Glitches

Chapter 9 - Mourning and consoling

When Mr. Brown had left, all the others left with him. After what he had done to Alex, there was no one who dared to set themselves up against him. Well, no one besides me and Sam who – after a long time of fighting back – had been given the honour by Mr. Brown to 'Rotten up in here' until we could get shut down properly.

I sat on the floor, holding tightly onto Alex's limp body; crying. Beside me sat Sam with clenched jaw, his face hard and cold. We didn't say anything while we sat there.

In fact, none of us had said anything since Mr. Brown left. I didn't understand why I felt so sad about this girl's death.

How could I cry over a person I had known in less than an hour?

But after a couple of minutes of sobbing a new emotion swelled up inside of me; anger.

Who are these people? How could they do this to her? To all of us? How could Vickie let them do it?!

The fact that she was with them, still shocked me.

After knowing her my entire life, she had become the closest to a mother I could get. I believed I could trust her, but she had just filled me with lies the entire time.

I thought about the time I woke up in the hospital, when she was sitting with me, telling me my parents were dead, that I had been in a car crash and lost my memories. It actually felt like she loved me at that time.

That she cared for me.

But the truth was, that she didn't care at all. She was a liar. I'd never have any parents. And there wasn't any memories to be lost, because there wasn't anyone to begin with. My whole life I had been nothing more than an experiment; a machine.

Everything made sense now. This was why Vickie always inspected me. This was why I had to control my anger. This was why she never told me what she worked as.

This was why she didn't want me to get hurt.

I let go of Alex body, making it fall to the ground with a thud. I slowly stood on my feet, my hands clenched.

Sam gave me a worried glance, but I ignored him. I felt the anger inside of me grow. And then something snapped in my head.

I punched my fists into the white wall in complete anger, screaming.

I punched it over and over, letting out all of the frustrations which had built up inside of me for the past thirty-four hours.

My knuckles began to bleed, but I didn't mind it. I kept punching, shouting in rage.

But when I showed my arm back to punch once again, Sam gripped it, holding me back. I tried to yank it away from his grip, but he didn't let go. Instead, he turned me around to face him, looking me directly in the eyes with a combination of shock and concern.

He then let go of my hand and pulled me into a hug, squeezing me tightly.

"Let me go!" I cried out, trying to escape his embrace. But it just made him tighten his grip even more.

After a while of helplessly trying to pry him off, I finally gave up and hugged him back with all might, sobbing uncontrollable into his shirt. He rubbed my back in a consoling manner, while resting his chin on the top of my head, looking into a void. Burrowing my head further into his chest, I grasped the back of his long-sleeved shirt with trembling hands, holding on for dear life, as if I loosened my grip, he would end like Alex.

None of us let go. Because at this moment, we were broken. We had both seen our lives crumble down to ashes, showing the lies behind. The only thing we had left was one another, and we would do what we could to soothe each other's sorrow.