Experiment Number One (Slow Updates)

Chapter Five

In front of me was a broken world. It was filled with broken buildings and the streets were cracked and chipped. Nobody even bothered to fill all of the holes in the roads, of which there were many. I looked around me at the devastation.

"This is... this isn't where I grew up, okay? We've got the wrong place. This is all wrong. I grew up in a perfect world. Nobody did bad things and the worst people there were the cranky teenagers. This isn't where I grew up," Adri said. Tears formed in my eyes as I violently nodded my head agreeing with her. This isn't right. This isn't what I remember.

Could life have changed this much in six years? Yes, it could. But in the time that Adri was at the lab? No. 

"It's been this way a long time, but it's gotten worse over the past months I guess. This is worse than I remember too," Jace said. "We need to go, though. They're still after us and I'd rather not become any more mutant than I already am, so let's get out of here."

We all began pumping our legs, running as fast as we could. My adrenaline rush was ending and exhaustion was kicking in. I couldn't help that I wasn't running as fast as the other two. I was getting completely overwhelmed. All I wanted was to come back to the home that I knew; I wanted to come back and see my family and have nothing be different. I didn't want these years to have gone without me. I didn't want my family to be hopeless and think I'd never come back. All I ever wanted was to come back to them.

Well now I was here. Now I was going to be back and no matter how much life has changed for them; I was going home. I'm going to find them and never leave them again.

I kicked up my speed. This was going to happen. I was free.

We suddenly turned around a corner and stopped.

"We can rest here. I know that we're close to the building but we'll sleep in shifts. I know where to find food so while one person is sleeping, and one person is on watch, I'll go find food. If anything, we need to sleep to get our energy up. Each person can probably have about two or three hours worth of sleep. Once I'm back with the food, two people can sleep while I'm on watch and we'll rotate. Sound good?" Jace asked. 

I nodded absentmindedly and sat on the grubby concrete floor. Very grubby, in fact. There was more blackened spit-out bubble gum than I'd ever seen in one place before. The trees we all half black and indented with decay. I couldn't find a single leaf in my whole line of sight. The sky was grey and I wondered if it was always like that. In the distance, I saw what looked to be a factory pumping fumes in the air. Puff, puff, puff. It just kept coming. Looking around, I didn't see any cars, either. Maybe they were all trying to get this...pollution problem under control. All of the metal gates and fences I saw were rusted and weakened. I wondered if this was just a bad part of town; if there were rich neighborhoods filled with white picket fences and healthy apple trees. I wondered which part my family would be living in.

"I'll go on watch," I said. Jace sat next to me and stared at my face, recognizing the state of shock that I was in.

"Hey, it's going to be okay. We'll find your family and everything will be okay." I leaned my head on his shoulder and sighed. Adri was sitting on the opposite side of the alley with her knees up and her head resting on them. Her arms were crossed around her head in a protective way. She must be just as scared as I am.

I admit it; I'm scared.

My eyes closed for a moment but I knew I wouldn't fall asleep. Horrors of my time in the facility kept me awake, kept me trusting only Jace and Adri because I knew I could trust no one else. I sighed again and opened my eyes, turning my head to look at Jace. His head was leaning against the brick wall behind us and his eyes were closed.