Blue | E.D

16. More Inhumane Tests, I Suppose?

When I woke up, the small rectangle of sky above my head was still dark. I mustn't have slept very long—and it was no wonder, since my stomach was practically chewing on my insides. I hadn't eaten in almost three days.

I groaned, rolling stiffly onto my back. The bed turned out to be incredibly uncomfortable. I could hear Ethan breathing deeply in sleep. I hoped his dreams weren't nightmares, considering his current situation. 

Careful not to disturb him, I got up, my stomach growling loud enough that I feared I'd wake regardless. But he slept on, and so I started pacing silently, trying to formulate a plan through my ferocious hunger. 

I barely suppressing a moan as another painful contraction gripped my stomach, I leaned against the door, wiping sweat from my brow. Peering discreetly out the door's window, I saw that the halls were empty. Most people had probably left by now. 

Unable to hold in my groan this time as I pressed a hand to my abdomen, I turned away from the glass, sliding down into a crouch. I really wished now that he'd gotten to eat more at Ethan's than he had before Sir had shown up.

This is what they want, I thought angrily, to incapacitate my thinking ability—to make me desperate. It was working, as much as I hated to admit it to myself. 

"Blue?" Ethan murmured sleepily, and I clenched my teeth through another searing hunger pang. 

"I'm here," I said quietly. "It's not morning yet. You should go back to sleep." 

I watched him sit up and blink blindly, his eyes trying to find me in the darkness. "I'm already awake," He sighed, rubbing at his eyes. I watched his face fall into a mask of misery, and he whispered, "Almost forgot where I was." Ethan spoke again, "I can't see you." 

Reluctant to move, I gave a halfhearted attempt to console him by saying, "I can see you. Everything's fine." 

I immediately felt guilty. But then another cramp ripped through my abdomen, and I hung my head, suddenly feeling angry for no reason at all. How were they even certain that I wouldn't die after a couple of days? They knew I needed special food in order to keep my blood flow going.

"You can see in the dark pretty well then, huh?" He asked quietly, his voice falsely nonchalant. 

"I can do a lot of things that you can't." I didn't mean to be rude. It just came out that way, and I was too distraught to try to make it sound better. 

"Blue... We have to try to figure this out. We need to come up with a plan." 

I eyed him, meeting his gaze, and snorted derisively. He could see me, now that a few slanted rays of sunlight made their way through the window above his head, and he looked taken aback. 

Seeing the question in his eyes, I said heatedly, "You don't think I've been trying to get out of this place since the day I was born? I barely managed to get out last time. Now that I'm stuck back in here, I doubt a chance like that will ever come again." 

"You're not feeling too well, are you?"  Ethan questioned.

I resisted the urge to say something sarcastic like Duh, and instead just nodded.

"I'm sorry." He sounded sincere, but his sympathy wasn't going to fill my stomach and take away the pain any time soon. Suddenly the door clicked behind him, signifying that it was about to open.

I started, leaping to my feet. I rounded to face whoever was coming in, and met the eyes of Alexander, the guard I most hated in this building. The larger man poked me in the stomach with his AK-47, and I held a stony expression, not wanting to betray the fact that I was being wracked with pain right at that moment.