The Liar

Part One: The Bunker

Chapter One
He speaks in my mind the evening it all began.
Niki.
The single word forms inside my head, not audible, not visible, but a whisper I can perceive all the same. It jolts me from my moment of peace and tears my gaze from the pages of my book. A pair of sad eyes stare back at me from across the dining hall, a grim expression upon their owner's pale face.
Aris, I ask the boy, forming the words with my thoughts. what's wrong?
You– you didn't hear it? A bundle of emotions unleash within me– his emotions. Surprise, uncertainty, worry, suspicion, and is that fear?
Hear what?
Someone else just spoke in my head.
I gulp, attempting to comprehend what he had said. We're the only ones in this bunker who can communicate the way we do. Well, as far as I know...
Who was it? What did they say?
It was a guy, and just a name– Teresa.
My stomach flips, the note in my pocket feeling more like a brick than a sheet of paper. It couldn't be true. They couldn't be here. Not yet. Not now. We aren't ready. I'm not ready.
Niki, who was that?
I'm not sure, I mutter, but it's a lie, of course. That seems to be the only thing I'm capable of doing these days: lying. 
It's them, isn't it? They're here.
Instead of answering, I bow my head and find my hands clutching that wretched note. I would rip it to shreds, but he has eyes everywhere.
I didn't think it would be this soon, his voice murmurs though no one else can hear us.  Are you ready?
I can't tell him the truth.  Are you?
Looking back up at the boy, I find him nodding. Let's get out of here.
If only it was that simple. Coming and leaving, silence and sound, good and evil. The lines are blurring together so much now, it's becoming more difficult by the day to see through them. This place can easily shape the hardest of people into any form with time, what with the infinite white walls and faked smiles. I would know.
I've been here the longest.
And this note that rests in my hands, this sheet of paper containing only two fragile words, is either the beginning or the end of my life. It's almost funny, the man I despise the most is the one who wrote it.
Before I can return the shucking thing to my pocket, my sight focuses on the west door for only a second perhaps, but it's enough. It's enough to allow me to see him and to make the entire world stop, along with my heart. 
I don't notice the note flutter to the floor and land by my feet.
It's time it reads.
And indeed it is.
↫ ↬
She awoke with a start, her chest heaving and her vision askew. The white light directly overhead was so blinding that she could barely open her eyes. However, she knew immediately that it wasn't the sun. It was different somehow and shone from a distance much too short. The click of metal striking metal made its way into her ears, along with the distinctive sound of voices.
"She's up, Smith."
"Quick, check her vital signs."
"How's her heart rate?"
"What's her temperature now?"
"We still need a blood test."
She braved the blazing light above her once more and gradually made out faces. A handful of people dressed in scrubs surrounded her from above. Although all their faces were obscured by cotton masks, only three held medical tools while two others scribbled onto clipboards, the last gripping a syringe. All twelve eyes peered at her intently.
Where am I?
Who are these people?
Who am I?
"Water," was all she managed to croak as she sat up in a bed, the thin sheets falling down her torso. "I need water."
A cup made of cool steel was almost instantly pressed into her shaking hands, and she brought its rim to her lips. She almost drank up the whole container, but it was snatched away from her faster than she could protest. After the man strode away with the cup, a woman holding an ophthalmoscope took his place and shone its light into her eyes, asking her to follow it. She obeyed. Maybe so she could get answers for her utterly empty mind.  Maybe she was too afraid to do anything else. Maybe she hoped she would get more water.
She did not know.
"Nathaniel, record her responses."
"How much did she drink?"
"About four hundred milliliters."
"Eyesight is behaving normally."
"How's her heart?"
"Working on it."
Once he instructed her to steady her breathing, the doctor who had spoken placed a stethoscope to her chest. "Heartbeat's a little above average, but that's expected," he announced barely a minute later, moving out of the way for a masked woman who deposited a thermometer beneath her tongue. "Temperature thirty-seven degrees Celsius. Same as when she was asleep." The lady almost sounded irritable.
