock on it, so I simply turn the handle and walk through.

This hallway is like the one where I was being kept. Doors that lead to rooms line the walls and I peek through the windows off all of them until I find the one I'm looking for.

Jet is leaning against the back wall of the room, his arms stretched over his knees and his face angled towards the ceiling. I tap on the window twice.