Pipsqueak

Chapter|002

DEFINED BY PATTERNS

WCKD|1008

Air vents hummed with clicking footsteps and scribbling pens. Machines beeped and chattered to one another as personnel scanned their screens. Mouse sat on the edge of an examination table, her hands clenched the side as the unrecognizable faces hurried here and there around her.

The longer she stayed at this place the more tests they kept giving her. Some involved physical examinations with needles pricking her skin while others where more mental tests hidden beneath the title of 'game'.

All she had done was test after test, an endless loop of a circle where she might get a treat or a break. The one big thing she really wanted, she could never have. Recently, her big one-one birthday passed and all she wanted to do was see her family, but she couldn't. Circumstances wouldn't allow for such a thing. Her eleventh wasn't really celebrated by anyone, except for one of her test advisors who brought her an extra helping of dessert after that day's worth of testing.

The thought of her family separated aged her heart decades past her youth and to the teetering edge of death by depression. Being alone was a new experience, an odd one to say the least. She felt cold all the time and it wasn't because of the vents blowing cool air, instead, it was the knowledge of knowing that her family was there, somewhere in the same building as her, but she was torn apart from them and would never be granted the option to see them.

Another pair of heels clicked against the white tiled floor sending the workers fluttering out the room in an instant. Stood before Mouse was the woman of everything, Ava Paige. Clothed in white and white and even more white, the woman smiled a closed lip smile at the girl, "How are you doing?"

"Okay."

Ava nodded, not happy with the lack of response from the girl, "How are you liking your accommodations?"

"I'm alone. Why?"

"You're special."

Mouse's brows furrowed at the exclamation as her eyes blankly stared at her, "You claim every kid is special, so why do I see other kids roomed together while I'm placed all by myself?"

Ava grinned, "We have to be cautious with which children you interact with, that's all."

"But why?"

"For your safety."

"Just mine?"

"And others." Ava inhaled a sharp breath at the child's questioning, "We have a purpose for everything we do."

"Okay, but --"

"I've heard you've been having nightmares." Ava grabbed a clipboard pinned with Mouse's charts and readings and flipped through the pages, "Would you like to talk about them?"

Uninterested in discussing the nightmares, let alone any topic bouncing around in her head, Mouse's gaze fell past her knees and locked onto the boring socks on her feet.

Ava glanced away from the clipboard upon hearing no response, "That's understandable. Perhaps this might help." She reached a hand into a bag beside the desk and pulled out a soft cover book. It's pages where a little chipped and mangled but in decent condition for her to read.