"Good, let's try to get her standing," a masculine voice responded as he motioned the man no longer with her cup over.
They did not even have time to lay a finger on her.
"No." Her voice was much stronger now that her throat no longer felt like sandpaper, and she realized that even it was foreign to her. "Tell me where I am and what the shuck's going on."
The doctors exchanged glances. "I'm afraid that is confidential information for now," answered the man she took to be their head.
"Confidential? Then who am I?"
"You tell us."
A burst of frustration threatened to take her over; she almost let it. "What's wrong with me? Why can't I remember anything?"
"All you need to know is that you're safe here. Please cooperate." He reached for her arm, but she jerked away.
"I don't even know who you people are!"
"Please calm down," the woman with the ophthalmoscope pleaded. "We're not here to hurt you."
"Our job is to make sure you're healthy. You've been asleep for a very long time." That was Stethoscope Guy.
"How long?"
"Well, our guess is about two years."
Two years!
"All we're trying to do here is help you," their boss finished. "If you let us do what we need to, I assure you, we will give you all the answers you need. Now, will you stand for us, please?"
She eyed each one of them carefully before deciding.
She did not believe any of these shanks.
Her bare feet met cool tile, the hem of her smock brushing the floor. Hesitantly, she pushed off the bed and placed all her weight on her legs, testing them. Her knees wobbled, causing her to grab hold of the small table beside her, but she did not fall. Just a handful of seconds later, she could stand on her own. She took a few tentative steps, and found walking to be easy. The doctors all stared at her in wonderment, the pair with clipboards scribbling madly.
This would be her only chance.
She sprinted straight for the cracked door to the left of her bed and ran right through it without a second glance. The pounding of several feet was her response, but fear would not overtake the girl, nor cease her pace. She kept running, memorizing the twists and bends and turns of the hallways. Even when her lungs were bursting and legs burning, she did not stop. And no one stopped her.
It could have been hours or minutes or seconds, but gradually, the boom of footsteps faded with her rush of adrenaline. That was when she remembered she could not identify where she was, nor who she was. An onslaught of emotions struck her like a fist to the stomach, and she fell to her knees in the middle of the white hallway, sobbing. She knew none of these people, nor what country she was in, or even the name of a relative. Her memories were nonexistent. She was like a book absent of only a few words in each sentence, making reading difficult and disorienting. She did not feel as if she'd just forgotten, more like someone or something had stolen her memories from her. It made no sense.
My name is Niki. I don't know my last name.
I am seventeen years old. I don't know my birthday.
I have a brother, but I don't know where he is, what he looks like, or his name.
That's all her brain could grasp. Perhaps she should be happy to know these little things about herself, but they only made her feel more hopeless. Will I ever remember anything else, or is this it? Is this all I get? Who were those people? Why am I with them? What were they trying to do to me?
A chorus of several dull noises made their way to her ears, and she looked up to find an armed man escorting a teenage boy from across the hall. The boy's skin was pale and eyes vacant, his face somehow familiar. However, she didn't have time to figure out why because the armed man she took to be some sort of guard seized a device from his belt and shouted into it. She scrambled to her feet and took off the other way, but the guard was already running. He grabbed a handful of her hair, causing a cry of pain to echo off the walls. She slapped and kicked and clawed and bit, though none of her efforts proved fruitful against him.
"Please!" She cried to the boy as the man dragged her away in the direction of the doctors. He was her last resort. "Please help me!"
The boy's eyes met hers for a moment, then quickly flitted away. "I'm sorry," his lips formed.
More adults dressed in the same attire as her captor came rushing in around them. Her thrashing and screaming still had not halted whilst she felt another pair of arms take hold of her; the new guard threw her over his shoulder with a grunt. After a sharp prick of pain pierced her left arm, he headed down the hall and forced her to watch the boy's form gradually grow smaller and smaller while she grew weaker and weaker. Colors and sounds blurred and blended together, then she descended into darkness.